One In The Same Flame. ~Red Queen~ 《Cal x Reader 》

Chapter 8

I'm on the Barrows porch watching her mom say goodbye Bree. She's weeping, holding on to him tightly, smoothing his freshly cut hair. Shade and Tammy wait to catch her if her legs fall. I know they want to cry too. Watching their oldest brother go. Next to Mare and I, is her father. He says nothing content to stare at the legionnaire. Even in his armor of steel plate and bulletproof fabric, the soldier looks small next to Bree. Bree could eat him alive, but he doesn't. He doesn't do anything at all when the legionnaire grabs his arm, pulling him away from us. A shadow falls, hunting after him on terrible dark wings. The world spins around me, and then I'm falling.

I land a year later, my feet stuck in the squelching mud beneath the Barrows home. Now Ruth holds on to Trammy, begging with the legionnaire. Shade and I have to pull her off. Somewhere Gisa cries for her favorite brother. Mare and her father keep silent, saving their tears. The shadow returns, this time swirling around me, blotting out of the sky and the sun. I squeeze my eyes shut, hoping it will leave me alone.

When I open them again, I'm in the arms of Shade, hugging him as tightly as I can. He hasn't cut his hair yet, and his chin-length brown hair tickles the top of my head. As I press myself to his chest, I wince. My ear sharply stings, and I pull back, seeing red blood on my parental figures and best friend shirt. Gisa, Mare and I had pierced our ears again, with the tiny gift Shade and the other Barrow brothers left us. I guess I did it wrong, as I do everything else. This time I feel the shadow before I see it. And it feels angry.

It drags me through a parade of memories, all raw wounds still healing. Some of them are even dreams. No, nightmares. My worst nightmares.

A new world materializes around me, forming a shadowed landscape of smoke and ash.

The Choke. I've never been there, but I've heard enough to imagine it. The land is flat, pocked with craters from a thousand falling bombs. Soldier in stained red uniforms cower in each of the, like blood filling a wound. I float through them all, searching the faces, looking for the brothers we lost to smoke and shrapnel.

Bree appears first, wrestling with a blue clad Lakelander in a puddle of mudd. I want to help him, but I keep flying by until he's out of sight. Tramy comes next, bending over a wounded soldier, trying to keep him from bleeding to death. His gentle features, like Gisa's, are twisted in agony. I will never forget the screams of pain and frustration. As with Bree, I can't help him.

Shade waits at the front of the line, beyond even the bravest of warriors. He stands on top of a ridge without regard for the bottom for the bombs or the guns or the Lakelanders army waiting on the other side. I can only watch the ground beneath his feet explode, destroying him in a plume of fire and ash.

"Stop!" I managed to scream, reaching for the smoke that was once my friend.

The ash takes shape, re-forming into the shadow. It engulfs me in darkness, until a wave of memories takes me over. Gisa's hand, Kilorns conscription. Mares father coming home half dead. They blur together, swirl of too-bright color that hurts my eyes. Something's not right, are these my memories. The memories move backward through the years, like I'm watching my life in reverse. And then there are event's I can't possibly remember. Watching Learning to speak, to walk. And some memories aren't my own. I watch as Mare's kid brothers passing her around as a baby, as her mother scolds. I feel a hand clap down around mine. I turn to see Mare. We both are crouched as the swarm of darkness swirls around us.

This is impossible.

We think at the same time, What?

"Impossible," the shadow says to us. The voice is so sharp, I fear it might crack my skull. Mare falls to her knees, and crouches down and tuck her into me protectively.