The Winged

20- Blame

Giving a soft groan of his own, Micah took my back in his hands and tried to lift my heavy limbs from the floor, his little arms barely able to hold me up at all. With a nudge, he had managed to push me into a sitting position, gently setting my back against some sort of prickly surface. I tried to mutter a thanks as he leant back onto his knees, but all that came out was a sort of breath.

My hair was tangled and unfamiliar on my neck, but aside from that the majority of the pain in my head had vanished. Now it was as if I was trying to wake up after a bad night's sleep.

"Wher-where..?" I hissed gently in the light, "What's going on?" I was so drowsy, for reasons that escaped my understanding.
He leant closer to me and thrust something into my face, "Here, take this."
Something was shoved between my lips all of a sudden, making my eyes ignore the stinging as they widened. I almost choked on the new object in my mouth before a cold liquid began to overtake my senses.
Micah saw my alarm and almost laughed, "Don't worry, it's just water."
A little reluctantly, I gulped down some of the fresh liquid.
"Drink as much as you want," he murmured, watching me wince from the chill, "You're probably really dehydrated..."

Both the blare of the sun beating down on my face and the coolness of the water now coursing through me had forced me to a state of awareness, banishing my wishes for sleep.
Now, I pushed myself up, wincing as my wrists gave me soft twangs of reluctance. Sitting up against the wreckage of something wasn't the most comfortable position, but at least now I wasn't lying on the floor. I gave a deep exhale and rubbed my eyes, groan rustling in my chest. Wreckage.

"Micah?" I said weakly.
The boy looked almost as tired as me, childlike face burdened with fatigue and still dressed in the same blue Burrow clothes as when I first met him. With a soft smile, he offered the canteen towards me. I accepted it gratefully.
"Thank goodness..." he repeated, watching intently as I took in some more water.
I handed it back to him and rubbed my temples, trying to sooth the remains of the headache. "My head..." I murmured, eyes shut.
The boy's attention instantly spiked, "Does it hurt?" He shuffled closer, "Are you alright?"
A slow nod was all I could manage. I opened my eyes again and blinked in the light.

I was sitting in the ruins of what once could have been a house. I felt the air slowly drain from my lungs as my eyes adjusted to the light. It only took a moment to search the area around me. I was in the Hollow of course, inside the familiar cavern of dark wood and stone paths. Only now, it was no longer the Hollow.

Moss dangled from the ceiling, dropping splatters of iridescent liquid onto the rubble below... and it certainly was rubble that cluttered the ground. At least a hundred of the houses were gone, reduced to piles of twigs and debris. The stone paths and trails, barely visible under all the dust and trampled grime of the panicked evacuation... even some of the rock that formed them had been cracked. I looked around the Hollow, at my home, as if it were a place I had never seen before. Even the mighty tribe centre was barely standing anymore, the wood creaking and moaning in the soft breeze.

I turned to Micah breathlessly, "This... this is... what? I..."
I didn't even know what to say. What was there to say? Everything was broken or breaking, everyone was gone. My eyes shifted to the impenetrable outer wood of the tree that once surrounded the tribe, only to recall the gigantic hole that had been ripped straight through the bark and fibres. A cold light spilled in through the crevice and cast jagged shadows across us all, no longer an indestructible barricade. My whole world seemed to be caving in. The Hollow was...

"This can't be real." I muttered, turning back to Micah. My home was... gone.
He looked at me uneasily, not sure how to respond. "I... I don't know what to say..." was all he could manage, "I'm sorry, Azure..."
I blinked, staring around at the ruins of my tribe again.