Chapter 47 Wrong Place, Wrong Time
Sapphire
We are dumped into a pile of snow in the North Sapphrine Forest.
Flecks of ice melt over my eyelids. Crunchy snow is mashed into my scalp. I blink sleepily at the pine trees crisscrossing over the winter sky.
Winter.
Ice.
Snow.
I’m barefoot, in a white patient gown. At least Niklaus has pants.
I hiss through clenched teeth and coil my sore, aching body into a tight ball as the snow melts into my back. Lifting my head, I hug my knees to my chest.
“H-h-holy shit…” I stammer. “I’m s-s-sorry. I—”
A cold hand covers my mouth. I look up at Niklaus, on his knees behind my head, eyes bolting from one side of the forest to the other. And I catch on that we are not alone.
My eyes follow his. To my left, there are men in dark camouflage clothing, blending into the bark of the pine trees.
To my right, there are those that blend into the snow.
They are everywhere, spying on someone. Or at least, they were spying on someone.
Slowly, they nudge each other, pointing us out.
And Christ, there are so many of them. Twenty-five? Thirty?
My eyes water at the doom of it all. I just want this to be over. I’m so tired of fighting. So tired of running. Why must I keep traveling to places that put me in harm’s way? Why can’t we just go home?
If they attack us, I don’t have the energy to fight back.
“Do you think you can do it again?” Niklaus whispers.
Whispers in Old Alkadonian become apparent. Vexamen Breed.
“Do what?”
“What you did to Apple May. Do you know how you did it?”
I shake my head. “I’m so weak.”
Useless.
After everything we’ve been through, we can’t die here. We can’t! I need to get Niklaus home. I don’t care if he hates me for this forever. I don’t care about all the shitty things he’s said to me over the years. I need to get him home.
They move in on us. The slow steps are like watching your own public hanging. The noose. The audience. The slow walk to an old wooden stage. The truth of it is, if these soldiers don’t kill us—sitting here in the snow will.
I grab Niklaus’s wrist and squeeze, though my fingers are hard and numb.
More hushed conversations go on in Old Alkadonian. A debate. It’s a back and forth. They point to us as we shiver in silence, holding on to each other.
Krimson, you’ve protected me my entire life. Where are you now? Have I lost you forever? Has moving through time severed our connection?
A word keeps getting tossed around as the soldiers move closer.
“Bliétzvìz.”
Bait.
My name is not Krimson.
I blink in surprise at the unnatural intrusion in my thoughts. It echoes through what I believe is the void, though I could be wrong. The voice is low, a faint scrape beneath a calm tone. Low and controlled. Male. Each vowel ending in cursive. And an authority that seems infinitely undisputed.
The soldiers whisper-yell at us, pointing and demanding answers to their questions we don’t understand.
“We do not speak Old Alkadonian,” Niklaus responds.
How have you come to enter this mind? The voice pushes into my thoughts with more aggression this time. Are you a threat to our system?
Are you…are you a Short-Haired Windila too? I ask, feeling like I’m going completely mad. But perhaps he is like Dellilian. A guide?
The voice goes quiet.
“èupzx! èupzx!” The soldiers snap their fingers at us.
Up! Up!
Before we can protest, our wrists are bound, and we’re shoved through the snow to an open area. The Vexamen Breed look over their shoulders in loud, obvious paranoia.
They say things like scream, bait, hurry, the great beast is with them.
Ah, you must be a fictive alter. Though, that doesn’t seem right either, does it? The voice returns.
Alter? I think on this. There’s no way. Unless I’ve been driven to real, debilitating delusions from the electroshock therapy. Which alter are you?
Cricket, the gatekeeper.
My eyes go wide.
Do you have two alters named Dessin and Kane?
How could you know that? How have you invaded this mind?
“Sapphire!” Niklaus reaches for me as I’m thrown to the snow while he is tied to the trunk of a tree.
“Wait!” I say to the soldiers digging a hole next to my head. “P-p-please!”
Cricket! I need your help! I can’t explain now, but your system must be close by. The Vexamen Breed is going to… I stare at the grave being dug at an impressively fast rate. They’re going to bury me alive!
And why should we trust you?
I cough hysterically as my back hits the bottom of the hole, wet dirt and snow sprinkle down into my eyes. Niklaus yells my name through grunts. They’re beating him. I smell smoke. I smell an arctic death waiting our arrival.
DaiSzek and Skylenna are my friends. Please!
Cricket pauses. Shovels throw dirt over my body and face. I cough and gasp, thrashing and trying to break free of the ropes around my wrists. I thought I was too weak to do anything, but I was wrong. When you’re about to be buried alive, something else takes over.
Scream. He will come for you. Scream.
The choking, gagging scream barrels through my throat, bursting through the piles of falling soil.
I keep screaming, desperate to be loud enough to get my father’s attention.
I simultaneously try to tap into the Nightlung, reaching for it in my mind with a voiceless plea to take us anywhere but here. Take us home. Take us somewhere safe.
But it’s as if I’m reaching for the top of a mountain from the ground. Inside, I’ve lost the spark I need from lack of food, water, and sleep. I’m dying, and now, all I can do is scream.
My teeth grind against the gritty texture of ice and earth. It is scratching my eyes and burning my nostrils. I throw my head side to side, grunting in fury.
Now, calm yourself, strange feminine voice in our head. Cricket instructs.
How?! I’m being buried alive!
I feel the weight of the oncoming piles hit me hard. There is no panic quite like what I’m feeling now.
Breathe through your nose and turn your face to the side. You must create an air pocket.
I pinch my lips together and turn my face, unable to avoid the clouds of dirt wafting into my nose. I choke and screech again.
Can you cover your face?
No! Please! I’m going to die!
Niklaus screaming my name dissolves into the background of the wind scattering the thrrough the crisp tree branches and the grunting of the men killing me.
With a combustion of starlight, a source of heat and dark fur appear next to my head. The animal nuzzles against me, pushing her neck and head over my face.
“Dellilian protect Miss Sapphire.”
I gasp in relief, quick to bury my face into her warm chest to avoid inhaling anymore of the dust.
Stay calm. Conserve your air, Cricket reminds me.
I let Dellilian’s soothing heat pass over my shot nerves. And as the hole fills up, I remind myself that my parents have to be close by. The Vexamen Breed was targeting them. Watching them from a safe location nearby. My father would have heard my screams.
The weight is suffocating by itself. The blood supply to my hands is cut off as my bound wrists are smashed under my tailbone.
My burial eats up any remaining light.
And Dellilian and I are left to die here alone.
I count the seconds. I recite the lord’s prayer.
I call for Krimson. I recall brief moments in my childhood that stand out.
Uncle Warrose kneeling in front of Aunt Ruth and resting his head in her lap after finding Niklaus when he was taken.
My mother telling Krimson funny memories from her time in the prison with our father to make him laugh after crying over never getting to meet him.
DaiSzek bringing a dead raccoon into the house and leaving it at Grandpa’s bedroom door.
DaiSzek carrying the carcass out after we all screamed because Grandpa stepped on it with his bare foot.
“Don’t be scared, Miss Sapphire.”
I need my dad, I tell her.
Running footsteps are muffled above us. Voices. A fog of lightheadedness. The pocket of oxygen thins. My stomach rolls with a foreign queasiness. And just as my lungs wheeze and my eyes shut, a pair of hands digs the dirt off of me, letting in a stream of bright light.