Visioness (25 page)

Rhene stepped out of a
person’s mind and into the chaos of the burning University.

“Adabelle!” he screamed,
stepping out into the blazing hallway. People ran all around him, running
through flames as if they felt no pain. Their clothes burned, their hair
burned, their bodies reddening from the heat. The sounds of screaming blasted
him, a crushing wave of human terror.

It washed upon him in blasts,
heat pushing against him, throwing him backwards.

“Adabelle!” he roared again,
running up the hallway, attempting to avoid the fires. But they were
everywhere; impossible to avoid.

“Help!” came a familiar
voice, a short way further up the hall. The door was open, the flames high, yet
from behind it he could make out a small girl’s face.

“Charlotte!” he screamed,
running ahead, through the flames and into the room.

Charlotte was crying, her
hands shaking, her legs bent with weakness.

“Adabelle’s there,” she
said, pointing to the floor, where her sister lay. No flames touched her yet,
but she was out cold, her eyes closed.

“Oh, Adabelle,” he
whispered, stepping through the fire, cradling her in his arms. He felt his
legs burning, heat blistering his skin, eating away the fabric of his clothes. It
was hard to ignore heat like that, but if he was to survive this, he would have
to. She was light, but her body sagged within his grasp. “Charlotte,” he said,
turning to the girl. “I need you to be very brave,” he said. “Can you do that?”

She looked uncertain,
horrified, but she nodded.

“Good girl,” he said. “Now I
need you to hold onto my shirt and not let go. We’re going to run, and we have
to run as quickly as we can, okay. Can you do that?”

Again, she nodded. “I’m
scared,” she said quietly, her voice barely audible over the roaring of the
flames.

“I know, so am I,” he said.
“We have to be brave, though.”

She dipped her head, eyes
determined.

“Good girl.” He turned to
the door way, letting her hold onto the bottom of his shirt. “Ready?”

“Yes,” she said, sounding
more certain than she had before.

“Let’s go. One, two, three,”
and then they ran. He felt the weight of Charlotte holding onto his shirt, and
kept his mind focused there, hoping she would not let go. For someone so small,
she ran swiftly. Like a hare, he supposed, what she lacked in size she made up
for in agility.

As they travelled through
the halls of the dormitories, towards the nearest exit, they found not a single
section of the University untouched by the fire. The Nhyxes, that had gone
blistering past Rhene like a shadowy comet, had done the job Therron had
required of them. They had spread chaos, as widely as they could manage. And
now the place burned.

Someone had smashed a nearby
window, and Rhene took the opportunity to go through it. They stepped out of
the madness of the blaze into the cool night air. A gentle breeze blew down the
street, but Rhene kept running. More and more people continued to pour out from
the University, and Rhene had to make room on the cramped street.

“Where are we going?” asked
Charlotte.

“I don’t know,” Rhene
replied. “Somewhere safe. That’s all we need.”

They followed the crowd,
gradually slowing as they no longer had to run. Exhaustion quickly caught up
with Rhene, causing him to puff as he walked. He struggled to catch his breath,
the air he drew in somehow not enough. Charlotte was coughing as she followed,
and he quickly realised she would need to see a doctor.

His own lungs burned with
the weight of the smoke, too, but he did his best to ignore it.

Glancing down at Adabelle,
her eyes seemed to occasionally open, staring up at him. She was dazed,
sweating, her nightgown singed in places.

They soon found where people
were gathering. A nearby park was at a safe enough distance from the University
to avoid any danger that could come from foundation collapses, and had enough
space to hold the hundreds of people as well.

As Rhene and Charlotte
arrived, they found people on the ground crying and coughing. Some people’s
skin was blistered to a crimson red, while others seemed to have lost entire
sections of skin from the flames. A person vomited in one corner of the park,
while another screamed loudly for what Rhene assumed was a family member. In
the chaos, people from the nearby houses had emerged, some carrying jugs of
water, others carrying blankets, others bandages.

“How are you feeling,
Charlotte?” asked Rhene.

“I’ll be all right,”
Charlotte said, gripping her chest, wheezing all the while.

“We’ll see a doctor once
they arrive. Let the people who need it more first though. I need to sit.”

He dropped right there, not
meaning to let Adabelle hit the ground as hard as he did. He apologised, though
she was surely too confused to hear him. Then, with a deep breath, he collapsed,
darkness consuming his thoughts.

“Rhene!” cried Charlotte.

He felt a pair of arms close
around him, and then he felt nothing.

Adabelle awoke shivering.

The scent of antiseptic, the
sound of quiet chatter, the light of a golden morning sun. She thought for a
time she had slept in a park—though why, she did not know—so she was confused
for a moment. Her leg ached badly, stinging with something that felt…hot.

City hall had high ceilings,
tall windows, and cold, wooden floors. Their beds were only simple, their
blankets meagre, but sleeping here was a far suitable alternative to the ashes
that had once been the University. Beside her, Charlotte slept silently.

She didn’t want to sleep.
Now was not the time for rest. Somehow, Count Therron had lashed out from
within the dream, and so the evidence continued to spread. She was the suspect
in a murder case, and now she would surely be the key suspect in an arson inquiry.
Investigation would reveal the fire had started in her room, that the Nhyxes
had travelled from there. Her room had suffered the most damage, and her window
had exploded when the Nhyx had burst from it. The evidence continued to pile;
her situation grew more hopeless.

She shivered with the
memory. The stench of fire, the choking smoke, the burning Nhyxes, running
about like shadows aflame.

And then she remembered a
strong pair of arms carrying her. She had thought it was the fire brigade, but
it hadn’t been. There had been no uniform, no axe. Just a beautiful face,
shimmering with sweat and ash as he pushed on through the flames.

Rhene,
she thought. Rhene had
saved her. Her mind paused in the memory. He’d been carrying her, and leading
Charlotte along close behind through the ensuing chaos. He heard her sobs, heard
her cries for help, but she also heard Rhene’s comforting voice guiding her
sister. Behind that voice were the roaring flames and the smashing glass and
the wretched screech of the beasts.

And then there was nothing
else to the memory. Only darkness and heat.

I’m alive,
she thought.
I’m alive
because of Rhene.

She sat up on the cot,
finding Rhene asleep to her right and Charlotte sleeping to her left. People
around them moved and spoke, but they didn’t stir. Occasionally, her sister
coughed. It sounded ragged and smoky. The doctors present would have already
tended to that.

Rhene on the other had had
burns up his arm, his face shimmering red in the daylight. They didn’t look too
serious, but he wouldn’t emerge entirely unscathed.

I’ve done this,
she thought, a sickening
feeling appearing in the pit of her stomach. She got up from the cot to walk,
feeling strong enough to move.

She winced as she stepped
down. Her leg had been burnt in the escape. Still only minor, but it would
leave a scar. From her cot, she wandered about the room, looking about at the
people affected. Some of them appeared quite healthy, and those people helped
the doctors go about their rounds. Other were shaken, but had others to comfort
them. There were a few, though—and thankfully only a few—who appeared in a
horrid condition. Entire limbs burnt black, sections of hair sizzled off,
leaving only blistered, raw skin. Some of them who had unfortunately been
entirely consumed by flames, had red, moist skin, while others appeared black
and leathery. Already doctors had set up a make-shift surgery so limbs could be
removed if necessary to avoid infection and gangrene. It looked like a warzone,
and yet Adabelle knew it had only been six Sturding Nhyxes. Nightmares, set
aflame and then unleashed into the halls of the University.

And where they had gone, she
did not know.

She heard doctors and nurses
talking amongst themselves as she wandered about. They spoke about the severity
of the burns in ‘degrees’, and though she knew not what each degree mean, she
knew the higher it went the worse it was. They spoke of a young man with a
third degree burn on his arm. It would have to be removed. They said a young
woman had second degree burns, which were bad, and that she was in quite a bit
of pain and would need some form of opiate for that.

She stopped herself where
she stood, as the sights became more and more grisly. There, in a partitioned
off section, she saw bodies, with blankets pulled up over their faces. These
were the dead; these were the price of Adabelle’s own inability to fight her
father.

“She’s gone,” whispered a
nurse somewhere behind her. Adabelle turned, slightly numb, unsure how she was
meant to feel. The nurse pulled a blanket up over a red, ruined face of a
woman. A woman, Adabelle realised, she recognised.

“Mrs. Abeth?” Adabelle
whispered. She sounded so distant when she spoke. Everything sounded distant.
Yet there she was, a silhouette pushing against the white of the sheet now
covering her face.

The nurse turned. “I am very
sorry,” the nurse said. “The doctor did all he could, but the burns were too
severe. We could not save her.” She paused, glancing down for a moment, before
placing a soft hand on Adabelle’s shoulder. “She did not feel any pain, in the
end, if that makes things any easier.”

She then nodded, attempted a
weak, comforting smile towards Adabelle, and was gone.

“Mrs. Abeth,” she whispered
again, somewhat louder.

But Mrs. Abeth didn’t
respond. She wouldn’t respond. Ever again.

What have I done?
she thought, taking a few
steps forward so she was out of the walkway.

There was only her and Mrs.
Abeth for a time, and in that moment she found herself praying. She didn’t know
why—she wasn’t particularly religious at all. The scriptures were usually lost
on her. But there she was, praying. Praying that Mrs. Abeth found her peace in
death, that Charlotte would awake safely, and that Rhene would heal without
trouble. She prayed for them, and for everyone in the room. She wondered for a
time who was listening. Whether anyone sat on the other end of the prayer,
taking notes and names, or whether her words, however sincere, fell on deaf
ears.

She wiped her tears away
before she whispered a gentle goodbye to Mrs. Abeth. She left the injured where
they lay and walked quietly, unseen, to where she had been resting. Charlotte
and Rhene had still not woken.

Good,
she thought. Until her
father was gone, it was not safe for her to be around those she loved. Until he
was dealt with, and her own mind free to Dream, there would be no safe haven.
The University was gone; she had no home now, anyway.

She knelt down beside her
sister, looking down upon her peaceful sleeping face.

“Be strong, Charlotte,” she
whispered. “You’ll be safe.” And then she kissed her on the cheek.

Rhene was next. She sat on
the edge of the cot and he did not stir. She assumed they had given him some
form of painkiller to ease his rest.

“Thank you for saving me,”
she whispered. “And for saving Charlotte. I’ll miss you.”

She leant down and kissed
him on the cheek too. He stirred for a moment, muttering something, before
returning to his soundless sleep.

I’m sorry,
she thought.
It’s just
better this way.

She rose from the cot,
looking about quickly to insure no one was watching. Then, with a quiet step, and
ghostly movements, she left City Hall.

I can’t return until it’s
safe
.
It’s
time to go into hiding.

“I love you,” Rhene
whispered, before he’d realised what he had said. He felt sick and sore and
tired, but the soft wet touch of Adabelle’s kiss remained on his cheek.

He had a moment, where he
felt like getting out of the bed. But he was far too tired, his mind far too
blurry to contemplate movement at all. He calmed himself once more and drifted into
painless and dark sleep.