The Nocturnal Vol 1 : The Awakening

Chapter 5 Part 2

- 'I do what I can,' Remi panted with effort.

The henchmen were now just below us, their arms outstretched in the air, trying in vain to grab our feet. We were now out of reach: towards the lighthouse.

***

- Eva -

Erwan and I had managed to sneak under the fishmonger's stall. The soil was stained with the gutted entrails of the fish offered for sale. An octopus, still alive, was waving its frail tentacles right in front of Erwan's discomfited eyes.

- 'But where are they?' enraged one of the henchmen.

- 'Look carefully, I want to find these worms. You can't make fun of Kadix without leaving a tooth or two! They will complete my collection,' laughed the brute, noisily shaking the necklace hanging around her neck.

- ''Eva, we're reaching the end, we won't be able to hide any longer,' Erwan confided anxiously.

- 'Yes, I can see, thank you,' I breathed, squatting beside him, at the edge of the stall. 'You know what's next.'

Erwan nodded.

- 'Ready? On three!'

- 'Three!' he said with conviction.

We then jumped out of our hiding place at high speed to head towards the clearing. Erwan hit a passer-by's cart carrying chicken cages. The collision released the excited birds, including a large rooster with a sharp plumage who jumped on Erwan by pushing "cock-a-doodle doo!".

- 'Here they are!'

With his face feathered, Erwan finally separated from his tough poultry and we started running.

After a 500-metre chase, I began to run out of breath. Sport was really not my strong suit, endurance and cardio even less. Erwan, who felt me weakening, grabbed me by the arm to drag me in its wake. He was pulling harder and harder to keep me from slowing down.

- 'Come on, Eva, this is no time to flinch,' he encouraged me.

- 'I can't take it anymore,' I panted.

As I looked up to the sky, almost at the end of my strength, Remi and Vaness appeared above the rooftops and flew over us.

- 'Erwan, look up to the sky! It's Remi and Vaness. If only they could take us with them.'

- 'Save your breath for running instead, it'll be more useful to you.'

The thugs were always after us, right on our heels.

***

- Vaness –

We were about to reach the clearing where the lighthouse was located when I saw Erwan and Eva running along the dirt road, followed very closely by ten large men including Kadix.

- 'Remi, did you see?' I asked him worried.

He nodded with a quick movement of his head.

- 'Can't we do anything to help them?'

- 'I don't see what,' he admitted, obviously disappointed. 'We have to get there before them to open the waterfall to them.'

I kept quiet for a few seconds as we passed them.

- 'A quick technical question: how do we land?'

- 'Alone I know, but as a pair, I have no idea...' Remi admitted.

- 'What?' I barked.

- 'I'm kidding, my Vaness!'

My Vaness?

On these words, Remi began our descent on the model of short landings. A trajectory in the axis of the path with a slope that I estimated at three degrees similar to commercial flights. Progressive slowing of the speed. I regained my technical bearings but it was not me who was at the helm, and the pilot found nothing better than to locate our airstrip in the middle of a comfortable, one-metre high nettles mat. When we got close to the ground, we started walking in the void to better apprehend the earthly contact.

I was really glad to be wearing thick pants today.

A cloud of earth rose at the end of the path. Eva and Erwan appeared, followed by the whole gang of thugs, with Kadix in the lead. The gap between them seemed small and I alerted Remi who went to place himself in the waterfall to keep the passage open. I scanned the action frantically. I was strangely impressed to see that individuals the size of an ox could run such a long distance and at such an intensive pace. The others seemed closer to them every second. My heart accelerated, I felt stress and anxiety.

- 'Faster! Faster!' I shouted, caught in the heat of the action.

The others threw their dirty big arms into the void to grab my friends. Erwan was holding Eva by the arm; I felt them weakening, out of breath.

- 'Don't give up! You're almost there, come on!'

They're not going to make it, they're not going to make it.

Only a few more meters left. I crossed the waterfall so as not to slow them down and waited impatiently in the lighthouse room. At last! The finish was done. They had safely made it through inside the lighthouse. Remi then withdrew from the passage, which froze in front of the group of heavy arms that crashed lamentably against the ice barrier in a terrible crash, leaving a few teeth in the way.

This should be enough to complete his pretty necklace.

With the adrenaline of the chase dropping, Remi suddenly started laughing with his throat outstretched. Under the effect of fatigue, we were all taken by a general laughter. Sitting on the floor in the tree room, I watched Remi laugh and discovered, for the first time, his true smile, the one with a vivid and true emotion. My mad laughter slowly faded to give way to a sad laughter that betrayed my pain.

That of only discovering Remi for the very first time.