The Time It Takes To Fall

Valley of Yellow Flowers

Scotland, 1872 A.D.

Orange flames licked at the houses within the village, swallowing the wooden huts with the claws of corruptive fire. Screams echoed from around the valley, and people ran every which way, trying to get away from the danger— trying to escape their reality.

People brushed against Kai, in their hurry to get away from the raid. Some even grabbed at him, attempting to get him to join the chase to higher ground. But he couldn't leave. He would not escape until he found her.

But she was nowhere to be found.

Kai screamed her name, but he could hardly hear himself above the chaos surrounding him. He prayed with the Red Koi, begging her to allow his love to live— and cursed the Blue Koi, pleading with her to not let Ayesha die.

Tears ran down Kai's face, from smoke or agony, he did not know. All he knew was that everything around him was dying, and he would too if he watched her eyes turn lifeless one more time. He wouldn't be able to handle it; it would completely and utterly destroy him.

"Ayesha," Kai shouted, his voice growing hoarse. Her family's hut was in sight, and he could see the soft glow of flames eating away at the wood. He ran faster, fearing the worst.

Kai had found Selene's seventh reincarnation in a small village in Scotland but a year before. From the moment the two met, Ayesha had adored Kai, just as she invariably seemed to. She would always be standoffish from him at first, but after a few meetings, she grew to trust him more than anyone. He had seen it happen too many times.

He had seen too much of everything too many times. Selene's familiar eyes look at him, as if he were a total stranger to her. Watched her past become more tragic than the last, always ending in a demise worse than anything Kai could have imagined. Gazing at his arm as yet another koi burned away forever.

"Ayesha!" Kai cried above the screams of the burning village. Her home was becoming an inferno, with the flames deepening in their hue. They were illusive and bright; they were the beginning and the end of Kai.

Her home was shivering under the weight of the fire by the time Kai reached the doorway. He screamed her name, as he flung the door open, not caring if the whole building collapsed on him— it wouldn't make a difference.

His eyes spotted a form sprawled across the wooden floor, and his heart stopped. The form was a body, and a small, familiar one at that, dressed in a shredded brown smock. She lay in the center of the room, her hair a mess of snarls, her body splayed at odd angles, and a pool of blood forming beneath her. All around them everything burned— everything except his arm. She wasn't dead.

She wasn't dead yet.

Kai rushed to her side, pulling her body to him. Her clothes were ripped and barely covering her skin, and Kai felt his stomach drop. She wasn't conscious, but she was still breathing. She was bleeding and burning, but she wasn't dead.

Scooping her into his arms, Kai rushed out of the hut. If he had been a normal person, he would have been hacking away due to the fumes. He would have felt the gentle flames that licked his arm as he rushed through the doorway. If he had been normal, he would have laid down beside his betrothed and died with her.

"Yesha," Kai sobbed, his voice only a whisper. He collapsed ten meters outside the home, just as the hut crumbled in on itself. He flinched at the splintering of the wood, and clutched Ayesha to himself, trying to shield her ravished body with his own.

He had been gone for only an hour, leaving the immigrant village behind as a peaceful sanctuary; he had come back to Hell.

There had been talk of raids happening in neighboring villages; of fiends crashing in, killing the men, violating the women, stealing everything of value, and then burning everything left to the ground. Kai had feared it all, never wanting to leave Ayesha's side, but she had brushed it off. She said that they wouldn't touch their village. She claimed that no one would hurt her. She had calmed him enough to leave her side. He had left her, and now he would lose her.