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23. T H E E M P R E S S

      She was unable to deny the craving, the addiction that had begun to rival the obsession of blood

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She was unable to deny the craving, the addiction that had begun to rival the obsession of blood.

The Empress stood in her room of solitude, as blue light trickled in from the window. But, the Milky Way that swam behind that glass panes was forgotten. As was, The Star of Amia.

For the first time in years, The Empress had forgotten her ritual. Every morning and every night, she would come to see Amia's Star and simply gaze at its beauty.

But, it seemed that something finally powered through her set routine, and it's name was Mira.

"This is the last time," The Empress said to herself as she stood in front of the Magic Mirror. "This is the last time, I'll see her. The island has to be quite damaged at this point. I will give in to the craving of seeing what's become of her." As the woman tried to downplay her obsession with the mirror and with Mira, she touched her palm to the glass.

"Mirror Mirror on the wall," the lapis lazuli lining retracted. The silver of the glass liquified and spread from its oval shape. The square wall was covered in the material. "Show me Mira's Island." Then, the woman began to push her hand inside the glass, her body coming in after her.

For a moment The Empress was blinded and then she was in a vacant white space.

The vision took form them, the outline of trees began to fade in along with the white waves crashed against what was left. Which wasn't much.

A sight The Empress had not expected came into view. Her body became translucent, like that of a ghost and she looked around the destruction. And despite the world being one of chrome and crystal, she could sense what had took place here.

The Empress found herself walking through a path of dead trees. The palm trees had long sunk with the beach. The water had eaten away at much of the land, a small circular patch remained. What was left haunted her. The surviving trees been burnt down to their trunks like toothpicks.

      From dusk till dawn a cloud of ash and dust hung in the air obscuring the sun. The island was bathed in a grey overtone. She continued to walk, and entered the vicinity of Mira's church.

      Her lips parted as she looked at the monstrosity of what had happened to it. It was burnt so badly, that the charred blackness could be seen, despite the illusion of the mirror. It had broken to pieces, and it's parts littered the small patch of land.

      The Empress dared to walk inside, through the hole that split it open. Beams of lead that held the building upright remained, nothing more had survived the fire. The stone and brick had crumbled away into dust.

      Her steps led her down the aisle, and walked into the only unscathed entity.

      "Christ," she murmured, as her eyes roamed over the statue. Every inch of him had been covered in soot, except for his eyes. He gazed at The Empress with so much shame so much conviction that she cried out. "Don't look at me with those eyes, I didn't do this!" She gestured to the wreckage, "I've been much too busy. I was waiting for the water to do what it did to Atlantis."

      His face seemed to look as though he was promising the woman retribution. A crown of shells sat on his head, pieces of which had been cracked. Like white snow the small sediment fell around his feet.

      The Empress put a hand to her head, "what is the matter with me? Justifying myself to a statue, when I have done no wrong."

      The Empress kept walking forward, through the rubble and made her way down what had once been a hall. Now, as all four walls of the Church had burnt away, and nothing but Jesus' statue remained, the ocean was the only sight to see.

      The Empress looked into the room Mira had called her own. She had expected to find the girl's body in the bed. No, she had hoped.

      The room was desecrated to the point where nothing but powder remained. None of it, the remains of a young girl. Wild thoughts began to whirl in The Empress' mind as she stumbled away.

      Mindlessly, her steps quickened as she headed to the only other place that remained, the only other place Mira could have gone.

     The fire had begun in the garden, which stood behind the Church. She was sure of this because while everything else seemed to be obliterated on the other side, the garden housed craters in the land.

      The Empress toed through a thin vein of land that outlined the craters. Her hands clenching as her eyes roamed through each hollow, looking, seeking, searching for Mira. Any sign to show that she had perished along with the island.

      The seconds ticked to minutes which stretched to hours which prolonged to days. The Empress scoured the land, inch by inch. Until she felt she had memorised every stone, every grain of ash, and she pulled at her ghostly hair.

      The girl was not here.
      The girl had escaped.
      She had survived.
 
      The Empress through back her head, held out her arms wide and let out a scream so loud, so agonising that for a moment she thought it might shatter the vision, and when it didn't she screamed again.

"Mira!"

      The Empress stood in between the space of the church and the beginning of the garden. She put her hands on her head, pulled at her hair. Fighting with her mind to make sense of what was happening.

      She turned her face to the floor and her eyes wrung over each blade of grass that peeled up from the charred remains of singed wood.

      It was there that something gleamed against the waste. The Empress went to her knees and in vain she tried to scrub ash from the square box of metal. She couldn't touch anything in the illusion, a rule she had learned early on. So, she glared at the piece of evidence that had finally come to show itself.

      A ravenous expression distorted her demented features. The metal was a flask, one she had seen all too well.

      "Fucking rat." Her voice was one of a deranged psychopath. Her Chief's words rang through her mind then.

Didn't he tell you? Lord Octavius, took two days of leave.

      Then it was that traitor's voice that played through The Empress' mind on a loop.

I was following a lead to a nest of humans, when a group of Rebels attacked me.

Whatever had transpired here, The Empress would get to the bottom of. One thing was for certain, Mira was alive and in one way or another the Lord of her Undead Army had guaranteed that. She screamed so loud her vocal chords shook.

"Octavius, you fucking bastard!"

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