sleeping in ashes.

the end.

"'Tis a fearful thing to love what death can touch." ~ Judah Halevi

She was running.

The cold rain splattered on her skin, soaking her ragged clothes, broken and torn in places. Her breath came in small spurts, fogging the icy air. She felt a numbing pain shoot up her body with each limp, heart pounding loudly in her ears along with her heavy footsteps that sent splashes of water in the muddy puddles she stepped into. Her hand was cast upon a pouch over her abdomen, unaware of the blood that had already soaked through the fabric of her shirt and had ruined the tiny satchel in her hands, crimson dripping onto the sodden ground. Beads of perspire on her forehead mingled with the droplets of rain that seemed to scar her face with another streak of invisible wounds. The cold air jarred her dry throat and lungs as her breathing became deeper and more arduous.

Still, she walked on.

The dark sky rumbled, as if the heavens were crying mournfully for her. The sudden flash of lightning made the young girl jump, but still, she tightly clutched the satchel in her embrace, not willing to let it go.

Her weary legs betrayed her as she lost her balance, slipping onto the cold, wet floor beneath her, letting out a cry of surprise as she fell. The satchel fell from her grasp, skidding across the muddy ground.

The girl was about to push herself up again, but her body wasn't as persistent as she was.

The pain wasn't instant. It slowly sank in, the torment slowly reaching her senses, and all of a sudden, a shiver went down her spine, the pain throbbing like knives piercing the insides of her abdomen, jabbing her again and again. She writhed about on the cold ground, screaming in anguish, hot tears of pain falling from her sleepless eyes, her breath coming out in rasped gasps, brows furrowed in pain. Dark spots danced in front of her eyes, as the poor girl clutched her inflamed foot in agony, her echoing screams finally coming to a stop, and her tears stopped spilling.

"I have to... find..."

Shouting could be heard from a distance, and that was when she knew she was done for. Darkness edged the corners of her vision, and the torment her ankle was causing her had already faded into a throbbing numbness. The girl could hear nothing but her own heartbeat by now, her own breathing coming in ragged, broken gasps, unable to form words, unable to breathe. The weights on her eyelids seemed to get heavier and heavier. And as the light of her attacker's torches came into her blurred sight, she couldn't hold on any longer.

The girl took a last shaky breath, and her consciousness was swallowed by the icy darkness.

****

"M-Mother?"

She couldn't believe it. She just wouldn't.

It's rather strange; the feeling of seeing someone who had just been smiling with those rosy lips that kissed her every night, being taken away from you.

'I want to find them, Shiyu, I really want to.'

That was it. The only wish she had ever made, the only request, the first and the last request Shiyu's mother would ever make in the whole of her lifetime.

'They're there. I know it, Shiyu. They're there. They have to be. Ever since they've been sent to the construction of the Terracotta Warriors...'

'Yes, Mother, we'll go find Father and Zhuyu.'

That's what she had said.

Shiyu stood still. At that moment, she heard her heart break. It was a small sound, like the sound of the stem of a flower being torn from its roots. She couldn't cry; she just couldn't. How could she? In front of the beautiful face of a woman that lies with a soft smile in that miserable mattress, eyes closed as if in peaceful slumber, the eyes that Shiyu would never see again.