Remember

Chapter Forty-One

 With each new scream and each new blow Colette witnessed, the thrumming underneath her skin began to stir faster and faster until every fiber in her being was screaming for the darkness to be let out. So she gave in. She gave the darkness what it wanted.

Colette pushed herself up from the ground and let the black leak from her fingertips and curl around her arms and down her body until the darkness and her were one. It swirled around her like smoke and maliciously laughed inside her head. The darkness filled her mind with thoughts of death and her heart beat with only the intention of spilling each and every person in the forest blood.

No.

If she was going to help win this battle she had to keep in control. The darkness didn't like the idea but it obeyed her, now, strong will. The darkness snaked down into her hands and curled into a thick whip. Colette spotted Jordy still desperately trying to evade the panther guard's claws. A black tendril shot out from her hand and coiled around the torso of the panther, tightening and throwing it away from Jordy. He looked up at her but she avoided his gaze and sent another tendril towards the guard attacking the woman and the old lady. It wrapped around his neck and tightened until he was brought to his knees. A nasty snap could be heard before the guard collapsed.

The last guard stopped dead in her tracks, only a few feet from Kaden and Madie, and turned towards Colette. "Try me." The guard taunted, readying herself for any blow that Colette might inflict.

Colette smiled at the girl. She had no idea what she was facing. The Govie could heal a few scratches, maybe some broken bones. But what would happen when she was shredded apart? What happened when the darkness surged at her all at once and tore her apart from the inside out? Could she piece herself back together after that?

The darkness began to leak from every crevice of Colette's body until she was surrounded by three feet of thick, black smoke. Little tendrils snaked around each other and took it's time pouncing at the guard and slicing her in different places. The woman tried to dodge the attacks but the darkness was entirely way too fast.

Suddenly, everything went still. Colette looked to see Kaden and Madie helping Jordy with his wounds. The mother was holding the two children behind her. They stared at Colette, frightened. They should be. Lastly she spotted Prissy who looked up from where she was comforting the old lady and pleaded with her to stop. Madie, Kaden, and Jordy held the same look in their faces.

They knew what would happen -- what was happening. This time, Colette knew it too but she did nothing to stop it. The darkness hung in the air, beginning to blend in with the starless sky. It was as unmoving as the night sky itself. And then everything changed.

The tendrils became a blur against the dark sky as it, all at once, lunged at the guard. At first, the guard was still and ready for the blow but as soon as the first bit of smoke brushed against her skin she let out a blood curdling scream. Within seconds the guard was on her knees, struggling to fight against the darkness. She squirmed this way and that way as if she could escape the death she was about to receive.

The guard opened up her mouth to let out another scream but the darkness stopped it, choking her with it's presence in her throat. She clawed at her neck, desperately trying to cough it out but instead it filled every hole in the woman's body and she fell back. Again, everything went still and for a moment everything was absolutely silent. Everyone stared at the still body of the guard wondering if that was the end or if there was more to come.

Involuntarily leaning closer and closer until they jumped back as the darkness exploded into the sky, annihilating the guard as it expelled itself from her body. The tendrils returned to Colette's side and slowly she turned to face her friends. Blood had begun to drip from her nose, mixing with the tears running down her cheeks.

"I'm so sorry." She whispered quietly.

Prissy took a step forward -- why was is she was always the one to try and stop her and support her? Why, out of all the friends Colette had in the woods, was it Prissy who was willing to risk her life to stop Colette? Madie stood still as she stared at the girl she called her best friend. She did nothing to try and keep her from killing anyone else. Perhaps she had so much trust that her friend had enough willpower to snap back to reality. Perhaps that trust would be her demise.

To Colette, in that moment, it felt like a betrayal -- that her own best friend wasn't willing to risk her own life to pull Colette out of the darkness' hold. The risk she never once took to help Colette escape paradisium or to tell Colette what had really happened with her and the government until everything else had crashed down on Colette too. Madie had only ever been looking out for herself. Even at the bottom of Earth's End when Colette had thought she had watched her only friend die.

That feeling of betrayal only fueled the bloodlust that kept the darkness' hold over her. It mixed with the betrayal she felt when she met Jordy's emotionless stare because Colette knew there was more than just nothing that had happened between them. Finally, her eyes fixed on Kaden and the betrayal fueled further when she remembered the way he had flirted with her and then saw him entangled with Madie. Maybe none of them were really her friends at all and she was a simple pawn in their game to save the world.

None, none, of that even began to compare to the betrayal of the government. The very people who were supposed to protect the world and their lives were the ones who unleashed the thing that was inside her -- hadn't tried to save her from it while they still could. They sat back on their carefully crafted throne of secrets and watched as their people suffered in an innocent bliss as the real world slowly died.

Colette would save the world, yes, she would do what she was meant to do but they weren't going to live to see it. They would finally learn what betrayal felt like.