†〰†
Edythe didn't need to think hard about finding Esau. She didn't need much imagination to figure out what had happened. Philip had said it already. Issac had confirmed it.
It was one of those things that no one could have prevented, only for the sole reason that it couldn't have been predicted. Like the falling fog. . . or the massacre of her quiet, commonplace town.
But the signs had been there; the heaviness of the air, the absence of the beasts that should have filled the forest.
It was in the stillness of the forest, the upturned dirt and disintegrated grass that speckled the muddy floor. It was in the crack of thunder that sounded as she darted between crooked trees and leapt over fallen ones, their roots above the earth and their leaves buried deep beneath.
It was in the trickle of rain, the very first drop to follow others that made her know, as it fell down her cheek like an artificial tear, as her heart clenched painfully and she fell to her knees. . . as she realized that she would never, truly, find Esau.
She could smell his scent dance around the forest. It poisoned the fog with the stench of pungent iron. It made her feel like throwing up, and so she did.
Blood.
She looked up to find glassy blue eyes staring back at her.
Edythe scampered back in fear, disbelief and hesitation. Maybe it was the shock but the gold had faded from her eyes. Her enhanced sight slowly faded into the dimness of normality.
The forest had suddenly turned from her playground to a dungeon with sharp corners at every step and convoluted shadows that leered back at you. In a moment trees became demons, their twisted branches now arms stretching from the skies to push her into the dirt and bury her.
Now it was everything it had never been to her, a haunted forest at night.
Edythe sat up slowly, her stomach lurching at what she imagined she would see in front of her. She wouldn't believe it until she saw the body.
A bolt of lighting crashed into a nearby tree and the sea of brooding clouds above Lacau finally split open, dousing the forest in a generous shower of heavy rain.
The flash of light lit up the area around the nine year old and she winced. There was nothing in front of her but another tree, its branches broken and twisted from the force of the monster's previous attack. Another spectre created by the darkness.
Soaked to the bone, she approached it, still on her knees, her eyes drawn to the material that flapped erratically in the gust of wind that had just passed.
It was high above her, too high for her to reach even if she stood on the tips of her toes. Caught between the tree's branches was a piece of cloth, one that could have only belonged to Esau's shirt.
Cautiously, Edythe pulled out her dagger and scampered to her feet. She maneuvered over the sharp edges of fallen trees and headed in the direction of the deformed branch.
"Esau!" She shouted over the peals of thunder in the background, her clothes clinging to her skin and dragging her towards the forest floor. She felt renewed hope flutter in her chest and at the same time it gave way to a new desperation.
"Esau!" She repeated, just as a bright white light exploded in front of her eyes, blinding her for some seconds.
Edythe blinked away the dots in her vision to see the circle of light soar into the sky, staying up there for some moments before dispersing into an elaborate array of colorful sparks.
The flares. She realized. They've lit them.
That meant she didn't have much time to find Esau.
"Ed. . .ythe." It came like the whisper of a ghost but she heard it. Despite the raindrops pelting her skin like bullets and the incessant drone of the thunder, she heard her name. She heard Esau's voice.
Edythe couldn't remember how she had gotten there, her eyes now fixed on her brother's paling skin, or how she could see in the darkness that had suffocated her mere minutes ago, but she didn't hesitate to pull away the log that crushed Esau, surprising herself with how easily she got him free.
"Esau, Esau." She laid him on the ground, ignoring the flowing mud on the floor and the awkward angle of his hand and the stillness of his chest.
"Esau, wake up. I'm here." She choked, brushing hair away from his face as though a clearer view of his features would give her an idea on how to revive him. "I'm here now."
Edythe didn't dare touch him anywhere else. She could smell the blood even though there was no cut on his body.
He was hurt and she couldn't move him. She was right there but he wasn't breathing.
Edythe felt pins stab at her eyes and it took all she had to hold back her tears. "Esau, you have to wake up. We can leave now. The house is right here."
The strange silence of the forest replied her, even the rain that constantly beat down on her shoulders seemed not to exist anymore.
Edythe pressed her ear gently to her brother's chest, waiting for anything, a simple flutter. Anything to prove that Esau wasn't gone.
But there was nothing. Not even the silence that had once enveloped the forest.
The trees echoed her sobs and the wind harmonized with a mournful tune. The fall of the rain seemed to match her tears and there was no speck of gold in the forest.
Edythe couldn't understand the emotion that tore through her heart, that made her throat raw from screaming and made her lungs ache with each new shuddering breath. But for the first time since she had woken up in her brother's arms, on the day he said fire fell from the sky and destroyed their house, Edythe cried for her parents.
"Mama, Papa." She called them over and over again but they would not come. She was tired of being alone. She didn't want to be an orphan. She didn't want to start a new life at the capital.
Edythe wanted to see her mother's slow smile as her father tried to be funny. She wanted to seat at the kitchen table with her family and watch the sun peek out from the horizon.
So as her tears dripped on his face, Edythe clung to Esau and wished they were back in time. Without soldiers with guns and monsters with golden eyes.
But it didn't work.
Esau was still lifeless in her arms and it was still raining. There were still soldiers back at the house fighting a monster that barred their way to freedom.
Letting out a long breath, Edythe stood up, taking the near weightless Esau in her arms.
"He would want us to make it to the capital," she told herself as she looked down at his face.
Edythe thought she saw his eyelids move but after a few more minutes of nothing, she decided that it was a trick of the light and her heart broke a little bit more.
Slowly, as she made her way back to the house, the occasional burst of a flare would remind her that Philip and Issac were still alive. She wouldn't let anyone else lose their life here and after that was done, she wouldn't let Esau be alone.
†