C1: All Hope Lost

"So this is what it comes to..."

Francesca's body walked on its own like a lifeless zombie.

All her life, she was taught to place family before everything. She did as she was taught as she knew that they felt the same way.

She thought she knew.

As she was about to head out for another assignment, she heard her brother's voice by the crack of the door.

"Francesca is the only link we have with the case. Once she's gone, they'll have nothing against us!"

The room was silent. Francesca didn't dare to breathe in fear of getting found out.

"Send agents with her. After the assignment, dispose of her." Her father's deep commanding voice echoed in the room to her mind.

Was she that insignificant for him to decide in less than five minutes?

Her brother agreed and walked to the door. Francesca hid in the room next door but still left it ajar.

"Good riddance." She heard him say. "How dare a woman from the streets take my place. She'll finally be out of my sight for good."

'From the streets? We're not related?'

A thing about truth is that comes like a bomb. You don't expect it until it just blows up in your face and your inside in pieces.

Her instincts kicked in and she escaped from the house. She ran and ran until she knew she was in a safe distance. Her adrenaline used up, she now was in a slump. Where would she go? Every relationship she made was all for the sake of using them. She betrayed every single one of them. She had nowhere to go.

Francesca couldn't help but laugh at her own fate. She did everything for her family when they didn't think of her like one.

She laughed and laughed until she was struggling to breathe. People thought she was crazy and avoided her like the plague.

Amidst all the people, she saw a figure she could never forget. His back continued to drift away from sight. The only friend she regretted betraying.

Francesca froze. Different emotions flashed her eyes; longing, guilt, remorse and pity. She stole his future as a singer. He's now deaf and just a withered vegetable walking.

The figure completely oblivious to the person behind him continued to cross the road. He just continued ahead with lifeless eyes.

A loud honk broke Francesca from her shock and she saw a huge truck coming at full speed but he just continued to walk slowly, unaware of the danger coming his way. The truck was coming too fast, he'd be ran over at this rate. Without further thought, Francesca rushed to him. Saving him fueled her tired legs like she never ran for hours on end earlier. She saw his figure come closer and closer until he was just at hands reached.

SCREECH!! BANG!

His body smashed against the trash can. His body ached with bruises all over but aside from that he was okay.

She, on the other hand, wasn't as lucky. Francesca managed to push him to safety but she wasn't fast enough to save herself. Lower half of her body was run down before the truck crashed to a post and knocked out the driver.

Francesca's body was numb all over. She saw his body frozen stiff, wide eyed as he stared at her and the surroundings.

A small breath escaped her lips and twitched to a smile.

He was alive. That was all that mattered.

Warm blood was flowing out from her at a steady speed. She could barely make out words like "911" and "truck" around her. She saw numerous people circling them, their mouths opening and closing but with no sound. She lay there in her very own bed of blood. At this rate, she would die before the ambulance comes. Maybe it was all for the best. After what she found out, she felt like everything was meaningless.

"I'm sorry." Francesca let out the words she couldn't say all this time. At least before she dies, she wanted to say those words. She just doesn't know if he heard them.

Light slowly faded from her eyes and everything turned black. Falling drops tingled her ears, just like when a storm has passed and piled water would drop into puddles. Her mind relaxed and listened to them echo.

"It is over." A voice echoed through the void. "What do you want?"

It was feminine and masculine at the same time. It's deep mellow voice like the droplets, loud but slowly fading.

What does she want? Francesca never asked that herself. Everything was dictated to her. It never occurred to her to ask herself.

"A second chance." She said after much deliberation.

"Do you regret it?" The voice asked again.

A chuckle echoed, "Regret? Very much so." If she only knew her family never thought of her as one, she would never have made those choices. Everything only benefited them.

That stroke a chord in her. Was there ever a time she decided for herself?

The voice cannot read minds. Instead, every emotion was spreading like a ripple. The void was a mirror of the heart. Regret, second guessing, acceptance; all of these spread into the chasm.

Francesca second guessed and regretted everything she had done, accepted that there is nothing more she could do. She already died.

"Do you want to live?" The voice asked.

No voice was heard from her but her heart answered for her.

She suddenly felt her eyelids getting heavy.

"This time, live without regrets."

The voice slowly faded and was the last thing she heard before everything was black once again.

She opened her eyes and everything was blurry.

A faint light cast on the numerous stones laid on the ground. Only half of their figures basked in the light as the other half was hidden in water.

After a few blinks, her vision refocused and everything was clear.

They were bodies! Hundreds of bodies in two different colors sprawled on the ground with crimson red water covering half of their figure.

Metal clashed from a distance which rose to an unsettling feeling inside her. Francesca had a hunch but it was just too impossible in her head.

She needs to get away. If she's right, she's in danger and she's not taking chances. It looked like she was in the shallow part of the lake. Water continued to stretch further at her back with the night blocking the end. She moved closer to land, doing her best to avoid the scattered bodies. Francesca stopped in her tracks when she saw a horse on the shore. There wasn't one earlier.

Before she can go further to check, Francesca felt a cold metal against her neck.

A bloodied man was at the end of the sword.

He stared at her like a hunter to its prey; those cold empty eyes manifested in his sockets. The blood on his body only made him even more vicious. She was subject to that kind of stares from a whole lot of people but none of them made her feel this uncomfortable.

"There's still some left."

Shivers ran through Francesca's body as she imagined her fate.