When All Hope is Lost (Book 2)

Daydreaming of Hell

Ezra took a deep breath. He closed his eyes. Keeping his eyes closed, he spoke, "Ever since the execution, I..." His voice broke as a tear slid down his cheek. I slipped my hand into his and squeezed, leaning my head on his shoulder and closing my eyes. He pulled me close, continuing, "I haven't slept well. Nightmares keep me up. Every night I see him. Terrified. And myself. Helpless. It's taken a lot for me to trust in Adonai. But I think that's the point. I can't trust in Him by myself. I need His help. Even though He has helped me so much with trusting Him, it's still hard. But He is so good, Fae. So good."

I smiled softly. We stayed like that for a minute, holding each other. However, the moment didn't last long, as Ezra began his story.

***

"They had out shackles on my wrists, I overheard the guards saying I was a threat without them."

He sniffled, struggling to dredge up the painful memory, " I tried to get out of the guard's grasp, but they caught me easily before I could take two steps. I was too weak, I-I could do anything to protest except scream and yell. I pleaded with them to stop, I tried so hard to make the crowd understand that we were no less human then they were. Asher was hardly a child when the war ended, why must he die because of it?"

Tears had begun to well in his eyes as thoughts of Asher bubbled up in his mind, " he is— was only 15." The change in his voice was heart wrenching, and my own agony only grew as a steady flow of tears finally began pouring down Ezra's cheeks.

"I... I began to sob hoping to draw some pity out of the monsters that were prepared to kill us, for what our parents did and where we came from."

"I finally made myself look at Asher... he was terrified, of course he was. He was about to be executed. We all were."

I grabbed his hand and squeezed it tight. "It's ok, Ez, you don't have to keep going."

He shook his head vigorously. "No, no, I need to tell you. You of all people deserve to know what happened."

A sharp pain exploded in my heart, I'm certain he couldn't have possibly meant it as an attack, yet I couldn't help but let the sting of his words drag forth a mound of guilt I had been futilely trying to bury for the past year.

Ezra cleared his throat, drawing me back to attention. "Asher... you could tell by his face just how scared he was. I don't even know if scared covers it, he— we were all horrified. He fought but you could tell he knew he had lost..." He took several deep breaths and continued,"They grabbed Asher and started dragging him towards his death..."

He turned away, but the muffled sounds of his sobs reached me, breaking my heart even more with every passing second. He turned back to me, salty lace rimming his eyes. "It was the gallows, that was how we were to die." I raised my hand to conceal the gasp that escaped my lips, as a series of dreadful images passed through my mind.

"I lashed out at my guard, I somehow got him off his feet. My body was bruised and broken but the need to save Asher made me feel invisible."

"The feeling didn't last long, Two guards tackled me. I fought... I fought as hard as I could, because I knew if I lost this fight Asher would lose his life... I lost, Fae." Another sob escaped his lips, the sound filled with enough pain to strip myself of any hope for a happy ending. He crumpled into my arms crying into my shoulder. "I lost...."

"I would have kept fighting, I swear, I didn't want to give up. But... Aurora... she wanted me to stop, I didn't know why but I knew I had to listen, now I understand. She didn't want me to get myself killed, well... I guess she was still holding onto hope for rescue..."

Ezra pulled away from me, rubbing his tears away. "She was right to hope, she probably saved my life." He flashed me a small smile, but it quickly collapsed back into his normal guilty expression.

He groaned. "For a moment, I could have sworn that I saw sympathy on the guards faces. I mean what would I have looked like? I was a teenage boy crying in my older sisters arms as I was forced to stand on the sidelines as my brother was murdered." A sharp, hateful laugh escaped Ezra's lips. "But what did it matter? In the end, I was just another Zyanyan scum."

Ezra's hateful features crumbled back into pure grief. "I– when I looked back at Asher, he was standing on a box, with a noose around his neck." He flinched at the memory and i clamped my hand onto my mouth to keep my own horrified cry from escaping. "I thought I would pass out, or be sick. Or maybe my heart would just stop completely. I didn't know or care."

"He knew he was going to die, it was the most awful thing I have ever seen." I reached down and took my empty hand, squeezing tightly. "He was a boy with utterly no hope." Ezra squeezed his eyes shut, a single tear trickling down his cheek, glistening in the fire light. "I saw him whisper something under his breath and a guard punched him for it, either because of what he said or just because he was talking. Another guard approached the box grabbing onto a small leather handle."

"Nazali na mawa mingi, nazali na mawa nakokaki kobikisa yo te," he whispered quietly, his gaze glued to his lap,."Nalingi yo, nakolinga yo tango nionso"

He glanced up at me. "Those were the last words I ever said to him." His voice was tight and he seemed desperate not to fall apart.

"I- What does that mean?"

"I'm sorry I couldn't save you," he said blankly, staring into the stars, his eyes briefly connecting with a particularly bright star in the sky. "I will always love you."

"And then–" he choked on his words and dragged in a shaky breath. "napesaki yo foti ata mokolo moko te.' That's how he responded."

Not wanting to be repetitive and ask the same question again, I instead gently nudged on his shoulder and he turned toward me.

Ezra's shaky hold on his emotions crumbled quickly and he slumped into my arms, his body racked with sobs. "He told me it wasn't my fault." He paused, an uneven breath being dragged into his lungs. "'Napesaki yo foti ata mokolo moko te.' He said he never blamed me."

Ezra's voice broke off as he sobbed and the floodgates opened. He bowed his head and wept as I held him close.

We stayed like that for a long times, eventually Ezra's sobs turned to soft hiccups and his body started to go slack next to me

Eventually, I started to fall asleep. Nodding off, I watched as Ezra gently laid me down. Stroking my hair, he finally crawled away, laying down in his own bed, which consisted of three coats and a tarp, now that he had given me his blanket. Beyond Ezra, a fire flickered in a pair of eyes. Kylo. Oh, Adonai, how can I make him understand? Finally, sleep wrapped itself around my tired body, and rocked me to sleep.