Legacy of the Birds: Book One of the Spark(A MPHFPC Fanfiction)

Chapter Seven

John woke up in a tidy bedroom. The sun shine through the window, no dirt could be seen. The room was neat, like someone's been cleaning it everyday. But John had a feeling this room wasn't used for a long time.
Where was he, exactly? Florida, obviously. Over the past two month, he had been hunted by monsters from his nightmares, chased by people without pupils, seen a whole town blown to ashes, all because a doll told him to come here.
Did it? Or it's just he imagined all these? Did all those people died just because of a voice in his head he that never existed?
No, not because of a voice in his head, they died because he gave them hope. He remembered the girl with long dark hair told him he gives them a hope to get rid of the monsters.
How many people are willing to die for something they made up for themselves?
The thought made John uncomfortable. He never wanted to give them hope like that, but they saw him, and put the weight on him. And now, their blood were on his hands.
John shook his head, trying to get rid of this thought.
He's here, and whoever the woman was, he needed to convince her to help him.
Help him do what? He wasn't sure. But he had decided to only worry about one thing at a time.
*
The living room wasn't big, but just like the room John woke up in, it was tidy, nothing like an abandoned house. But the big hole on the wall couldn't be ignored. Something terrible happened here.
John left the living room, and entered a smaller room. An old Persian blanket covered the floor. A desk, a shelf and an armchair were the only furniture of this room. But something else was there, the way the furniture was placed, the way books and stationery were piled up on the desk. This room reminded him of an office.
On the desk, a book caught his eyes. John picked it up.
The cover was stained with blood, making the handwritten title unrecognizable.
"That's Abe's diary." Someone said behind him.
John turned. The woman stood by the door. He remembered Penny said her name was Emma.
"This was his house," she added.
"Whose blood is this?" John asked.
"A traitor." Emma answered. "Now, my turn to ask questions. Why did you come here?"
"To ask you for help."
"And what do you think I can help you?" Emma asked.
John hesitated. Penny never told him what he was supposed to do after he find Emma.
But then he remembered Blanche's words about the hope that drove her people against wights. The hope to get the world rid of wightish rule. So unlikely, so wishful, yet people died for it, and John had decided to honor those who gave their lives to helped him. "To help end wights' rule."
"And what do you expect me to do?" Asked Emma, "face off against entire army of hollowgasts with a shotgun?
The fight's done, boy. Whether you like it or not, we lost."
John couldn't believe his ears. The woman he risked everything to find, now telling him to give up, he was filled with unreasonable anger.
"I have seen people stand against them! People gave their lives to stop them! A whole town, everyone in it, peculiar and normal fighting side by side to slow them down! And now you are here, hiding in the middle of nowhere, telling me the war is over when people out there is still struggling to fight!"
Emma didn't seem impressed. "And then? What happened to the town you said?"
"Blown to bits," John admitted.
"You see? No one can win a war against Caul." Said Emma.
*
Isabelle didn't like the woods. It reminded her of the days she was trapped in a loop with no future to look forward to.
But orders are orders.
She walked deeper into the woods with two armed normal guards in special suites which allowed them to enter loops.
"Don't just stand behind me. Go find the bloody loop!" She commanded.
According to files left by the old ymbryne council, a very dangerous peculiar was kept here, a pocket loop somewhere in this forest.
She found herself stepping into an area trees didn't occupy, where sunshine came through the cloak of leaves.
On the ground, vines covered something and formed a strange shape, like a man in long robes, hands wide open. It took Isabelle a few seconds to realize it was just two twigs tied together in the shape of a cross, marking a nameless grave.
A soldier's voice came from her communicator, "We found it, ma'am."
The entrance was a tree hole. Isabelle had to bend down to enter.
*
The other side of this loop was at the dead of night. Silence was like a blanket, covering the world, whenever it was.
But something else was also here. Someone. Hidden in the shadows, a being so dangerous that ymbrynes dared not to keep in any punishment loop.
Isabelle signaled a soldier to follow her, and sent the other back to guard the entrance. They looked around nervously.
A minute passed, and then two, nothing happened. Whatever was kept here either didn't notice them or didn't care to show up.
Or that thing might be patiently planing how to kill them, Isabelle thought.
Finally, Isabelle decided to just shout his name, "Thomas Griffiths? I am from the Peculiar Security Bureau, and I'm here to offer you freedom from any loops."
For awhile nothing happened, and then Isabelle heard her guard scream. She turned to find him knocked down on the ground, his rifle missing.
"Who's there?" She said.
"Hypocrite! You came here talking about freedom, but have someone ready to shoot me when I show up. Your so called 'peculiars' are all the same. Tell your bird nannies if they want to kill me for what I did, reveal themselves to the world first!"
"We did." Isabelle answered, "Ymbryne's rule ended a decade ago."
"Then why did you come here, now? It's not like you even cared what ymbrynes have done."
"I know they imprisoned you for-"
"They erased a whole town from every normal's memory because they fear what I did would expose them to the world! And they said it's to protect us! We don't need to hide from them, no, we should be the one to put fear in their hearts! And because of their cowardice, we are hiding in the past, when those normals slaughter our kind!"
"And that's exactly what we are doing now, Mr. Griffiths. We rule the mankind." Isabelle's patience was almost exhausted, but she managed to stay calm. "And now we are providing you the freedom of loops and imprisonment."
A shadow landed in front of Isabelle, a giant owl that somehow possessed some resemblance to a man. He held the guard's rifle like a piece of trash he can throw away any time. Isabelle had a feeling that guns wouldn't have much use against him.
"What do you want me to do?" Thomas Griffiths asked.
*
John poured everything out of his bag. He picked up Blanche's knife,and had a sudden urge to stab someone. Anyone.
He wanted to do something to make this journey seem less meaningless, to make all the death less meaningless. But there wasn't much he can do. He was powerless, a normal person thrown into the world of peculiars. However peculiar people think of him, he didn't feel it. If he had any peculiarity, it didn't do him much good, yet.
Then, like it's calling for him to listen, Penny caught his attention.
John put down the knife, and held the doll to his ears.
*
At dinner time, Emma grilled a few rodents and heat up some canned vegetables. "I prepared some for you," Emma said as John sat down on the porch next to her.
"So, tell me your story," Emma said.
"I lived with my grandparents since eight, and then they were killed, and the whole world went wrong. My grandma used to tell me there were people with strange powers, guess I didn't realize that's true until it's too late." John paused.
Before he could continue, Emma asked, "What did your grandmother tell you about us?"
"She said she had a older sister, a very peculiar girl who can make fire with her bare hands. And she told me she believes there are more like her sister out there."
Emma held a hand out. Sparks of flames started to dance on her fingers. John stared at them, mesmerized.
"What's her name?" Emma asked. " Your grandmother, I mean."
"Julia, Julia Bloom Hill." John answered.
"She's my sister, John." Emma said.
The past ten years had always felt unrealistic, but John never doubt what he heard more than this moment.
This woman in front of him, looks no older then twenty, was the older sister of his long dead grandmother.
"How old are you, exactly?"
"Ninety-something maybe, I don't keep track of years these days. But I was eighty-eight when I came here."
"Eighty-eight?" John still couldn't believe what he heard.
"I lived in a loop for seventy years. People don't age physically in loops." Emma explained.
"What happened? Why did you come here?" John asked.
Emma closed her eyes. In the moment she once again saw the desolate land of Devil's Acre, and heard the screams of those she knew. But she didn't say any of those.
"We were at war, peculiars and wights. In the end, Caul's force broke our defense in Devil's Acre and killed our ymbrynes. The rest of us just ran away, some were hunted down, and some went into hiding."
"Did anyone try to organize a rebellion? If there are still so many peculiar people out there, wouldn't they try to fight back again?" John asked.
"They did, and I did, too. But Caul's force had become too powerful for us to stop, probably too much for anything to stop at that point. The American peculiars failed, and then the normals lost, so I stopped fighting. Because even if you believe living under their rule is worse than death, when it really comes to the choice between death and running away, it's much harder to choose death when you know more people will be dead because of what you do."
*
Later that night, when John had gone to bed, Emma stood in the spot where Abe was killed, the very place everything changed.
Can her peculiar family see her now?
How will they think of her?
A coward ran away in the face of evil? Or a tiny spark that doesn't want to burn anymore and will soon be quenched?
Every night, their voices haunted her, asking her to keep fighting.
But tonight, they were silent.
"Maybe that's what death feels like," Emma thought. "A peaceful silence."
*
John just got up from his bed when Emma enter the bedroom.
"I will help you, but I will not recruit anyone else to this suicidal mission." Emma said.
That will have to do.
"So, what are we gonna do?" John asked. He hoped Emma had an answer this time.
Fortunately, she did.
"We will find someone still fighting."