Whisper To Me One Last Time

In the darkness, she could hear the popping sound of leaves as the fire burned it to ashes. A loud sound similar to the sound made by a mirror as it hit the ground woke her. She opened her eyes and saw as fumes of smoke rose where the skeleton of a tree had fallen.

Nefaaya straightened and laid at the remains of the glade, above the sky was filled with dark billowing clouds. She didn't know if it was her fault that the rain was about to fall. Not that it matters. Nothing matters right now.

She raised her hand, reaching for the warmth of the light that she was seeing—an illusion that wasn't there.

The worried face of Renaeril blocked her view, he was looking at her with an emotion similar to fear and pity.

"They're dead," Nefaaya said.

Renaeril said, "I don't see them anymore."

She smiled and felt the tiredness in her body, but her reaching hand refused to fall, it rebelliously jerked upward once more before it fell in the pools of water beside her.

--

The smoke coming nearby had made the air heavy. She coughed on inhaling it. Slowly she opened her eyes, and was blinded for a second. She felt herself moving at a slow and careful pace.

Renaeril glanced at her, "are you awake now?"

As she looked at his golden eyes, realization hit her. Renaeril was carrying her from his back. She felt flustered.

She avoided his eyes.

"I can walk," she said.

But Renaeril looked for her eyes, he stared as if he wasn't believing what she had said.

He said doubtfully, "I'll put you down when we reach the village."

She leaned away from him and contented herself at observing her surroundings. In this side of the forest, the trees remained untouched by her anger, and she found relief on that. The flowers waved at her, closed buds and pale red dotted with deeper colors. Moonshiners, it was called, flowers that could reflect the light of the Five Moons. These grow brighter as the night progresses. She turned back to the direction of the fire and caught glimpses of white smoke not far from them.

Nefaaya didn't regret what she had done to the Mages in white clothing, but what happened to the forest, she felt regretful.

As they walked farther from the site of her own destruction, the light became brighter. She figured out that they're now reaching the outskirts of the forest, next to where the village was.

The undergrowth beneath their feet slowly vanished and ended in a rocky ground. Here the branches of the tree grew lower and their trunks less thick. Shrubs of flowers, and bushes had become less common.

*Close,* she figured out.

"I'm walking from here," she said. Renaeril stopped and put her down. As soon as her feet touched the ground she immediately ran towards the end of the forest.

For a second the late afternoon sun blinded her to oblivion. She expected that it was just like her usual late afternoon, when lights started appearing from the windows of the thatched roof houses in the village. But she found no light coming from the windows, there were even no houses as far her eyes could see. There was only the orange sky, dotted with heavy red clouds.

Beside her, Renaeril stood with his mouth agape, his snow-white hair was being whipped by the wind. Nefaaya blinked and rubbed her eyes in disbelief.

There was nothing left. That's how she would describe what she had seen. From where she was, she could see the largest platform where the village church was, the two spires in the gate had fallen and one of the bell towers had collapsed. The stone walls were black from the fire that had engulfed it. Burned roofs everywhere and here and there a crater could be seen. She saw smoke rising from the embers left by the inferno.

Slowly trying to gulp her fear down, Nefaaya walked towards the destroyed village. To her home. Her eyes searched for that one particular house where she grew, the house that had brought her so many good memories than she could ever count.

Under her feet she heard something break. She looked down. A second is all it took for Nefaaya to realize what she had stepped on.

It was bones, burned by the raging fire to almost ashes. Despite its blackness she could still see some flesh clinging to its ribs. A wind blows at them, and with it the smell of roasted flesh. She pulled back and avoided looking at the burnt person as she covered his nose. But she couldn't help but to felt her stomach pulling back.

Beside her, Renaeril put his hand on her back.

"Do you want to find your mother?" He asked.

She glared at him. He stepped backwards, ashamed of what he had said.

"Sorry," he said.

Nefaaya stood and looked straight on the horizon, the sun was now setting. She thought it would be just an hour before night enveloped this place.

Her father used to tell her about the wolves in the forest, she knew that she couldn't let the night approach without doing something for all the dead. She cannot let them be food for the dogs.

"We have to do something for them," she announced. She searched around where she could build a mass grave for everyone. There was no time to identify who they're right now. What the village folk needed was a place where they could finally rest. "We need to bury them before the day ends."

She looked at Renaeril, she saw in his eyes that he wanted to tell more but instead of talking he just nodded his head. She felt sorry for what she did to him earlier.

Nefaaya had chosen the place where the village chapel was. She asked Renaeril to create a huge pit using Pulling where everyone could fit. While she busied herself at finding the bones of the dead villagers.

Inside of what used to be their neighbor's house, she found three sets of bones. Perhaps this was the mother and her twin son. Based on how they looked, the three had hugged one another as disaster descended on them. Nefaaya wondered how the mother had managed to cling to her sons despite the fire killing them on all sides.

She raised her hand, and used the wind to carry the bones to the pit. She didn't want to touch them, not because she was disgusted. She knew that the moment she touched them, she would feel sorry and cry. She didn't want to cry, right now what she needed was to remember.

"Remember and make them pay for what they did," she said and whispered, "only the fools wouldn't want revenge."

Before the creeping darkness enveloped the village, Renaeril and Nefaaya had managed to bury all the villagers.

When Nefaaya had come upon to the remains of her mother, she decided that she had to carry her bones with her own hands. A sign of respect and of a promise to make the people who did this to her pay. Renaeril looked at her but decided not to say anything as she carefully put her mother's bone in the grave. And when she stumbled upon Renaeril's mother, she told the boy about it. But Renaeril shook his head

"I can't," he said. "Please." He looked down on his boots as if he was ashamed of himself. And so Nefaaya decided to carry the task herself.

The two stood together as they finished putting the last soil in the grave. The skyline had already turned gray, Nefaaya stared at the shadows of the mountain, slowly looming in the flat lands below. Behind them the trees continued to burn, casting a shadow similar to a monster dancing in the night.

"Should we say a prayer," Renaeril asked.

"Do you know one?"

Renaeril nodded and put his hands on his chest as he started whispering something. The silent prayer had lasted for almost a minute before he raised his hand and started singing.

Nefaaya's eyes widened, she wanted to ask why Renaeril was singing but as she listened to the song she once again caught in her own loneliness.

*You would be carry to a place with no pain*

*Peace had finally come to you*

*Over field of red poppies, waving roses and of eternal sunrise, your soul would lay*

*But I still wish to see you one last time*

*For you're the only one I cannot forgot*

*Whisper to me one last time*

*Look for me as you crossed the Rivers Of Memories*

Tears escaped her eyes, but this time she didn't look down, instead she held her head high.

Later that night they decided to camp in the least damaged house, which is to say the house that still held its wall but without a roof.

Nefaaya casted a fire from the woods that she scurried while Renaeril had tried his hands in finding food, but to no avail they hadn't got anything aside from ashen water in the nearby well.

They sat across one another in the fire, it was already half of the spring, but the clouds above were heavy with rain, the two could only wish that it wouldn't fall.

Neither of them talked throughout the night until Renaeril stood. She followed him with her eyes before she could no longer see him.

A minute later he came back carrying something that she least expected to see. He reached it to her.

Nefaaya's eyes widened and her lips quivered, despite the leather cover being much darker than what it was before she couldn't be wrong. This was her mother's grimoire. She already gave up on all possibilities of finding it when she saw the condition of the village.

"I don't intend to search your house," he started. "But I was trying to search for food in every storage when I saw this under a broken table in your house. I figured ou-"

She didn't wait for him to finish, she grabbed the book and looked at him.

"Thank you."

Renaeril smiled and sat back to his seat.

After an hour of drinking nothing but hot water. The two decided to go to sleep.

Nefaaya rests with her hands as her pillow. She observed the night sky as she slowly drifted to sleep.

But somehow, she finds herself waking at the sound of uncanny scratching coming outside the broken house.