Part 2 Chapter 50
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Screams erupted as the soulless rained down and began attacking Alyzzea's followers.
"Henry!" I called out, my eyes darting around the chaos unfolding around me.
Alyzzea grabbed my head and pulled it close to her face.
"The only thing you can do for him now is to complete this ceremony. I know you performed the ritual before, so I need you to do it again. Plunge your knife into its chest! Now!"
"But last time, I grabbed the hands and took the soul into..."
"I don't care use the knife, I said now!"
I raised the spear hastily with trembling fingers, and suddenly I heard a big crash. My hair was suddenly yanked to the left side of my face by a strong wind. Someone or something must have knocked away the black box from the portal, leaving it exposed. I was out of time.
I slashed my spear down and all at once the wind ripped the sack away from Arnold's creation's head and I caught a glimpse of the clay stone face in front of me. The hand with the spear in it paused an inch away for its chest.
"I want to see a dragon before I die," Neeva's stone clay face said to me.
Great so our fake willing sacrifice, had turned into a fake unwilling sacrifice. And than I remembered Nessie.
"There's a dragon in here!" I exclaimed, my eyes darted around the room.
I spotted Arnold in the far corner of the room.
His clay dolls were fighting off soulless people, that were trying to claw their way to Arnold.
My eyes continue their frantic search, until they spotted Nessie, who was backed into another corner of the room.
I couldn't see Henry, but I knew he must be somewhere nearby her.
She was hissing at a soulless man dressed in brown rags who was sculpting towards her on all fours.
"There, behind you!" I said and pointed to the agitated blue dragon. The thing turned his head and let out a gasp of delight, and with that I raised my spear sliced through its clay chest."
The tree stood before me, the black flowers were under my feet, and the sky above was pitch black and full of stars. The same tree as the one in my dreams and the one I had sacrificed the original Neeva under.
I heard a grunt, like someone going through some great physical effort, and I whirled around but didn't see anyone.
I heard the sound again, and realized that it was coming from the opposite side of the massive trunk. I made my way across the grass, my feet flattening several black flowers, before I finally reached the other side of the tree.
I peered around it's bark where I saw, well me, pulling at something from a hollow space under its roots. The other me was dressed in a light blue dress that looked like it was cut out of the daytime sky. Her face was full of strain while she continued to tug at something which I could not see.
She looked over at me with her black eyes and said in her whispery voice, "Don't just stand there, help me!"
"With what?" I asked while I cautiously crept over to her. I was recalling my last encounter with the inner me,which hadn't been the smoothest thing ever.
"It won't come through!"
It was then that I saw that she had a dull clay hand in her grip.
"Help me pull it through!" she hissed.
I didn't argue, instead I grabbed the hand and something slammed into me hard.
All the sudden, I was on a cement floor gazing into a gaping mouth. My arms were pinned to the floor by freezing cold hands.
"Get away from her!" a female voice screamed and suddenly something sharp brushed against my stomach , and the icy arms holding me down went slack.
"Come over here," the female voice said to someone I could not see, " help me get her free!"
Before I knew it the dead weight, no pun intended, was being dragged off me.
Alyzzea's face appeared above mine, "Grab onto the channeling weapon , and don't let it go!" she yelled
I quickly scampered to my feet and my fingers wrapped around the handle sticking out of Arnold's creation. I caught a glimpse of its mouth. It's face was opened into a wide scream. Then, the world around me dissolved.
I was once again standing at the roots of the tree, while I watched the other me's legs slowly disappear under the tree root. The field around us looked so different than it had only moments ago. It was no longer full of black flowers, but barren ground and that ground was beginning to disappear.
I rushed forward and grabbed the other me's ankle and began to tug with all my might. But I wasn't strong enough and found myself being tugged below the tree too, but I couldn't let go. If I let it slip under the tree....
"Yeah...wouldn't be the best idea to let her go," said a familiar voice.
I looked up to see Lacy, red hair, red wings and all, standing there with a hand on her hip. She was still wearing a purple tunic with a black sash.
"Lacy?"
She sighed deeply, "You almost made it without having to see me again. Are you trying that new beauty thing where you roll around in the dirt to mask how ugly you actually are?"
"Are you here to help, because I could use a little help here!" I snapped.
She shook her head, "Oh I'm not going to be the one to help you, but I brought someone who was more than eager to," and with that she disappeared in a flash of lights.
Suddenly, I felt a strong grip on my shoulder and I was being pulled backwards.
Then, little by little the feet of the other me appeared, than her legs, and her middle and then her arms and her head.
The last thing to appear was her hands, and which were still holding the hands of Neeva's gruesome double.
The other me spat out dirt and grimaced, her blue dress was now streaked with brown . Her curly black hair was a crow's nest full of dirt.
Slowly the clay thing was dragged out from under the tree too, face up, until the two of them laid sprawled out underneath the tree root under the star filled sky.
The clay thing showed no sign of life not even a "I love dragons," escaped from its dusty lips.
It's stone eyes stared blankly at the sky.
But, even though we were all out of the tree roots, I could still feel the body of the clay thing being tugged under the tree.
That wasn't my only problem, because there was something still holding me from behind, and I didn't know who or what it was. I didn't think it was malevolent because Lacy had brought it, but...
"Daughter, accept what you did, do not offer yourself as a sacrifice," the voice was so familiar and I knew who it belonged to instantly.
"Neeva!?" I tried to turn my body to look at him, but he jerked me back in place.
"No, you must not gaze upon my face area.
This is important daughter so listen with your ears, accept what you did to me.
Because you are involuntarily rejecting the thing which you need to sacrifice, and therefore rejecting the source of your power.
If you aren't willing, you won't be about to complete this ceremony and you will cease to exist."
"But I -"
"There was a rumbling under my feet. The field around me was collapsing in on itself."
"I-I can't accept that I killed you. And that thing.
.it just looks too much like you," I said, tears welling in my eyes, while I admitted the truth to myself.
That's why the mention of a sacrifice had sent me into fear, because I hated myself so much for doing it once.
The other me was looking up at me with a look of horror on her face.
I was still hanging onto her ankles, and I could feel the pull becoming stronger.
"Accept it, accept that it was-"
"It wasn't okay! And even you...you sacrificed people once and you had your powers sealed away!"
"You can, because being like us higher ones means one needs to do difficult to perform tasks that others can't do. And daughter, if I am sensing this other presence correctly, it is not in the human category."
"But..."
"Make oneself accept it. Think of the people's faces who your actions will save!"
"Images flashed before me of my mother, Emily and her siblings, Deception, and lastly Henry. I felt resolve bloom deep within me. It spread, filling every inch of me."
I felt Neeva's arms let me go, and suddenly, the field around me was restored. Black flowers were all around me and the ground was no longer full of holes.
The other me stood before me with Neeva's clay replica beside her.
She rested her elbow on the broad rock-like shoulder and grinned, "You worried me there for a second, but I will take care of all this from here," she said in her whispery voice.
"I love dragons," Neeva's clay twin said happily, before he evaporated into dust.
"Thank you!" I said and smiled at the other me.
"I wouldn't thank me for anything. You tamed me, I'm only jumping in response to your cracked whip. Plus, it's kind of weird to thank yourself."
"Oh yeah I guess it kind of is..."
"And Neeva," I said turning to face, eager to see him, the real him once again, even if it would be painful. "I'm so glad that you..." there was no one there.
"Neeva!?" I called out, turning my head to side, my eyes scanning the dark field that was illuminated only slightly by an unidentified light source. But all I saw was the black flowers swaying slightly back and forth. He was gone, and when I looked in front of me, so was the other me.
I felt tears erupt from my eyes, but my sadness was being eclipsed by something else.
There was a power building up inside my me, not as strong as the one with my sacrifice of the original Neeva, but still incredible and overwelming.
I couldn't focus on the fact that I would never see my dad again, I had to use this power.
I bent forward and pressed my hands to the ground and released all the energy within me. "
I was back in the strange room. The smell of blood hit me, and so did the images of bodies, some of which were horribly mangled.
There was one that was lying very close to me, it had been the one that attacked me during the ceremony.
On the ground in front of me, laid my channeling weapon. I bent over and picked it up.
"Than from somewhere in the room someone began to cheer. Cheers erupted all around me, but intermixed with cries of celebration, I could also hear groans of pain. Many people had been injured.
I saw Henry coming towards me," he grinned widely at me and the tears disappeared from my face. He opened his arms wide and a moment later I was in them. I began to laugh almost manically.
"It's over, its finally over!" I said, somehow managing to get out in-between giggles.
I felt a tap on my shoulder, and I looked up to see that Alyzzea, the leader of the Fifth Element cult, standing there. I released my hold on Henry and walked around him to stand before her.
She grinned at me, and it was a relief to see an expression other than anger on her face, even if the smile looked a little forced.
"I owe you a bit of an apology. It was a little shaky at first, but you managed to pull off the ceremony flawlessly.
The back up sacrifices didn't even have to leave the tank.
I guess that goes to show how far a strong blood line can take you. "
Just then there was the loud groaning of the metal doors being opened, and I saw the men in the splotchy green and brown uniforms had returnwd. But I wasn't paying attention so much to the uniforms, but what was held in their hands. If I wasn't mistaken those were...
Henry grabbed me and in the same motion he but his fingers to his mouth and blew hard. In a flash Nessie was bounding towards us. Just when the blue dragon reached us there was several small pops followed by noises of people crying out, when a bullet found them.
Alyzzea was the first one and only person who I saw fall, even though I heard others do the same. There was a look of pure shock on her face, while she collapsed, a hole in her forehead told the story of what had happened.
"Nessie down!" Henry shouted at the dragon, who was panicking at the loud noises surrounding her.
She was jerking her long slender neck wildly around, while she tried to look at every single inch of the the room all at once.
Despite that, Nessie still did laid down and Henry all but tossed me onto her.
He didn't even give me a chance to adjust myself into a sitting position, before he was yanking me upright.
He cracked the whip and we all went bounding forward.
"Suddenly something knocked me off of Nessie's back. And sent me hurdling forward into cracklings blue lightening, were my body twisted over andover again in directions it wasn't meant to be stretched in.