DUSKLIGHT ODYSSEY

Chapter 14

Ion cast his eyes upward. Where a moment prior there was an open sky of twinkling stars, now there was a veil of grey clouds. Little white flakes fluttered their way down to him. He'd never seen anything like it. He reached out his hand and let a few fall into his palm. They disappeared as soon as they did, a drop of water appearing in their place. "Snow?"

The flakes began to fall faster and heavier. The air was colder now.

Ion looked to Naim. She was shivering again.

"Let me... I want to..." Her voice was thin.

Ion leaned in closer to hear her.

"...Vio..." she breathed.

The egg laid as dormant as a stone a few paces away. Ion remembered the sting of cold that he felt as he carried the thing. "I don't think that's a good idea," he whispered. "We need to keep you warm."

Beads of sweat formed on Naim's brow. Her lips quivered. She could hardly keep her eyes open. The bruise on her head, now a deep, dark purple, seemed to have grown only larger. Her breathing became heavier, more labored. "I don't... Ion... Vio... Please..."

A pit formed in Ion's stomach. She wasn't... was she? "Naim." A lump lurched into his throat as he said the word. "Stay with me."

Her eyes drifted toward him, but by their dimness Ion was unsure whether she saw a thing. Her mouth hung open, and her breaths were tenuous gasps at irregular intervals. She mouthed what must have been a word.

"What?" Ion leaned even closer.

The word came out this time, if only barely. "Thirsty..."

Ion scrambled toward the waterskin which lay on the ground by his pack. He picked it up, but it was all too light. How?! A small puddle wet his kneecaps where he knelt. Spilt. Wasted. Gone. Ion froze. What do I do?

His frenzied mind flashed the image of the pool of water beneath the church. It was far from clean. The smell was lethal enough, let alone whatever illnesses awaited the ill-fated who would drink such filth. What do I do?!

The snow? Too long, he thought, not enough time.

"Ion... Water..." There was desperation in the girl's frail voice.

He returned to her side and held her cold, limp hand in his. "I'll get you water," he said.

Ion stood, waterskin in-hand, and ran to the sacristy. He crawled on scraped hands and bruised knees through the passage in the wall, and hurried down the long staircase into the perfect darkness.

The stench did not greet him as it did before. With the splash of his boots hitting the water, he stooped down and filled the skin to its brim before shutting it tight. He breathed in deeply. There was no more smell. Without time to ponder, he turned around and ran up the stairs for the last time. He huffed and puffed, his legs were sore, but still they moved.

Finally in the chapel once more, Ion ran to the girl. He knelt beside her, trying to catch his breath. "Water," he said. He unscrewed the lid of the skin and brought it to her open lips, but stopped.

Naim was still.

Her breathing wasn't there.

Her face was as stone.

The waterskin clattered to the ground. Ion threw off the cloak covering her and put his ear to her chest. There was no sound.

No, thought Ion. "No!" he exclaimed. He held her face in his hands.

The eyes, windows of the soul, oft speak louder than words. Man speaks a primordial language with only subconscious intent, and reads it with subconscious understanding. Their glimmer, their flashes of light, their darting across the world, their intensity and their softness, and the hue unique to each and every human being convey a thousand words as fast as one can look into another's eyes. Ion looked into Naim's eyes.

Naim's eyes were silent. Open windows, but to nothing at all.

Ion couldn't breathe. His face, which crumpled into agony, he buried into the cold, damp, rough-spun shirt that Naim's body wore. His lungs, breathless and tightened as a knot, choked in a rush of air as a great, heaving sob.

How could this happen? How could it be? She wasn't meant to die. It wasn't right. I could have saved her sooner, Ion thought. But Ion was asleep where Naim had now died. Hours, it was hours that the girl shivered in the water with scorched arms, completely alone. Anger and despair battled for ground within Ion's psyche.

Heavy flakes of snow drifting in from the sky wet her mousy brown hair. Ion couldn't stand to see her mouth agape when it once held a smile. He couldn't stand to see her eyes so lifeless when once they exuded compassion.

Ion turned away from the girl and tried to hold back his tears. He found himself staring at the egg on the ground. That thing. The thing which killed Naim. The thing which Naim loved. He imagined himself sinking his cross right through the egg's shell, piercing the heart of whatever horrid creature it nourished. He never wanted to see it again.

"What are you?" he spit with venomed words.

Ion's gaze returned to the broken body of the small girl he had journeyed with for so many nights. His anger melted to sorrow once more. It wasn't right, how she lay. With shaking fingers, he closed her eyes, shut her mouth, and placed her arms into a position of rest. He stepped back, and looked at her once more. It still wasn't right. There was a piece missing. Ion knew what it was. The thing he'd never seen her without, the thing she thought she saved at the cost of her own life. That thing she loved, and that Ion now hated. But it wasn't her, not without little Vio by her side.

Ion sighed. He turned again toward the oblong sphere, as white as the moon. He heaved as he picked it up. It was just as heavy, and just as cold. He shuffled himself to Naim's side, and set the egg as gently as he could into her arms, where Vio was wont to be.

The girl and her egg.

Together.

The snow fell steadily upon the pair as Ion wept.