Page 33 of Alchemised
Finally, she slipped away, her mind untethering itself in a free fall.
There was blood everywhere.
She was in the hospital in Headquarters. The bells were ringing. There were bodies being rushed in by nurses and medics whose faces blurred as they passed.
There was a boy in her arms, dying. She tried to calm him, trying to focus, not to feel the building panic of the room catching like claws through her lungs, but he wouldn’t let her heal him. No matter how she tried, he’d shove her back. Blood kept pouring out in dark spurts. The sticky warmth seeping into her skin. People kept calling her amid the clamour, but she had to save this boy.
She was right here.
Finally, he stopped fighting. She felt him through her resonance. A rush of hope in her heart at the vibrant sense of living. Then he was gone, like a fist through her chest. Too late.
She looked up at the bodies piled around her, one on top of the next, a wall rising endlessly, rivulets of blood running down it as it swayed, threatening to crush her.
She tried to breathe. The smell of bile, charred flesh and blood, sweat, filth, and antiseptic burned in her nose and lungs, suffocating her.
Everywhere she turned, there were more bodies, even under her feet. She crushed them when she moved.
Choose.
Who lives and dies. She had to decide.
It would be her choice.
She reached out, fingers trembling, but a hand caught hers, stilling it.
It was Luc.
She gave a panicked gasp of relief, clutching at him.
He was standing in his golden armour, helmet off so she could see his face. He smiled at her. For a moment the nightmare vanished.
Then blood began to trickle down his face.
Lila was just behind him, glaive in hand, pale hair a crown around her head, but half her face was rotted away, peeling back to reveal her skull. Someone else stood just beside her, but Helena couldn’t remember his face.
Beside them were Titus and Rhea, and after them the Council and the Eternal Flame, all standing in a ring around her.
Their faces were blank except Luc’s.
Luc was still alive. He was bleeding, but she could heal him. Her hand shook as she reached out, but he spoke.
“I’m dead because of you.”
She shook her head, voice failing her.
“Look, Hel,” Luc said. He touched his breastplate, and the golden armour melted away, revealing his bare chest. A gleaming black knife was shoved between his ribs, a bloodless wound. The incision grew, running down his torso until the knife fell, shattering on the ground, and his organs came sliding out, blackened with gangrene, the smell of decay filling the air as if he’d been rotting for months.
“See?”
“No. No …” She tried to reach for him anyway, but he melted away, leaving her fingers stained with his blood.
Her mother was there now. Helena couldn’t make out her face, but she knew it was her mother. The scent of dried herbs clung to her as she stood in front of Helena.
Helena reached for her, but her mother vanished into mist.
Then her father.
He stood out among the Northerners. His eyes were dark, and his black hair curled just like hers.
