Chapter 6: bellivia 2

In the moment it all went so slow. Watching as a small skeleton of a child push its teeth into my skin and opening small sockets of red. I hadn't done a thing to deserve it and yet I stood clutching my bloody arm. The pain was so horrific that the pain didn't feel like pain at all. My zoned thoughts filled my head as I looked at my arm, lost. It shattered as a boy screamed at me, his squeaky shrieks and small crooked fingers pointing at my arm.

Lyra quickly got up and helped me. So many thoughts raced in my mind. I never trusted the skinny small girl who was almost constantly disobeying rules. She was making our protection fall away more each day. I instructed her where to get the wrappings, my mind constantly wandering further from reality. A large thud called my attention as Lyra hit the floorboards. Something was wrong with this girl. I knew she was somehow connected to my brother and I. But how was another mystery that I was too fearful to wake. I never spoke to the small skin and bones of a girl, I never liked her. My dislike came from years earlier when we first met. That's when it all slapped me right in the face; all of which I knew came to use as I realized her embers are based off emotions and with the right amount of anger she could set the place alight. This made me realize a darker secret I'd never share. One that made my life change forever.

Tiny embers began to dance all around the room so gracefully you'd never say they were dangerous. I couldn't know what was going on, for our protection. I ignored them. Lyra noticed me ignore them. Questions plagued her mind I could see it. I had shown her the side of me I fog away. The side of me that only Elijah knew. I knew I had revealed too much of the reality that im not mother Sagorian's little slave when she started asking things I didn't know or couldn't answer. Then she asked who he was.

My heart rose to my throat beginning to choke me. I looked to her in hopes that it would stop my prickling eyes from tearing up. "He used to make smoke. Like your embers… Except it was when he felt alone. Mother Sagorian didn't like smoke. He always felt alone… I mustn't say anything or she'll hurt me." I answered. I knew my answer wasn't enough. But it was just enough to ignite a spark. One to free all the lost souls that deserve better then a dark and revolting house. I could feel the anger boil in her, festering and engraving its poisons into her mind. I forced tears into my eyes. I could feel the devil walking down the hallway and soon I'd have to fog my mind and erase any trace of getting out. I knew the time was now. Mother Sagorian opened the door to Lyra. I wasn't there anymore I was fogged over like an old unwanted memory.

She gripped the lanky girl and dragged her out. I felt nothing and couldn't care. Truly I did but could never show it. Not to mother Sagorian, to her emotions are a disease that eats a person. Having emotions were a burden. I could hear Lyra try fight and resist but we all know mother Sagorian's grip was anything but human. I saw the embers blue and bright. I shut my door not knowing what was going to happen. The next few moments would define the mystery of my past and my theory about the bony child.

A shriek of anger sounded out. I did not dare open my door. To any persons shock a cry of fear escaped, in the voice everyone hated. A smile crawled onto my face, mother Sagorian was gone forever. Soon the smile faded as I began to feel the room grow warmer and warmer. I looked to the door noticing the smoke begin to reach its twisting and curling fingers into the room. Reality hit like a ton of bricks that soon id be suffocating. I ran to my door my hand reaching the old handle, as my hand touched the knob I could feel a surge of heat pass through my hand and in one sharp movement I removed it. I was trapped. How could I have been so stupid?

Smoke climbing in from each crack of the door. I hit the door; it shook in its hinges then returned still. I did it again this time screaming out for help. Again I hit it this time embers flew off the door and floated gently down onto my bed. A blue light began to flicker on my bed and smoke began to wind itself up into the air. My fists hit the door sending a whining pain up my arm past the bite and into my shoulders. Screaming louder and louder as clouds of smoke began eating my lungs forcing my voice to grow weak and coughs to escape me. My arms screaming in pain, my head spinning in a spiral of fear and adrenaline. Each shout was growing softer and weaker. My body not able to hit the door anymore. I took a step back looking at the door barely able to see it from the fog like smoke hiding my only escape. I knew this was it. My choice knew better than I did.

My vision blacked. I couldn't hear anything, this was it. I was done for consumed by a flame just as my parents were. Nothing was different, it was her flame too. I couldn't blame her for her emotions. Yet they were about to kill us all. Just as her flames killed my parents.

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I woke on the stairwell my body crying out in pain. I sat up to see just beyond the frame was a black abyss and then burning away floorboards. Lyra was nowhere to be seen. Something had landed on the ground on the floor below, it was heavy. I somehow knew what it was but wouldn't accept it. Since the day we met I had never given her a second thought, yet she pulled all her strings of courage and strength she had left to save me. I didn't want to accept that she was gone. She couldn't be. Yet I sat alive in her place in the dying frames of a once terrible memory.

I needed to save my brother and get out of here before the fire completely consumed it. I stood up my knees shakily threatening to drop me. I began to move down the stairs my arms and body complaining in pain to just give in. I got this far. I couldn't let Lyra down; I was a part of the cause that she was dead. She couldn't have made a sacrifice for nothing and I had to prove it to her. My body began to grow steadier as I moved quicker down the spiral I came to the first floor. The house moaned from the weight it had been carrying for years. Its cries warned that soon there would be no orphanage left.

The room had been mostly burnt away and black coal corpses littered the rooms, the black husk infected with blue veins still hot from burning away in seconds. I stepped forward onto the first floor its floor crying and threatening to drop me. I turned to the door frame leading to the smoke room. A burnt away hole had eaten itself into the floor and the frame had collapsed on itself blocking the door. I felt hopeless. I was about to lose it all. And I felt as though I couldn't do anything about it.

I couldn't even see Lyra's body to say a better goodbye. Her body was probably one of the charred corpses lying around. I did not want to find out. I looked into the hole its edges more jagged than the hole above me. I touched its burning away jagged edges feeling nothing but guilt. The hole was too small for me to fit and without a rope we'd have no way out. It would be pointless to try rescuing someone if you couldn't save either of you. I stood and began to look through the smoking debris for the main doorway that would guarantee my life and freedom. Even if it felt so wrong to leave him. Fire crackled still eating up the rest of the house, beginning to carefully make my way to the exit my smile growing as I grew closer. My careful walk became a sprint the door coming closer. As I took a leap my hair got caught. I tugged my head back but the grip onto my hair was too strong. My eyes shifted back to see what caught me only to meet a horror.

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