Continue To Lie - Tpn Fanfic

Chapter 62 - The Beginning

When the boulder rain at last ends, my hand is on the back of Ray's head. His breaths are unsteady and shaken, nose on my shoulder. The rubble leaves dust and ruin, the polluted air invades my nostrils.

"N/N!? Ray!?" I scarcely manage to hear Emma cry out from a distance. Immediately I lift my head, brushing Ray's shoulder, and shout back. "We're over here! We're safe!"

"Thank goodness!" Emma sighs. "Ray!?"

"We're fine." Ray gets up first knee by knee, then helps pull me up. I don't need the help, but I'll take it regardless. The first thing I notice after the avalanche ends is the wide hole left in the ceiling and the surrounding chuncks of rubble scattered across the room. We're lucky the rocks are small, or else this could have ended differently.

      Still, there are bigger questions to be asked. Why did the ceiling suddenly collapse? We're surrounding by flat lands, no mountains or such. I've never heard of any quakes in an area like this, much less one strong enough to shake a stone building. Could someone be behind this? Could this someone be Him?

      "It could be," Ray's voice snaps me back into reality. I turn my head to him, and he nods, as if confirming my thoughts. "The rock fall was small and harmless, as if we weren't supposed to be injured by it at all. Thinking that another person was responsible for this makes more sense than assuming it happened naturally."

      Emma and I nod in agreement. She shrugs and puts a finger on her chin. "But what's the point of this? I can-"

      Her words are cut out when she blurts out a quiet gasp. A single drop of rain lands on her nose, then another on her head, finally one on mine until it turns into a costant pour. The three of us look up to meet the rain entering the temple through the gap in the ceiling. 

     I hold out both my palms to collect it, and as soon as it fills to a certain point I notice an abnormality about it. Emma sneaks a peak behind me and blows. "It's golden, just like the water drawn on the murals!"

      I nod, careful not to let it drop. Recalling one of the murals where a white cloaked man sipped the water from his palms, I extend my own, welcoming the water into its depths. "Hold out your hands. Let's drink it together, on the count of three."

"Right!"

      Without further explanation, Emma snaps her arms from her waist and waits for them to fill. Ray isn't too far away as he does something similar, except he's using a handkerchief to gather his water. I narrow my eyes once I see it and unconsciously blurt, "Is that mine?"

Ray's body freezes for a split second before he shakes his head. "No."

      I don't want to start anything at a time like this, so despite knowing that that handkerchief 100% belonged to me once upon a time, I'll let him stay blissfully unaware of his thievery for now. Once his napkin starts to sag and Emma is struggling to keep all the water in her palms, I start the count down.

"Three, two, one, and..." I send the two of them one last confirming glance before nodding in acknowledgement. "Drink up."

       Please don't be deadly.

-

"No," Ayshe repeats, her voice resolute. Gilda squeezes her eyes shut, deciding she'd rather go out in darkness than with her murderer's face in her view. She can hear Don's breathes running besides her, his gasps worrying for her.

The moment of end she waits for doesn't arrive.

      Gilda feels the tip of the gun's edge on her forehead, but it doesn't go off. Maybe Ayshe is hesitant, she believes. But once her vision clears, the look in the dark-skinned girl's eyes shoves those relieving thoughts out of her head.