Memoir of Xayah - The lost sparrow and the lonley fox

[7.1]

They ran until the wall and stopped by the main pillars of the arc. They put their backs against the cold stone and looked towards the forest, waiting for the green light. They saw it, so they also looked inside the courtyard. It was bare and empty, covered by dry ground.

The discomfort raised, and it wrapped around her stomach. She did a few meters, but they were enough to cut her breath. The pain coming out from that land was as more strong as she went near the temple. But now she had to concentrate and to find the shortest way to reach the central hall.

There were two boys with her, and she gave them the signal to enter. Then they reached quietly and quickly the back of the side buildings. At that moment, Zakai was with another member on the other side of the courtyard. She could take advantage of that separation and go alone inside the temple, avoiding his elimination inside the building.

She listened carefully, but she did not hear some suspicious sounds. The temple was silent, as it was abandoned. And after the damages caused by war, she did not think that it was possible. Someone had made some reparations, that was not the aspect of a declined place, left after an enemy attack.

All that quiet was unusual. There was something sinister. Every place of worship was always alive, even if there were no visitors. The priests had their routine; they were human too. They had to eat, visit the central hall, or pass some time in the courtyard talking with each other.

But there was nothing around her but cold buildings.

She hoped it was not a bad signal and she ran to the end of the pavilion. Then she peeked toward the entrance of the main structure, but she saw nothing as before.

She wanted to risk and was ready to sprint, but someone held her from a shoulder.

« What are you doing? » asked her the girl with long black hair.

« I anticipate Zakai so he will have the path clean. » she lied.

She should have waited for his signal from the other part of the courtyard, that was the plan. And it was time to break it.

The girl nodded, probably she saw a good plan in her selfless initiative. After she turned, she smiled: she was able to deceive her.

She controlled another time that she was alone and then she sprinted toward the big and white gate. She slipped inside, careful to make less noise ad possible.

Once she was inside, the anguish raised dramatically, so much that she had to bend down and take a big breath. She could feel the darkness around her, it was trying to penetrate inside her body and, probably, also inside her mind. That was a place where no one should enter. She could understand how much it was dangerous.

She swallowed and she tried to gain courage. After all the things she went through, she could not back off. She was not a coward and, more than anything, she would have never abandoned her family.

She looked around, and she tried to hear the echoes of the walls, but they stayed in silence as the courtyard. One thought entered her mind: and if there were no priests? And if that place was under the direct control of the witch and they had just fallen inside a trap?

But it was strange that someone so powerful remained on the top of a remote hill.

She restrained her thoughts and tried to advance, surrounded by the dim light of the temple. Few candles enlightened the way, letting her see only the large foundation of the wooden columns and the lacquered walls.

She let her instinct guide her, she attempted to localize the witch thanks to her dark powers. The more she felt her body trapped inside that anguish, the more she went on until the wall on her right opened. She found herself inside a big room, with an altar surrounded by smoking incense sticks. She was surprised because she did not sense their smell when she had entered.

And above all, she could not still sense they.

She approached carefully and took one in her hands. She brought it near her nose and tried to sense its flavor. There was nothing, even a light scent of burning wood. They were unnatural as the place that surrounded them.

She had said to herself that she had already faced darkness, but not at that level. It seemed it had swallowed and subjugated all the temple at its will. Maybe also her eyes were deceived, and nothing of what she saw was real.

The smoke of the incense froze, caged inside some black and purple crystals.

She flinched and let the stick fall to the ground. She moved back immediately. The thing that lived there knew about her presence. She could feel her presence lurking within her, more and more.

She shivered as if the room was drafty. She thought for the first time to go away, leave everything and escape from a window. Outside she would have been safe, apart from that evil power.

The forest would have sheltered her. There she was alone and unprotected.

She reached the soft feathers of her wing, trying to get the necessary strength. She still had them, those lethal weapons that were given to her since she started to walk. They were her only strength, her last bond with her tribe.

She took courage and looked up at the altar. One red eye received her. It had appeared on the golden board in the middle.

She screamed and felt on the ground. Meanwhile, that eyeball was looking at her even more intensively, imbued of madness that she had never faced.

She moved back, using her hands, but she could not look away from that bloody iris. She was hypnotized and attracted. She was not able to rule her will.

She stopped her escape and just stood there, while long breaths let the air enter inside her lungs. It was useless to say that she was terrified, unable to move.

A sound came to her ears as if some rocks were falling. Then a tremor came, and the ground started to go down, while the noise became even more screeching.

She curled up and covered her ears, hoping that the torture would have ended soon. She got herself inside a beautiful mess and only because she had taken action too impulsively. She was drawn by Zakai's words, as the other members of the gang. It was meaningless that she has turned them in her favor. It was meaningless that she did not want to follow his objectives. She was tricked and now and she was risking her life.

Her father would not have been proud of her. He would have understood her effort for saving him, but he would have never tolerated that she had wasted her existence in that way. She had striven so she could have forged a happy life, not for trying an assisted suicide.

She apologized to him for her ingenuity and her foolishness. He did not deserve a child like her.