The Midnight Before Me

by Elizabeth Lo

  It feels just like those cold lonely nights locked in my room all over again. What’s wrong with me? This strange aura seems to be shaking all of Hanbury. It’s making me feel hot and restless. As if I’m not alone… but not in a good way.

  The world blurs over in blue as I suddenly twist out of bed, wide awake. Sweat drips down my back, and my hands are clammy and shaky. Usually, my sleep is turbulent anyway, but never to this extent. I haven’t even dreamt yet.

  The moon is already looming high overhead. When I breathe, fog comes out. This is Hanbury, I guess. I forgot there’s a heating system I was supposed to activate. The window is still cracked open slightly, and outside is a dark and empty street with a chill throughout.

  The window doesn’t take much convincing to open, though it squeals to an annoyingly loud extent. In complete silence, even the smallest of sounds seem ten times their actual volume.

  I need to get out. Something in me feels like running and hiding all at the same time.

  I’ve barely cracked the opening enough to get through, and I bet I look less-than-graceful as I squeeze myself through the gap. It took me a little too long to remember how far the drop is, and the wind almost doesn’t catch me from smacking into the pavement.

  I realize I’ve forgotten completely about shoes or, really, anything remotely practical. I’m still in the clothes I wore during the day with Lafayette, and the image of the white chrysanthemums still burns itself in my mind.

  So even now, it’s not any more comfortable in the fresh, outside air. Similar to the way a snake seems when its scales are brushed the wrong way, the tension is tangible.

  During the night, the cheery citizens have apparently been replaced by shabby, underground people wandering the streets like zombies in the dark corners of the city. Twilight was the only time when there was barely anybody wandering the streets. Now, I have lots of company.

  My steps sway at a calm rhythm as I walk around the night, the cool breeze drying my sticky back. But I still feel off. There’s something coursing through my veins… what is it? Fear?

  Just keep walking. Maybe if I keep moving, I won’t have to face it.

  It’s just dark enough that I keep tripping over my own feet. Exercising my unique, officially named True Sight ability, I theatrically spin around in the street to get a panorama of my surroundings.

  That’s when I realize that the danger that I’ve just put myself in.

  All around me, hidden in the shadows of the night, are bodies holding two souls each. People that slink through the city like the degenerates of their society, yet if I squint hard enough, I can make out the same clothes that I saw all of the others wearing during the day.

  Is this why there’s a curfew? To hide all these double-souled people? But how is this possible in such a city? To have so many…

  “Aren’t they mysterious?” a voice asks me from behind. “Nearly mindless, without a care in the world. These are the ones that have been around almost since the beginning of the curse, so far gone in their minds that they broke eventually.”

  “But how…?”

  “It’s the dark side of Hanbury. Lots of crime… and with that came lots of executions to try and purge that crime… and…”

  I look back at the speaker.

  My blood runs cold.

  Run, is all I think.

  My cold bare feet slap the pavement. The lazy stroll I wanted this to be is now merely a dream of the night, and I have to ignore the spiking pain that comes with each step from the unforgiving edges of the cobblestone as I stride as fast as I can.

  It’s Glorieux. Glorieux, Soren, both, or all. Soren didn’t strike me as the type to make empty threats. Or at least, the version of Soren I spoke to just a few hours ago. I should’ve known they wouldn’t sit still.

  But I never expected them to try so quickly.

  Turning a corner, I retrace my steps into another open street, escaping through the dark confines of an alleyway. It’s freezing out in the open, and I shiver even in the military-grade clothes.

  Get back to the tavern, Midnight. What am I doing here anyway?

  The stones are pricking my feet, and they send shocks through my toes with every step. Keep going, keep going. Whoever’s following is getting closer.

  Heat springs up from behind me. From what?

  It gets hotter and hotter until my back goes from shivering with cold to dripping with sweat. I want to look back to see what’s going on, but I don’t want to face how close they really are.

  The warmth is rising, burning. Orange light flickers from behind me, lighting the buildings on my left and right with a sickly glow, leaving a cool blue shadow in front of me as I run.

  All right… one peek. I Teleport backwards, wrenching my stomach, but nevertheless, I somehow make it to the closest rooftop without falling off.

  Maybe because the scenery is more distracting.

  The picture is now engraved in my head: Flames. Bursting, already-shattered windows and panicking people as they flee their collapsing homes. Bright orange dancing around the town while the cool shadows laugh and feast off of the fear and destruction. A street is caught in flames, and the metal tile under my feet starts to feel like a shaking furnace. The sky’s drained of any blue or purple and has been replaced with a dirty, warm gray alight with the glow of fire. Entire streets are consumed in flames, and it only grows by the second.

  Peoples’ screams were drowned out in my panic before, but now I can hear them as crisp as a stroke on a violin, wailing and crying as if they’re right there in my ear. Some people meet the double-souled Hanburians and are attacked. Some call out the names of others, and many run from the zombies of the city.

  The walls of Hanbury are like a cage now. Everyone is trapped in this burning city.

  My heart stops in place when I sense Glorieux Teleporting behind me. She springs off the roof of the house across from me. I jump just moments before her fist can enter my abdomen, but I still feel the burn of the fire blaze past my stomach.

  “Please wait a moment—” I start, but a swing of her blazing arms silences me.

  Zip! I Teleport to the next building, spinning around wildly to catch sight of her.

  She’s simply set fire to the previous building and is already jumping off to continue the chase. I scramble from the roof tiles of this house to the next house, my breath starting to taste as acrid as the air.

  “Glorieu—”

  Searing flames scratching at my back, I burst off of one roof to the next faster than I’ve ever moved before in my life. She’s right there, her hot fiery breath inches from my back.

  Why isn’t she saying anything?

  “Stop!” I yell, but she continues to chase me.

  Faster, faster, faster…

  “You, girl!” Glorieux finally screams behind me. “You will die tonight!” A crazed laughter starts to creep into those last sentences. Different from before. More… in control.

  “Glorieux!” I call out.

  She glares at me and leaps to another building.

  “Do you really…” I pant and jump to another roof too. “Do you really hate everyone? Or is there another reason you’re doing this?”

  “Isn’t it human nature to want freedom?” she answers. Her voice hardens and growls into the night. “Isn’t it natural to save yourself?”

  “Save yourself?”

  She won’t hear anymore, dislodging roofing tiles as she lunges onto the same roof as me. When she laughs, it seems to mock the heavens.

  “Isn’t it human to want revenge?” she snarls.

  Without waiting for my answer, we both spring into action, beginning a deadly game of cat and mouse.

  All the questions in my mind boil down to one simple one.

  “Why?” I ask.

  “Why what, sweetie?” she asks her eyes alight in the flame.

  “What do you achieve out of doing this?”

  “I told you, didn—”

  “No. Doing this doesn
’t free you. And I think you know that.”

  She stops, and the fire falters, dissipating from her arms temporarily. For just a moment, she looks almost like I shot her.

  There are people running and screaming below me. I hear people crying from the inside of buildings, burning to death. I hear structures behind me groan and creak as they collapse in on themselves. All the while, the roar of the hungry flames play a fanfare in the background.

  “Then… revenge,” she says. “I want revenge.”

  “Against who?”

  She laughs.

  “These deceiving puppet masters. These people who think they can get away with pulling at other people’s strings. For taking away…” Angry tears make her eyes look even shinier than they already are. “Everything from me.”

  My heart is pounding in my chest, but I can’t let the shakiness in my voice show. I can look her in the eye now—she has no walls anymore in those reflective eyes.

  “Then… why do you want to kill me?” I ask.

  “Because you interrupted. Because you’ll continue to interrupt in what I’m doing. Yes… that’s why.”

  Ah… I see. Her eyes are not focused. They have no walls because they don’t see the world right now.

  They still don’t see me.

  “Can I ask you something?” I ask.

  Heat flushes from her mouth in response.

  “What was my mother like?” I ask. “Surely you must have known her somehow… her being Soren’s sister and all.”

  Glorieux shudders.

  “Marigold…” she mutters. “Marigold was… naïve. And…”

  “And?” I push her on.

  “And she was free…” she almost whispers into the roaring flames and the wisps of smoke that swirl around her. I watch her eyes as they search the sky.

  I take in a shaky breath.

  An unexpected bull’s-eye.

  “I see,” I say. “That’s all I needed to know.”

  She coughs and looks at the ground.

  “All you needed to know? What…” She starts shaking. “You think you have me all figured out? Do you think… you can just fix me now? You found the errors—congratulations! Congratulations!”

  I skip backwards, ready to Teleport to a fresh roof to stand on.

  “Congratulations—”

  We seem to Teleport simultaneously, and she doesn’t miss a beat.

  “—Marigold!” she screams, charging like a blinded bull.

  Wait. I got what I came here for. I can stop running now.

  And yet, I bound off to yet another roof, turning my ear slightly to the side like a hunted animal would do, so I can better hear the predator thirsting behind me. Sounds of a second pair of feet dash along the rooftop, then suddenly disappear. The pulsing aura starts to move elsewhere.

  Did I lose her?

  That primal fear is coming again, consuming me. I remember the pain. The nightmare is replaying fresh in my head while I begin to live a new one. The knife sinking into my abdomen and sucking the wind from my lungs. That knife so sharp it was almost invisible, going straight into my chest. The blood, the blood, the pain, the darkness. The fear is overwhelming.

  My legs are already screaming at me from leaping and jumping from roof to roof, using nothing but the wind to propel me. My feet are going numb from the cold of the air, yet the heat of the fire behind me doesn’t seem to make them any better. If this goes on, I won’t be able to feel the entire lower half of my body soon.

  Fire springs with my every step. Every building I touch now is set on fire.

  In a way, I’m setting fire to Hanbury.

  The rough texture of a roof digs into my feet. Glorieux is… on my right? Why?

  Up until this point, she may have been making rash decision after rash decision, jumping headfirst into every reckless venture, unpredictable in her every choice of action. Before, she was straightforward—one-track, easily thwarted plans. She could have kept trying to bulldoze me until she succeeded.

  There is something more to her attacks now.

  As if to snap me out of my thoughts, I catch her fiery figure in the corner of my eye materializing just a few feet away from me. My feet fumble over themselves, tumbling me off of the smooth roofing tiles, down into the street below.

  A blast from behind shoots me downward at breakneck speed, and wind, hot and acrid with smoke, barely catches me in time to stop me once again from turning into a Midnight pancake. The house behind me crumbles away, and now, it’s the road’s turn to torture my feet.

  The wind pushes me at my command, but I know Glorieux isn’t far behind. How is she able to move so fast? Exploding glass and dirt soar on both sides of me; I realize that I’m probably dealing with fire hot enough to cremate me if I get too close.

  She’s indeed become a magical super-being.

  I feel like my skin is about ready to melt off of my face. My feet scream at me in agony as every step threatens to dig the edge of a sharp rock into my fleshy soles. I can feel every step pound on my heels like drum beats in my head.

  Fast doesn’t seem fast enough.

  The smoke getting caught in my throat isn’t helping. I’m suffocating while breathing. Whenever I move the wind, I move the smoke, choking me more.

  I can’t breathe, I can’t breathe, I can’t breathe.

  Then it stops. The rumbling behind me fades and moves left. Did she perhaps lose interest?

  My lungs, on fire, wheeze as I slow down.

  I regret not putting on a pair of shoes when I jumped out the window. I regret not taking a nice, warm shower to wash all the sweat and dirt off of me before this hot, hellish scenario. I regret coming to Hanbury. I regret not going after Lafayette after he left the room.

  So many regrets, indeed.

  A sound increasing in volume comes from the left, and I take one look at the lady swathed in clothes of flame, then force my aching legs and burning feet to move once more in the opposite direction. This time, I really think I’ll faint as I run.

  The more I push myself with the wind, the more my throat closes in on itself. The more I try to run, the more I feel like my legs are going to buckle under me at any moment. And yet, I’ve never run this fast in my life.

  I can smell my hair burning as it trails behind me like the tail of a kite. No matter where I run, smashed buildings start appearing around corners.

  She moves erratically, chasing me in strange directions. Rights, lefts, up and down roads, one after another.

  I’m pretty sure I’m leaving footprints of blood on the ground by now as I go. Footprints that are probably turning into an inky black ichor as they are cooked within seconds under the fire, then blasted away by sheer force as Glorieux destroys every road I run down. I can see debris flying about on either side of me. Even the cobblestones are soaring past me. I’m lucky nothing fatal has smacked me upside the head yet, but I can certainly feel the spray of various bits of rock scraping away at my legs, torso, and arms.

  The chase slows. She falls far behind.

  Something’s not right.

  I finally manage to draw out a rough sketch of the path I’ve run in my head. And it’s now that I truly curse my botched sense of direction.

  While I haven’t run across the same street twice, I’ve been spiraled into one small area. She attacked from various directions to make me think it was erratic. I look down to a nearby sign on the ground.

  It reads: “P & Q Wealth Management.”

  And when I look up, it dawns on me that all the buildings in this area are tall. Multiple stories high. The roofs are all burning, making it impossible to teleport or fly to them. Meanwhile, flames hungrily consume the buildings from the bottom up. I’ve run myself into a trap.

  My instinct is once again to run, but this time, my body refuses. Attempting to jump into the air and fly, the flames of the buildings above me blow over into each other.

  No. I blew them in.

  I have to call the wind, but I can’t control wh
ere it all comes from. Fire rides down from above, brought upon me by my own hand.

  Everywhere I turn, there is nothing but fire.

  Fire, fire, everywhere. And not a stone unturned.

  At first, I panic. I remember death after death, and my stomach turns as my heart gets louder and faster.

  But then… I was going to die anyway, right?

  My throat scorches and strains itself from a scream I can’t control.

  I guess, in her own way, she sees me too. Not as an object, but as a fellow player on the field.

  For a fleeting moment, I actually wonder, with that morbid curiosity of mine, if she would actually be able to burn me to point where I won’t come back. Because I see what her plan was: to enclose. Burn me so that even when I come back, I’ll just keep burning and feeding her flame. Except, I have a duplicate already. Far from here.

  As the world begins to char away, I catch a glimpse off in the distance, as my vision begins to turn pink on its own. Little glowing orbs clumped a little close to each other in twos, watching me down the street.

  I’m dead.

  But the war has just begun.

  Chapter Eighteen

  Midnight

  In Berningdale

  My eyes snap open, and my chest hungrily sucks in air as if I’ve been holding my breath this whole time. The dusty floor of my room in Phelix’s mansion greets me in its usual stiff manner, and I feel incredibly cold all over.

  Death. Again.

  It’s an unforgettable experience. Not the death itself, of course, but the agony and fear that circulate my body nonstop in the moments right before.

  My strength has returned, but it had been split for so long, that I forgot what it was like to have one whole body like this. I really did have a split physical being…

  I can still feel the adrenaline flowing through my blood and the burn in my feet and lungs as if I’m perpetually stuck in that moment.

  Again. In a loop.

  Eventually, the acute sensations leave, though the image and memory remain like a fresh wound in my memory.