The Midnight Before Me

by Elizabeth Lo

  You got me to talk too much… I shouldn’t have said anything. Sucre’s tail lashes across the ground, and his ear twitches. And this is why I won’t be teaching you anything else about the curse from now on.

  He then goes silent, avoiding my gaze. I feel a pang in my chest seeing the forlorn look in his eyes.

  No. I shouldn’t be like this. I shouldn’t show this side of me to others.

  As if in response to my outburst, our friend, the obnoxious bumble bee, chooses this moment to buzz in again with full obnoxiousness into our ears.

  I knew it, Sucre hisses. His ears flatten against his head. I thought I heard him… Sneaky pilot… And he has a co-pilot?

  Sucre curses like an old-time sailor again with words that I didn’t even know exist, and I Teleport onto his lowered back. He gives a small growl as he takes a moment to eye the plane in the sky.

  A fast rush of air almost knocks me off his back. When I look behind me, I can see the ground leaving us, and the height sends a wave of excitement and mortal terror through me.

  The plane is so loud my head starts to rattle.

  Sucre starts tilting from side to side in exhaustion. His momentum slows, and with every bit of speed he loses, the louder the engine of the plane sounds in our ears. I can only hope they don’t shoot me at this point. I’m sure this lone plane has called for backup already. We have to get out of its sights before they arrive.

  Somehow.

  It’s like a nightmare. Moving slowly and painfully sluggish while my pursuer moves exponentially faster. We have no hope of outrunning them.

  However, as slow as I feel we are going, the edge of a cliff up ahead appears unexpectedly in the horizon. I can tell it’s a cliff because the ground ends in this jagged line against the cloudy gray of the sky and instead of a horizon, I see the edge of the world in front of me.

  And as untimely as ever, Sucre is also going down and down again, the trees outstretching their arms in an attempt to catch us. He didn’t recover as fast as he pretended to.

  The rocky edge is merely a few paces away, and we are low enough for me to make out every single dusty pebble lying on the hard rocky ground.

  Sucre tries to keep flying higher, but I feel the strain in his muscles and the wheezing of his tired breath.

  Inevitably, we go past the edge of the cliff, the ground whooshing behind us as we’re faced with a jagged vertical drop, perhaps a hundred feet downwards. There’s just a small pond at the bottom right before the sea of trees continues once more into the horizon. I was a studious enough student to know that we’ll have about… two seconds to start flying again or we’re doomed.

  A cough wheezes from Sucre’s body as he starts to bob in the air.

  And then… we’re falling.

  Plummeting to the ground, our only momentum being downwards, careening towards a tiny little pond below.

  Air whistles through my hair, roaring in my ears, slamming into my body, yet pushing me further and further downwards.

  The plane is circling us like a hawk. Fear courses through my veins, and my brain spins in haste to try and come up with a solution to save us.

  Feeling the wind slipping through my fingers, I yell as I beg the air to push harder and harder on me upwards, pushing up on Sucre as well. The wind answers my call and forms a momentary net for us, propelled by nothing but magic from my hands.

  Sucre’s half-conscious from what I can see, his eyelids flickering faintly—either from the wind or from his fatigue, I’m not sure. His magic presence has gone down to a flicker of magic—he really is weak right now. I’m sure trying to recover from being burned alive just minutes ago has its impacts. But still… He should have more magic than this.

  “Sucre!” I yell, but he flounders in the air like a toddler in the deep end of a lagoon.

  Air can only keep a cat the size of a house up in the air for so long. My hands are full of pressure now from exerting this much magic through them.

  I can barely feel my limbs. The pilot is getting closer. I can hear the whir of his propeller getting louder and louder, but somehow it sounds erratic.

  Never mind that—I can’t hold both of us any longer.

  I have no choice. A scream erupts from my throat as I put all the thrust possible against the giant mass that is Sucre, giving me an extra boost down to waiting ground.

  I’m falling to my death now.

  But it’s okay. I’ll just come back again.

  I’ll just… come back again.

  I can see the pilot aiming his nose down at me from the sky. My eyes close, and I wait for it to be over with. Despite the many times I have died, it always hurts. Always. I can taste my own fear as I careen downwards.

  The tremor in the air from the twirling propeller stills. Right before I close my eyes to prepare for the impact, I see a small shape jump out of the plane.

  No. Don’t come with me. Only I have to die. Just me.

  A sudden surge of magic fills my body, my vision turns such an intense shade of fuchsia that I all I see for a second is a solid screen of dark pink. An odd sensation overwhelms me. Something is different this time.

  I vaguely sense arms wrapping around me.

  The impact with the ground comes quicker than I thought, knocking the breath out of my chest. At least it wasn’t as harsh as I imagined it to be…

  Somewhere else, off in the distance from the pond, I’m now falling through the sky again. It looks like it was successful. I’ve resurrected. To get some height, I Teleport into the sky—a big magic no-no, as you can only Teleport to places where you can judge the distance, but… at least I’m here in one piece.

  I can’t see my dead body as I’m falling through wispy white clouds hoping Sucre will catch me and I won’t die again. I can’t feel my body, but I know I’m in pain.

  Breathing is hard. Moving is impossible. Everything seems so exhausted. This happens every time I resurrect. I feel as dead as I should be.

  It’s okay. After a few hours, I’ll be back to being a normal functioning human. Or… whatever it is that I am.

  Just wait for Sucre to catch me…

  Right on cue, I’m jolted painfully by a large, moving pink cloud, the bones of a much-larger spine clashing with mine, and I finally lose my grip on consciousness.

  Chapter Eight

  Midnight

  “Wake up, Sleeping Beauty. I’m not gonna wait all day, you know.”

  A bright flood of light bombards my senses. I feel as if I’ve just blinked. First I was there, falling through the air, and then, when I open my eyes, I’m here staring at bright, beautiful emerald trees swaying above me, their leaves catching the golden light of the sun above me. The scene would almost be surreal if there wasn’t grass pricking through the fabric of my itchy, wet clothes.

  My first thought is the realization that I’m not dead. My second thought, surprisingly enough, is that a person who I can only assume is the pilot from before, is sitting peacefully against a tree, soaking wet, in a uniform stained with blood.

  But if this is that pilot… I jerk up into a sitting position. Blobs of orange and blue blot my vision, and before I know it, I fall right back down again.

  “Where…?” More spots appear in my vision as I twirl my head in all directions. “Sucre?”

  Didn’t I make it to Sucre safely? Or was that my imagination?

  No. I’m still flying on the back of Sucre right now. Flying slowly, but still flying. And yet… how am I here too? Am I… conscious in two different places at once?

  Where am I?

  My left side is sore and stiff. I can’t move my right hand; it looks as if I smashed it against a wall a thousand times at all angles with purple and red blotting it all over. My clothes are almost nonexistent, with jagged edges cut out. I would blush, but the pilot doesn’t even seem to notice.

  I feel like I’ve run a marathon without a day of training. My black and blue arm is proof of overexertion. The pressure of using so much magic in that compresse
d period of time caused some of the veins and arteries in my arm to rupture.

  This is the body that I had sacrificed so that Sucre and the resurrected me could escape the very pilot sitting here. The body I thought had died at the bottom of the cliff.

  Which means… I didn’t actually die.

  I… duplicated into two living bodies.

  I can feel where my other body is… No. I can feel both bodies. It’s all so confusing. But they’re both my consciousness. I control both bodies… there isn’t two of me… it’s me but split across two.

  But why? How am I here? The resurrection only occurs when I die… right?

  The pilot sighs, surprising me, and stands up. My stomach drops at his icy face as he towers over me.

  “As fun as drowning in a pond at the bottom of a cliff was, we can’t really sit out here in the middle of the woods forever, you know.” He smiles at me cheerfully, but it only makes him seem kind of scary. Just something about him has a very… grim feel to it.

  He would look maybe in his early twenties if it weren’t for his sharp, uncaring gaze and the guarded expression he wears like an iron mask.

  “Where are we?” I ask.

  He flicks a knife-like gaze to me.

  “Near the bottom of the cliff. Look.” He points off to the side, and as I follow his finger, I can just barely see the rocky wall blocking the sunlight through the intertwining trees. “That right there is Hadrien’s Ridge. You didn’t know?”

  I shake my head. “Geography… is not my strong suit.”

  But wow… I’m really, really soaked. Water is still dripping down my silvery hair, and my clothes cling uncomfortably to my body. Behind me is a distinct damp patch of earth in the blobby shape of me. Just feeling everything like this… is proof that somehow, I’m still alive.

  “Are you listening?” His voice catches my attention again. “I said I know a place where we can camp out for a time to recover.”

  “Um… Y-yeah.” My voice barely comes out. I clear my throat and try again. “Um… Thank you. For… saving me.”

  And instead of those cold eyes, I catch the faintest trace of a smile.

  How am I still alive? If I remember correctly, I did fall off of that cliff, and it was a pretty big drop. If I’m not dead, I would at least have a few more broken bones and lot more injuries than just a magically ruptured arm.

  The pilot offers a hand to me, and I reluctantly take it. My body isn’t moving the way I want it to right now.

  “What’s your name?” I ask out of formality.

  “Lafayette Falcon, at your service.”

  “Nice to meet you.”

  “Kind of,” he says, his voice light like a feather.

  “I’m Midnight… Midnight Thunder.”

  “Yeah.”

  He glances at me, and I flick my gaze away to study the swaying trees.

  “So… What happened?” I try.

  “I should be asking you that, don’t you think?”

  “I mean like, how am I not dead?”

  “I caught you on my way out of my plane.” He says it like we just had a casual walk in the park.

  “Can I ask why you saved me then?” I ask.

  He just purses his lips and looks at the ground.

  “I guess I just felt like it,” he says, looking away.

  A rather unsatisfying answer. But the conversation ends right there.

  We drag my weak body along the forest for a few minutes. Lafayette looks like he knows where he’s going since he’s walking so fast. I’m just stumbling along with him.

  Even from here, the tops of the trees block the top of the cliff. The sky above us seems so far away, and although sunlight still pours in from above us, the cliff is like a barrier from the rest of the world.

  So… it wasn’t my imagination. I really did fall.

  I don’t have much knowledge on the military to know what sort of positions there are, but I highly doubt there’s a position for a specialized solo pilot exempt from wearing a helmet during flight.

  He looks like a soldier… except his hair is about a couple inches too long, haphazardly parted to the side. His clothes are those of a high-ranking officer about to go to a meeting… if you ignore the rust-colored camouflage on his sleeves.

  And as we keep going, I keep smelling it off of him too.

  Blood.

  Metallic and fresh… it’s sticking to him. I’m not bleeding, and neither is he—so whose is it?

  “Um… Why were you chasing us, by the way?” I say, to distract myself from his clothes.

  “Chasing…? Oh. Well… it’s my duty, I guess.”

  I guess?

  He continues to lead the way, unfazed. I’m just starting to find enough strength to walk in a mostly straight line around the time that we also come across a small cave.

  I don’t immediately realize that it’s a cave. At first, I just think it’s just a blanket of camouflage hanging from a wall like a tapestry. But then, Lafayette steps forward and pulls the edge of the cloth to the side, revealing a large mouth into a small shelter. Immediately, he twists and disappears in the cover only to reappear again to tie the cloth off to the side before going straight back into the cave, a strange haste to his steps as if he’s eager to cease having contact with me.

  From the looks of it, this is a shorter part of Hadrien’s Ridge where it’s now only a little more than twice Lafayette’s height. I lean myself against the wall, watching him as he starts to dart around and get his bearings. Why is this person, who just moments ago was trying to chase me to the ends of the earth, now helping me?

  In the first place, I’m still trying to wrap my head around why I’m not dead. Does that mean that “death” isn’t actually a condition for my curse? But then… what is? Near death? The thought of dying?

  “Midnight, come here,” he says, breaking the silence.

  I walk in and adjust my eyes to the dark. All I see, at first, are a bunch of dark boxes pushed against the walls. Lafayette pops one open, pulls out a couple of things, and strides over to me. He holds out his hand, but for a second, I just stare at it in confusion.

  “Give me your arm,” he finally says.

  “Oh.” I comply, and he takes a compression bandage roll and wraps my arm with surprising care.

  He finishes as abruptly as he started, handing me a bundle of something and walking away to shroud himself in the darkness of the cave. Not in a dangerous way… more like he’s just trying to hide.

  “You can use that,” he calls back as he starts looking through other boxes.

  The bundle he gave me contains a sleeping bag packed down into the tiniest possible shape it can be, a towel, and a small pair of dry clothes. I lay the sleeping bag out on the floor and wait.

  And nothing happens. He pulls out some more stuff from the boxes, one of which I recognize to be an entire clean set of clothes in an airtight bag. A silence ensues between us.

  When he turns around and sees me still standing next to the sleeping bag, he sighs.

  “Just use it already,” he says.

  “Why?”

  “Because you need to sleep? Not to mention, you’re soaking wet. Here, I’ll step out and leave you alone for a bit.”

  I meant why was he helping me, but before I can clarify, he starts to stride out of the cave.

  “Why do you smell like blood?” I blurt out before I can stop myself.

  He literally freezes in place, his foot already halfway out the exit and his eyes transfixed on the ground.

  “I-I need to go out,” he says finally, and he disappears before I can ask him any more.

  Still, the world is swaying, and a headache pounds through my head. I’m barely conscious. I change while he’s gone, and the sleeping bag, with its own built-in pillow, feels like a little cloud pocket enveloping me.

  There’s something off with this soldier, for sure.

  Chapter Nine

  Lafayette

  Her eyes glow faintly in the d
ark whenever they watch him. They’re as intense as he remembers. Well, really, as intense as Orion remembers. Lafayette himself had never met her before, but for the first time in years, he feels slightly flustered.

  It’s the evening now—the time of the day that can trick people into thinking it’s really the night. Every sound in this silent cave makes him quiver.

  The massacre was only this morning, but it feels like it happened ages ago. All that’s left of it is its weight still resting on his back and the stress it has put on both him and Orion.

  Only hours ago, the spirit was screaming in Lafayette’s mind during his little rampage from the plane incident. It was a rare moment for Orion. He’s at least gone quiet so Lafayette can think clearly again, but his presence is enough to make Lafayette feel a little reluctant to approach Midnight. He just can’t bring himself to look her in the face.

  She’s short and young-looking. Thin and almost ghostly, but something about her feels… hollow.

  In fact, she’s still fast asleep now, oblivious to any danger whatsoever. It’s relaxing just to watch the slow and steady rise and fall of her breath. It’s a little metronome he can look back towards to make sure time is still passing because the air at the moment is frighteningly still.

  While chasing her, he felt a surge of magic and a quick flash of light near the bottom of the cliff. After using such large spells like that wind trick to push the entire nuagepanthère back into the air, it would be unnatural if she wasn’t sleeping now. He’s seen how the military magicians all slept like logs after a battle of intense casting—magic isn’t easy.

  Sighing, he leans back against the wall, closing his eyes.

  A rustle of fabric promptly causes him to open them again. Midnight rises from her spot in the sleeping bag, seeming to have regained some strength. Though it’s hard to tell in the thin lighting, some color appears to have returned to her face.

  “Good evening,” he says casually, pulling himself back up and putting his mask back on.

  “Evening,” she says quietly, her eyes remaining on him for a long time. She was already an inquisitive type, but her stare makes him uncomfortable. It makes him feel as if she can see right through him. Fortunately, she catches his eye and looks away.