Labyrinth: Saving the Fallen City

The Glow of Edoneon

 My eyes scanned the rift for the Night Crawlers. My cry should have scared them off. Being one of their superiors, I was furious with their behavior. First they play with Sarah instead of carrying out their purpose. Second, they let an inexperienced human take out some of their own, and third, they had the audacity to attempt to attack me. They needed to be punished. I would see to their harsh punishment for delaying my plan.

               Knowing nothing of my own plans, I opened my battered wings and eased to the ground. Sarah's body lay completely still on the ground as I approached her. The human made my stomach turn with disgust. I was unable to tell all the damage done to her from my position on the branch while I watched the Night Crawlers attack her. I had never seen anyone so scared in my life. A smile tugged at my lips, humans were so weak and defenseless.

               Sarah's hair draped over her dirty face. Red dots marked her exposed skin and a drop of blood rolled from her nose to her jaw line. The blue atmosphere caused her pale skin to look soft. Her body flattened the grass around her. The Night Crawlers had used her thin, white skirt to tie her legs together so she wouldn't put up a fight when they fed. Her skin still held a slight glow from her necklace. I bent down beside her and smiled. "Such a beautiful human, such a terrible fate" I muttered to her unresponsive body. I picked up the limp girl and turned. Her head and legs hung loosely from my grasp while her arms rested on her lap. I opened my wings once again before lifting into the air.

               I flew to a castle ruin I was all too familiar with. The decaying stone towers grew weaker by the day and its very foundation shook from the weight it could no longer carry. Still, the once beautiful castle stood powerful. The arches around the stone path when approaching to this day memorized me. They twisted in the air before falling back to the ground. My bare feet scratched against the ground, the pain from the countless small, jagged rocks held no sting or pain like they once did. The breeze swept through the low dip in the castle and blew one of Sarah's arms to hang by her side. I continued into the castle as my skin burned with heat but the air around me chilled.

               The door had long since fallen, so I walked into the castle without struggle. Parts of the walls and ceiling held large gaping holes from wars past. When I walked through the door, the staircase in front of me held onto my attention. I moved towards the once beautiful stone staircase. I walked around the edges of broken and crumbling stone. I walked up to the third floor. The room was only decorated with boulders from the far wall that was destroyed. A large bed of rocks sat in the middle of the room with green plants sprouting underneath. My feet carried me over to the bed of rock and I place Sarah down. I untied the white skirt around her ankles and let it flow over the rocks. I unsheathed her sword and put it beside her. As I stepped back, my gaze never left her for fear she would wake in suffering.

               When she did not stir, I walked to the edge of the broken room. My foot teased the air outside the ruins. The darkening sky caused my eyes to go in search of a glow. With a small step, I was falling down the castle wall until my wings instinctively opened. I soared over the valley of silence and into the woods. I followed the golden glow through the woods until I stumbled upon the golden flowers. They grew over a stretch of land that lit up the entire section of the woods. The glow of the pedals looked like the setting sun. Using my wings, I tucked away the flowers. If it were a normal day I would have mocked myself for having seemingly golden wings.

               I returned back to the ruins with the flowers and looked to Sarah's untouched body. As I plucked the flowers out from under my wings, I noticed the silence starting to bother me. It hung over the castle like a weight. My voice rumbled as I began to hum an ancient tune sung to me before. I placed the glowing flowers in Sarah's brown hair and watched them intensify in their glow. I moved next to put the flowers around her body and between her arms. Her body, now glowing golden, looked eerily more intriguing. With one final flower, I placed it in the middle of her chest with the pedals about four inches from her collarbone.