“I saw his eyes one last time 

Green like Spring leaves;

Calm in the storm;

Then amber with fear,

And he- my world went up in flames”

V

With hollow snarl, the Rift Creature lunged out from the trap. With a surge of adrenaline, Jack leaped and rolled aside. In rapid precision his trembling hands snatched a bolt, from the pouch hanging at his waist.

 Sidney. 

 Jack watched the girl’s green eyes widen. The Démora’s claws clamped down on her shoulders, as its jaws collapsed around her head. 

 Jack’s fingers went numb. He dropped his crossbow. Horror held him frozen. Her blood splattered, hot droplets beading down his cheeks. 

 Blood, both Sidney’s and the Démora’s spraying. Blood, across the ground. Blood splattered and pooling. Blood gushing and Sidney’s masticated head rolling. Blood, her green eyes wide, dead. 

 A laugh. A smile. ‘Big Bro'. . .

 Dead. 

Sean was there. 

 His short sword arced through the air; striking the Démora in the throat. Blood splattered. A scream shuddered out of Sean. He let go of his sword, the blade still lodged in the beast's cheek. His hands flew to his smoking face, as he collapsed to the ground- screaming. 

 Jack fell down, and scrambled back as he desperately grabbed his crossbow. Sean was howling and writhing in pain, as he clawed at the smoking flesh of his face. The monster was thrashing widely as it tore at the blade that was lodged in its flesh and muscle.  

Jack fumbled, as he loaded his crossbow. The sour tang of bile was stinging the back of his mouth. His thoughts jumbled, and for a second Jack was back in that dark dark cellar…

He released the trigger. 

 The bolt sliced through the Démora’s flesh, striking true, bursting the monster’s heart. 

 The Démora’s muscles tremble convulsively. It let out a pleading chalky moan, as it slumped to the ground- dead. Lying on top of Sidney’s headless body. 

 Jack lowered his crossbow. His arms were trembling. His breaths came out in ragged gasps: the scene, the fight, the remains of it- all blood and gore. 

 Sean’s sobs rattled in the air, though they were overshadowed by the laughs and smiles of Sidney’s ghost. Trapped memories of her played on repeat- Happy ones. 

 Jack screamed.

 He threw down his crossbow, as tears for the first time in years fell freely. Old scars tore open. He collapsed to his knees and sobbed. He wailed, and punched the ground; only to hold up his shaking hand to see Sidney’s blood smeared across his knuckles. He screamed; her blood was on his hands. 

Desperation tore through the fibers of his heart, and flooded through him. He crawled on his hands and knees through the hissing blood, to Sidney’s head. He ignored the cruel burning in his hands and knees. He stopped a foot from the head. 

 Sidney still looked like Sidney. Her pale skin was dusted in light brown freckles. A thin pointed nose. Rounded cheeks with a soft rosey shade. Small lips, capable of a big smile, even in the harshest of moments. She still had her messy hair, and sage green eyes.

 Then there were the blood and wounds.

 Gorging teeth marks and scrapes were all in her skull. Her hair was sticky with black oozing blood. Blood was splattered across her face, contrasting with her ghostly pale skin. It ran in a thin stream from her forehead, down the bridge of her nose, her right cheek, chin, and to her gruesomely severed neck. 

 Hands trembling Jack reached out for her. He clutched her head, sobbing, he brought her to his chest. He ran his shaking fingers through knotted bloody strands of her hair, as his tears fell onto her cheeks. Jack lovingly caressed her cheeks, smearing the blood with his tears. He apologized and apologized, grief ripping through him.  

 His chest… throbbed, his soul was… sickened, and his mind was… cold. Jack screamed- then went silent. 

 Sean’s sobs echoed in the new silence. Jack gingerly laid her head back down; strands of her gore-coated hair sticking to his shirt. He crawled away. But his eyes stayed locked with her dim ones. Jack murmured one last apology to her. Then stood and stormed over to Sean.

 Sean was hunched on the balls of his feet, rocking back and forth with his head hanging between his knees. Cradling the left side of his face, he softly sobbed. Jack clenched his fists and stood, looming over his mentor. 

 “This is your fault! She’s gone ‘cause of you! Y-You! I warned you! I said- I knew! I-I…! This is your fault!” As Jack screamed this, his throat burned as if sandpaper had rubbed it raw. With all his might he kicked Sean in the ribs. His mentor yelped and fell down to his side. 

 Sean’s hands fell away from his face.

 Grotesque didn’t do justice. The skin on the left side of his face had been completely eaten away by the Démora’s acid blood. His cheek and jawbone jutted out, a vibrant white in comparison to the stark black and red of the burned flesh. His cheek was almost completely gone. Exposing two rows of white teeth. Part of his tongue was melted away. 

 Jack stared, bringing his shaking hands up over his mouth in horror.

 Jack gulped and grabbed Sean’s arm; helping his crying mentor stand. Jack half carried Sean to a tree and gingerly rested him against it. Then Jack dug through the bags and pulled out both salve and bandages. Sean’s face was tended too. The entire left side of his face was completely bandaged. 

 “I’m gonna close the Rift.” Coldly growled, Jack as he stood and pulled several Elsh Runestones from a different bag. Taking the runestone that Sidney had used, he left. 

 Stumbling through the silent forest and tearing through the briars, Jack was fighting back tears. Trying his best to leave his hollowing dread behind, that ripped a void in his chest. The dread and shaking nerves that held his weeping heart sieged. So, he focused on his task. One foot in front of the other. To the Rift. Close the Rift. Then to Sean. Then to the horses. Then to Alaxi, the only Elven city in Tairrsen, to find Clāra. Then what, who knows.

 The silence was deadly. There was no sound to save him from his thoughts. His focus on the future, could only last so long. A twirling Sidney danced around him, laughing and singing off-tune, as she held out a wreath of flowers for him to wear… The same way she did at the Summer festival in Alaxi. The festival that Jack had taken her to see- while Sean was drinking his life and pain away at a bar. Sidney loved the festival. She would never see another one. The merriment of those treasured memories tore open Jack’s heart. And he screamed and cried for his ‘little sis’. 

 Jack fell onto his knees, hard. The briars ripping through his pants and drawing blood. A pain that Jack did not feel. Jack looked up at the green tinted sky, at the flock of birds frozen mid flight. And he wished, he wished to burn this damn forest down- see it up in flames. He screamed at the heavens. He screamed so loud that his throat burned, burned as if he had swallowed fire. He clawed at his head and hair, wanting to yank it from his skull. He screamed again, then stopped. Blinking his blurry eyes, a vision solidified with his ruptured heart. A vision that pulled his heart strings taunt, and made him nearly smile. Drawing in a shaky breath, he stood. 

 He walked, stumbling and crying, following the steady glow of the Elsh Stone. Jack walked within the stricken daze of his vision; seeing only Sidney’s death, Alaxi burning, and more than anything he was watching Clara scream for mercy within the flames. 

 ~

     The Rift was a gorge in the sky. A complete tear in the sky, seeming to rip it open in a cruel serrated menace. A hazy green and black bled from this wound, bleaching away the blue; replacing it with its sadistic shades. 

 Jack stood beneath the lacerated gash. The area was treeless. A small field cast in the penetrating green light. He glared up at it. Hatred boiling in his vision. This Rift was a twisted pulsing heart, they originated to the Nameless that had slain Sidney. 

 Jack pulled out several smooth silvery Elsh stones. He set them up in a circle beneath the Rift. 

“Claess bres coovaer drev Rivv.” Close, bring coverage, back from the Rift. The Rift shuddered. The Elsh stone exploded into life, silver light devoured the sickly green. The Rift shriveled as it’s glow partially faded. It closed in on itself. A thin crack in the sky. Then it gaped open in one last scream of defiance, as it spat something out, and then forever closed. 

 The fierce silver light ceased. Sunlight and blue sky burned. Life and with all its noises jerked back into existence. The heavy heat dissipated. The murky fog was gone. Everything was back to normal. 

 Jack unsheathed his short sword. A crumpled being laid in the swaying grass several feet from him. 

 His first thought upon approaching was ‘human’. It was a sickly thin girl no more than seventeen. Her skin was pale; almost as if sunlight had never touched her. Blue veins webbing out beneath her skin. She was clothed in an overly large torn white shirt and breeches. Her ears were normal-sized, though delicately pointed. Her hair was clear. Visible, not quite see-through, definitely there, not white, only colorless. 

 Jack held his sword pointed at her, unsure on what to do. ‘This isn’t in protocol’, as Sean would say. The Rift was just supposed to close. That’s it and everything would go back to normal. Rifts weren’t supposed to spit out… Démora girls. 

 Before he thrust the sword into her chest, she gasped and opened her far too large eyes- Large sage green eyes. Sidney. Jack dropped his sword. 

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