Chapter 7 Elegance in Human Form #2
“I don’t know,” I said, desperate to make sense of it all. “I think that’s the point of all of this—to push us beyond our limits. Yesterday, I couldn’t have done it. But in a life-or-death situation, you become capable of things you weren’t before.”
She stared at me in silence for a moment.
We both knew that was bullshit, but we dropped it anyway.
“I’m Skylar,” she said.
I mustered a tight-lipped smile. “Anna.”
Cody dramatically waved his hand in the air, glancing between the two of us. “I’m Cody. Nice to meet you. I didn’t save anyone, but I’m here too.”
I flashed a smirk but quickly shifted as I noticed someone behind him.
“Look,” I said. “Everson’s here.”
Isabella stirred, rubbing her eyes as she sat up.
“I feel like I slept on a cloud,” she said, stretching.
Cody looked at the rocky terrain and cast me a perturbed look.
“Wish we all shared your sentiment,” he said.
Everson made his way around the fire, taking note of everyone who made it up the cliff. Everyone fell silent and stood as he came to a stop. My body was screaming for me to stay put, but I forced myself to my feet.
“Looks like everyone had a chance to recuperate,” he said.
Someone snorted. Everson’s glare could have cut stone. After a tense pause, he moved on.
“Your body is adjusting and growing stronger every minute,” he said, his words annunciated like a military leader rallying his troops. “These tasks may seem unfair but skipping them would be a far crueler fate.”
Crueler? How? I almost froze to death, then nearly fell off a cliff. But, yeah, sure, letting me in would’ve been crueler. Whatever.
The guy from before, the one called Eli who had challenged Everson, was mirroring my thoughts in his expression. He was about to say something when the dark-haired girl with the long braid punched him in the bicep.
He flinched, shooting her an irritable look.
If we’d been in any other situation, I might’ve thought it was cute.
Everson didn’t seem to notice them and droned on some more. “Most of the other recruits have returned home. Unfortunately, many were lost in each of the tasks. It was a risk they were prepared for and chose to take.”
Only the wind and the crackling of the fire sounded across the night.
What could be crueler than death?
“There is one final task,” Everson continued.
“At Nightfall, only the most dedicated and determined students can join our society. If you have any doubt, this task will bring you to the end of your journey. There is only one way to enter The Summits at Nightfall—by trusting that this is the right path for you. You will understand if you make it to the end. Some of you will find this task the easiest, while others will find it the most difficult. Should you successfully pass, your admittance is final. If you still wish to proceed—follow me.”
He took one of the torches burning nearby and headed for the pine forest. We followed him beneath the starlit sky where the aurora still shimmered above.
As we climbed to the peak, snow started to fall.
The glow of light ahead set off a murmur as we trailed behind Everson, the mist thickening as the forest grew denser.
“It’s getting hard to see,” I whispered, glancing at Isabella. “I can’t see Everson anymore.”
“Me either,” she muttered.
Everson’s words echoed in my mind.
By trusting that this is the right path for you.
“What do you think he meant by all that?” I whispered.
The mist was denser now and I couldn’t see the other recruits. I glanced at Isabella when she didn’t answer and halted my steps immediately.
She was gone.
I looked around for Cody, who’d been right next to us, and he was gone too.
“Cody? Isabella?” I called.
The mist had formed into an ominous shroud so thick I couldn’t see my feet. What was this? Trepidation crawled across my skin like hundreds of spiderlings scattering in their first moments of life.
I crossed my arms tightly across my chest, a shiver working through my body.
I couldn’t see anything. Every noise conjured nightmares in my mind’s eye.
A bird cawing in the night, its beak filled with fangs and talons sharpened like scythes.
What was happening to me? Was I hallucinating? Was this fog drug-laced?
I tried to breathe but only mustered short, rapid breaths, and my vision, already useless, was becoming fuzzy. My heart was thundering in my ears, and I was running, terrified and desperate to catch my breath. Then, the fog moved.
It swirled rapidly, clearing briefly before me, and reformed into something I couldn’t believe I was seeing.
It was Katie.
“Anna, this is exactly why I didn’t want you to go,” she said, her ghostly body before me as if she were truly here. Looking at me, her expression was worried.
“Please, turn back. I’m putting in an application to App State. Justin asked me to talk you into going with us,” she said, her voice hollow like the wind that howled around us.
The mist swirled, and her presence dissipated as the fog enclosed me again. I sank to the ground, drawing my knees to my forehead and wrapping my arms around my legs. There’d been a path for me there, a future I might have had—the future my mom had wanted for me.
The anxiety I felt earlier was back in full force, but now it was twisting through my body like corkscrews being driven under my skin.
Why did I come here? It was a mistake. I could feel it.
The mist swirled again, and Susan appeared before me in an ethereal form that emitted a blue glow. What was happening? I couldn’t move. I couldn’t think. I couldn’t breathe.
This wasn’t real, right?
“You understand that my sister never came home, right?” she asked.
My lids stung, and the screaming in my head crescendoed, making me bolt from my tightly coiled position, desperate for it to stop. I ran, unsure where I was going or wanted to end up. I just wanted this torture to end.
I wanted the truth.
Why I was here.
Why my mom was gone.
Where I was for a year of my life.
I wanted to know what happened to her, and nothing was going to stop me from finding out.
Not even my own mind.
When I opened my eyes, my breathing normalized.
There she was, just as I remembered her. Her hair fell like silk threads, drifting gently as if she were underwater. She smiled softly, her skin sparkling in the mist.
“Mom,” I whispered.
“Anna, you don’t have to do this,” she said.
Her voice sounded closer than the others had, as if she were here. I stretched my arm out. If I touched her, what would she feel like?
“And if I don’t?” I asked, my lips trembling.
“Derrick will keep you safe,” she said, nodding gently.
“But who will keep me safe from myself?”
Her form began to dissolve, and I rushed forward.
“No,” I gasped, but when I tried to touch her, she was gone.
I stood there, staring into the dark mist, an aching pain forming like a cage around my chest. She didn’t know it was my fault she was gone. She didn’t know that I was unstable and that at any moment, I might let in an unfathomable darkness.
No, I did have to do this.
I had to dig out whatever had taken root within me.
Even if it killed me.
“You sure about that?”
A hollow chill swept through me at the sound of his voice.
He stood before me, his gently smirking expression familiar and missed.
“Eiryn, how’re you here?”
He looked around, his face scrunching up like he smelled something foul.
“Not such a pleasant place, huh?” he mused.
“Are you real?”
He looked different from the others, like the mist had hardened, and his voice was less distant, as if he were on the other end of a phone call.
He chuckled.
“I guess it depends on what ‘real’ means,” he said.
I wanted to go to him, to feel his hugs that always made everything better, no matter how terrible I was feeling.
But I didn’t.
I didn’t want to be rescued anymore.
“What if you could go back, Anna?” Eiryn asked flippantly.
“What do you mean?” I asked. “You know it’s not safe, and I’ll never understand what’s happening to me.”
“Well,” he said, his index finger and thumb gently strumming his chin. “What if there was a way? A way for you to be safe from yourself and rest assured everyone around you was safe too?”
I stared at him.
What was this? Was my mind fucking with me? Was this some drug-induced hallucinogenic crucible meant to break us? It didn’t matter. Ultimately, none of that was why I came here.
It was true that I felt like a threat to everyone I cared about. It was true that I didn’t trust my own mind.
But none of that was truly why.
I was here because I needed to know.
I needed to know who I was, who my mom was, and why what happened to us happened.
I couldn’t turn my back on it, not even if I were promised the life I’d once imagined.
Not even if it meant my death.
A smirk formed on Eiryn’s lips.
“See ya, Anna,” he said, his form fading away.
I stood there, my heart beating evenly and drawing steady breaths.
The mist began to clear, and my mind was calm.
I touched the bracelet Derrick had given me, the gift from my mom I’d rejected. The emerald at the center, almost black in the darkness, felt smooth in its setting. Like me, it was alone, firmly set in place, and unyielding in what it could endure.
“Anna!”
I locked on to Isabella’s voice as her form appeared in the distance. The light of the stars silhouetted her as she ran to me.
“You made it,” she breathed.
I glanced around, noticing Cody coming up behind her.
“Have you guys been here the whole time?” I asked.
“Yeah, you disappeared!” she said. “I got turned around for a while and had to find my way through a cloud, but I followed the river.”
I blinked hard.
“River?”
“Yeah, come on,” Cody said.
I followed them, wondering if they’d seen anything like I had, but I was too scared to ask.
Taking a deep breath, I stepped beyond the woodline. Behind me was a dense thicket that I couldn’t see more than a few paces into.