Page 107 of A Simple Truth

64

FINNLEAH

Large droplets of water landed on my face, soaking through my hair and my leathers as the relentless storm raged for what felt like an eternity. I raised my head up to the gray sky, watching the dark clouds lazily go by as streams of water poured out of them.

Was the rain always so cold?I wondered.

I stood like this once, back in the Rock Quarries, watching the rain fall as the dust around me settled. I vividly remembered the feeling of relief that those drops of rains brought to my brutally chapped lips and sunburnt skin. I got two lashings for it that day, for taking those few seconds away from work, for staring up. Yet, I had never noticed how cold the rain was.

The sizable drops collected in my outstretched, muddy palm. The all-consuming flames surrounding us now reflected in them like in a mirror.

It rained after Tuluma died, pouring similarly to now.

A detail I had forgotten, yet now remembered.

In fact, I remembered it all.

The memories that were hidden for so long.

The memories that crept beneath the shadows, terrorizing me for years.

I looked, and I remembered.

Though the man I had burned this morning was male, I had somehow still heard her voice, her screams, in my ears.

I turned my palm down, letting the drops fall to the muddied ground.

I no longer looked away from those recollections. Instead, I stared back.

Commotion echoed in my ears as bursts of fire, shields, and exhausted warriors flashed before me. We were losing; already battered and beaten.

All of the Ten were fighting like lionesses, as if their own lives and the lives of their families depended on it. Even then, it wouldn’t be enough. We would leave this field defeated.

I looked down the large cliff at the giant rock as the ocean waves crashed into it. There, amidst the storm, thrashing in the wind stood the untouchable red flag.

“Distract Gideon!” I shouted to the exhausted Lulu running past me. “Cover for me!” I yelled then to Ioanna as she sent a few more spheres out, fighting the commanders; she hesitantly nodded.

With that, I shielded myself as I started walking, my steps turning quickly into a sprint. Mud splattered against my boots as I ran as fast as I possibly could until I reached the very end of the island.

And then I jumped off the cliff.

I wasn’t planning on dying today.

Yet now, rapidly falling through the air, soon to face the stone-like water, I wondered if deep inside, I still wished for Death to be my reprieve. Perhaps, I would always live with that thought in my head, always there like the scars on my wrists.

A part of me would rather die right now than live another day underneath that self-destructing shame.

Maybe if I drowned today, crashed to death against the ice-cold waves of the stormy ocean, I’d no longer feel guilty.

Guilty for staying and guilty for leaving.

I used to think that grief was the strongest emotion. But now?

Guilt.

Guilt for surviving and guilt for wanting to die. Guilt for having powers and guilt for not using them before. Guilt for feeling happy and guilt for not, guilt for falling in love, and guilt for leaving the past behind.

Guilt.

---