by Lola StVil
She points to Carla, and I think I understand. She wants to sit on my hand like her friend is sitting on Carla’s hand. I raise my hand slowly, not wanting to startle her, but if she feels any fear of me, she doesn’t show it. She waits until my hand is right up in front of me and then she perches on it.
Her weight is barely noticeable; all I feel is a little warm patch that confirms she is indeed seated. I study her, and she looks back at me, taking me in with her tiny little blue eyes. Her hair is a shock of golden curls that look like silk, and I resist the urge to reach out and touch her. Her pink dress shimmers as though it’s catching the sunlight, even though there is no sunlight here.
“Hi,” I say quietly.
She waves at me and giggles, a sweet high-pitched sound that makes me want to giggle with her. I can’t resist her anymore, and I reach up with my other hand and gently stroke her. She giggles again, like my touch tickles her. She curls into my touch.
I feel tiny warm patches descending on me, all over my shoulders and arms as other fairies land on me and sit there. A couple even land on my head. I glance to my left and then my right. The fairies adorn all of the others too, and all of them are as transfixed by the creatures as I am.
“What are such lovely creatures as you doing in a place like this?” I whisper.
“We are the final test,” the fairy on my hand replies, her voice soft and squeaky.
It’s so adorable I want to hug her, but I don’t in case I hurt her as she’s so delicate.
“You do not belong here.”
My heart skips a beat. How can she know? Is the glamor not working?
“Why do you say that?” I ask her.
“Because you still have hope. And I know this because you are seeing us as delightful little fairies, rather than as our true forms. You are trying to penetrate the Land of Lost Souls, and yet you are not a lost soul. None of you are. And we must see to it that you are ended.”
She floats up off my hand, and all of the other fairies follow suit. I swallow hard. There’s something sinister about them now, and I want to kick myself for thinking that such beautiful, happy creatures could exist in a place like this.
The fairies line up facing us, hovering in the air at face height. None of us move or say anything as we try to work out what the hell happened here.
“You will all die here today,” the fairy says.
As I watch, the fairies begin to change into ferocious birds, their black feathers spiky and vicious. Their eyes are black beads, and their claws and beaks look razor-sharp.
“Attack,” one of them screams.
And they do. They hurl themselves at us as one, their claws and beaks digging into us. I am instantly engulfed by the swarm of birds that come at me. I can feel their claws digging into my arms, my shoulders, and my head. They peck cruelly at my body, taking lumps of flesh from me. I can already feel blood soaking through my clothes.
One of them is tangled up in my hair, and it tries to fly towards the sky, dragging my hair with it. My scalp burns. I swat at the birds, trying and failing to dislodge them as another wave of them comes towards me. I fire into the newly approaching ones. One of them squawks and then falls to the ground in a pile of smoking ashes and black sludge. So at least they can be killed. But there’s just so damn many of them.
One gets closer to me, hovering in front of my face, pecking its beak towards me. I realize with horror it’s trying to peck my eyes out. I jump back from it, but it follows.
“Get on the ground and roll,” I hear Perry shout. “Squash them.”
I don’t need telling twice. I throw myself onto the ground and begin to roll. I retch several times as I feel bones snapping beneath me and the hot sludge from their squashed and broken bodies soaking into my clothes. I keep going though, until no more razor-sharp pinches come.
I get to my feet. The surviving birds have gone. The team stands there, all equally shocked by what just happened. We’re all bleeding from various places. None of the wounds are serious, but they sting like hell, and it’s not good to be losing so much blood.
Regal has already begun healing, starting with Saudia.
“What the hell just happened?” Langston says.
It hits me.
“It’s what Marianna warned us about,” I say excitedly to Perry. “Remember? She told us if we got here, that nothing is as it seems.”
He nods. “I remember. I thought she was just trying to sound ominous or wise or whatever, but she was actually warning us.”
I’m the last to be healed, and as my final wound closes up, I sigh.
“Let’s push on. And not trust anything else we see.”
We’ve been walking for about half an hour when the ground shakes beneath us suddenly. Large metal bars rise from the ground, and I jump quickly to one side to avoid being impaled. The team is surrounded by the bars, imprisoned in a cage, with only me on the outside of it.
I reach out to grab one of the bars to shake it.
“Don’t,” Carla shouts. “They’re not real bars. Nothing is as it seems, remember? They’re lasers. They’ll cut you to shreds.”
“So what do we do then?” Perry says.
“Stand back. I’ll try and blast them away,” I say.
“I wouldn’t bother if I were you, Atlas. We both know it won’t be that easy,” says an all-too-familiar voice from behind me.
The voice breaks something inside of me, and I am already defeated when I turn to face him.
“Talon,” I say.
“Surprised to see me?” Talon grins. “Of course you are. You believed the stories, didn’t you? How Kane killed me because he couldn’t bear what I’d done to his precious little girlfriend. I’ll admit, that was his plan when he first came to me that night, but we ended up talking instead.
“I made him remember, Atlas. I made him remember that he is my brother. I made him remember that humanity sucks. And I made him remember who he is. You never even suspected a thing, did you? It didn’t occur to you that this could all be a trick.
“Well, surprise. Kane didn’t kill me, but he made sure a few people thought he had. People who he knew would talk. And talk they did. We knew that with a few choice words to the right people that you’d work out Kane had come here. And so we lay in wait for you, baiting you.
“You know, Kane thought you hold back when you heard Marianna’s price, but you didn’t. Maybe instead of trying to have you killed, Arken should be trying to recruit you. You’d make an excellent demon, Keysu even. You’re cold and ruthless, and you’ll do anything to win. All excellent character traits. But alas, your naivety and your belief in people changing have been your undoing.
“Now, I will finish what I started and end you. And the world shall belong to Arken, me, and Kane, and to everyone else you would condemn as evil.”
I am still so stunned I don’t know what to say or do. I can’t think, I can’t move. I force myself to calm down. It’s hard, but I have to think through the fog of despair I feel at Talon’s words.
Would Kane really go back to Talon?
Maybe once he would have. If he had thought we were over.
But not after what Talon did to me. It wouldn’t happen.
Surely it wouldn’t.
But then if Kane went dark from thinking I would abandon him, maybe Talon could have lured him back.
And the plan Talon describes makes a certain kind of sense.
It explains why Arken hasn’t appointed a new Keysu.
Because the old one is still alive, and Arken knew his plan and covered for him by coming up with some bullshit story about not needing another Keysu.
I can’t let myself believe this story. I don’t know how Talon survived really, or how he came to be here at the same time as Kane, but I refuse to believe Kane would betray me like this.
“Bullshit,” I say. “You’re still just the same sad, pathetic little loser who can’t accept he’s trapped in the past and his friend has moved on without him.”
>
Talon laughs.
“You still think that’s true, Atlas? After everything you’ve seen? Everything you’ve experienced? Kane allowed himself to be sucked into your world for a time. You gave him something dangerous. Something that could really break him. Hope. And for a time there, it was touch and go; I’ll give you that. I really began to think he’d changed fundamentally, and I’d never get him back.
“But you were just a phase. He couldn’t hide who he really was forever, and he didn’t want to. He didn’t want to be with someone who wanted to change him. And when he realized that, he came back to me. And now he’s the same old Kane. The one who would take great pleasure in killing you because you got into his head. But you know what? Kane and I might be brothers again, but I haven’t forgotten how he betrayed me. How he came so close to killing me for you. So instead, I’ll be killing you. But know this. I do it with his blessing, and I do it in his name.”
Just like that, all of the fight goes out of me. The hope I had fizzles out leaving only misery and despair. I could fight Talon and win, but I don’t want to. Not anymore. I don’t want to live in a world where Kane hates me. Even when he was the Keysu, he didn’t hate me.
“Enough talk.” Talon grins. “Let’s end this.”
I turn back to the team. They are watching in horrified fascination, the same as I am.
Do they too see we’ve been tricked into coming here?
Do they know?
Kane betrayed me.
He doesn't love me anymore.
He hates me.
Do they hate me too?
“I’m sorry, guys,” I say.
I turn back to Talon, and the first of his shots hits me in the thigh. I don’t attempt to dodge the shot or to fire back.
“Atlas, fight him. You know this is fucking BULLSHIT! Kane loves you. He has chosen you over and over again. He’s gone against everything he thought he was for you,” Saudia shouts.
Another shot gets the same thigh, and I crumple to the ground in searing pain, cradling my leg. Saudia is shouting something else, but I can’t hear her over the rushing of blood in my ears. Something about her words gets through to me though. She can see what I saw.
I ask myself a question:
Is it more likely that Talon is lying or that Kane has betrayed me?
When I break the issue down to that one simple statement, the answer is clear.
Talon is lying to me.
He circles me now, savoring my pain and my defeat.
Enjoy it, buddy, ’cause it isn’t going to last. I swallow hard and grit my teeth against the pain and drag myself back to my feet. Blood runs down my injured leg, and it hurts like a bastard whenever I put any weight on it, but I’m doing it.
I fire at Talon. He laughs and dodges the shot.
“Finally found your fighting spirit, huh? Let me tell you one more thing before one of us ends this. When Kane and I finally reunited, I admit I was wary. I mean, can you ever trust someone who tried to kill you? To prove his loyalty to me, we completed a blood oath. So if you kill me, you kill him. I just thought you’d like to know.”
The fight goes out of me again. I can’t risk it being true. Talon laughs his ugly laugh and fires at my stomach. I go down, my hands clutched to the bleeding wound. I can hear the team screaming my name, but they might as well be on another planet for all the effect their cries have on me. I won’t get back up. I won’t attack. I won’t kill Kane, even secondhand.
I hear a scream then, a female scream full of such agony I almost feel it myself. I lift my head up. Talon stands over me, that evil grin on his face. Someone runs up behind him. Someone whose face is so mutilated and torn I wouldn’t know who it was if it wasn’t for her hair. Rachel.
She slams into Talon, knocking him to the ground and landing heavily on top of him. The whole team is seconds behind her. Carla pushes Rachel to one side and presses her hand around Talon’s throat. Her eyes go black as she looks into his and she releases her grip when she has him under her control.
“Show your true self,” she demands.
Talon’s face melts away, and in its place is the face of a wolf. A wolf’s head forms, still attached to a human body.
What the actual fuck?
Regal is by my side, running his hands over me, healing my wounds.
“Nothing is as it seems here, Atlas. That wasn’t Talon. Talon is dead, and Kane killed him. For you. Never forget that.”
“How did you get out of the cage?” I ask, feeling too dazed to take in the enormity of what Regal is telling me.
“As soon as Rachel ran through the lasers, they faded away.”
Oh my god. Rachel. Her face.
I sit up and gently push Regal away. He frowns.
“Rachel. Her face. Regal, help her,” I say.
Carla has dragged the man-wolf thing to its feet, and I stagger to mine.
“He’s all yours.” Carla grins.
I look him in the eye.
“This is for making me doubt Kane, even if it was only for a second,” I hiss through gritted teeth.
I fire from both palms, straight into his face, and his head explodes in a mess of black sludge and chunks of fur.
Rachel has been healed and is back on her feet. I go to her and pull her into a hug.
“Thank you,” I say.
She hugs me back briefly and then she shrugs and smiles at me.
“I had to prove I was useful for something, didn’t I?”
“Well, you certainly did that in style,” I say. “I can’t believe I got so suckered into that.”
“That’s what this place does to you,” Regal says.
“Only those who have lost all hope come here generally, so when the land senses hope, it tries to break it. Just like the guards.”
“I’m not falling for that shit again. I’m almost at the point where I’m ready to just walk through and blast anyone I see,” I say.
Regal frowns and I laugh.
“I’m kidding, relax,” I say.
I’m not—I do feel that way, but I’m not actually going to do it, so it’s best the team thinks I’m joking rather than think I’m a bit of a psycho. I don’t wait around to discuss it any further. I start to walk, fast and with purpose. Screw being afraid and uncertain. We need to get this shit done and get out of here.
“So much for you boys being our knights in shining armor back there,” Rachel says as we walk.
Her tone is light. She’s not accusing them of anything; she’s just winding them up.
“Funny you should say that, Rachel, because you don’t exactly strike me as the damsel in distress type of girl,” Regal says.
“Hey,” Rachel fires back, mock offended. “I’ll have you know I can flutter my eyelashes with the best of them. They don’t know that the eyes behind them are deadly weapons. Well, at least the ones I like don’t.”
We are almost at the edge of the valley when a movement to my right catches my eye. I look along, and I feel my stomach roll over, and my heart skips a beat. Kane stands there, not thirty feet away from me. He has his back to me, but I know it’s him.
I start to run, but hands grab me from behind, pulling me back. I turn, ready to fight, but I see Langston, and I drop my hands.
“Atlas, wait. It could be another trick,” she says.
I shake my head.
“It’s not. I know it’s not. Langston, what Kane and I have is true love. You saw the proof of that the same as the rest of us. And I would know Kane anywhere. It’s him, I swear it.”
She releases her grip on me although she still looks wary. I don’t wait around for her to change her mind. I run towards Kane again. He must hear me coming because he turns around. I am almost to him when I slam into something as hard as a brick wall. I fly backward through the air and land hard on my ass.
“There’s a force field around him,” Perry says.
Thanks for that, Captain Obvious.
I get back to my feet, rubbing my coccyx.
/>
“Kane,” I shout. “We’re going to get you out.”
My excitement at seeing him turns to heartbreak as he looks me in the eye, shakes his head, and then turns his back to me.
The weak fall...But the strong remain
and will never go under
—Anne Frank
I can’t believe she’s here. That she actually came to this shit hole looking for me. Part of me knew she would, but part of me thought she wouldn’t. She looks amazing, and I want nothing more than to go to her and hold her and tell her I love her, but I don’t. I can’t. The force field stops me, but it’s not just that. I couldn’t do it anyway, because if I held her, I’d never be able to let her go.
Instead, I force myself to turn away from her, but not before I see the hurt look in her eyes when I shun her. I knew it would be hard if she turned up and I had to do this, but fuck, I didn’t think it would be this hard. My resolve that has strengthened and weakened on and off the whole time I have been here is just gone now that she’s standing there in front of me—and not just her but the whole damn team.
So now I’m dark and weak.
Isn’t that just fucking great?
I know I have to focus on something else, anything else, and my mind wanders back to this predicament I’ve gotten myself into.
I don’t know how much time has passed since I came here. Time is nothing more than a distant memory now. There is no night or day here; it’s always just the same gray color, and there are no clocks and no routine to work out how the time is passing. It’s just a constant, mindless stream of gray and pain, pain and gray.
It could have been minutes, hours, days, months… Who knows? I feel like I’ve been here forever, but the fact that Atlas and the team are here tells me it can’t have been more than a few hours. Otherwise, they would already know what I did, and they wouldn’t be here. But if they don’t know what I did, how did they know to look for me, and how did they know to come here?