Bedlam crushed down in an uproar of predator and prey. The rumble of pounding hooves and fierce snarls shrouded the peoples’ screams. Fangs gnashed and claws swiped, horns impaled and jaws crunched against bone. Blood spewed in gushing arcs to spatter against the cobblestone and fleck the pale meadow grasses and shattered flower basins now adorned with tattered shreds of fluttering white ribbon. Those too weak to run were trampled, while others were seized and carried off. A foul stench soaked the air.
For an instant, Marissa gaped in fright, then felt someone grab her wrist and drag her down from the dais. She stumbled along behind upon weakened legs, forced to dodge through the foray. To every side beasts lunged and gnawed, roared and howled. A warm stickiness seeped between her slipping toes and she fought to keep down a swell of vomit as a sickening snap evoked a horrified shriek at her ear.
Then all at once, the darkened recess beneath the rear balcony folded in around her. A warm body pressed her to the stone wall, where a familiar gathering of long, dark hair and a soft garment of crimson and white brushed against her face and arms.
“We’ll not fall victim, Love,” she heard her father say, “I’ll
promise you that.”
A panicked stream of people clambered through the opened tunnel door, while many more crowded far beneath the balcony in a pressed mass to rush those ahead of them. Frantic soldiers struggled to maintain order. Several beasts lumbered past in pursuit of those who still scuttled about and Marissa shuddered at the putrid odor that followed in their wake. She buried her face into the back of her father’s shirt to wipe away the tears that pulled down her cheeks.
Is this what she had to face? Is this what she had to protect the people from, a ruthless force that refused to be quashed? She sobbed harder. What hadn’t she listened, why hadn’t she left? Could she have spared them if she had? And now—
Her father gasped. Marissa peeked through blurred sight over his shoulder.
Far down the ruined pathway and amidst the waning chaos a small figure, her pale face glistening with tears, lunged at the remaining frenetic creatures that rushed past. Her long red curls sprayed out behind her each time she pivoted, but her fingers snatched, over and over, into empty air. Marissa heard a faint voice shout out a solitary word through the diminishing din.
Her
father whipped round and grabbed her shoulders.
“Stay here,” he said.
“No,” she cried and seized him by the waist.
“You can’t go out there.
You’ll die.”
“I have to save Eden!”
He fought her grip.
“No, Father!”
He
wrenched free.
“No!”
Marissa
lurched forward to grab him once more, but reeled back near the edge of the
balcony where her father had crumpled to his knees with a plaintive cry.
She peered out into the meadow.
At the path’s midway glared a hunched beast, crimson saliva adrip in glistening strands from the edges of its mouth. Marissa took a shaky step backward, then halted. Her gaze drifted to the creature’s massive clawed hands.
There, as limp as a sodden cloth, hung her mother’s lifeless body, her back severely arched as though broken in two. Blood oozed from her chest, trickled down her arms and face to drip from her fingers and hair onto the beast’s cloven hooves and into the cobblestone cracks beneath. An odd mask of rapture cloaked her face—eyes closed, a twisted grin upon her lips as though death had been the climax of her tortured existence.
Horror-stricken, Marissa watched the beast clamp its jaws down upon her dead mother, then spin round and bound away through the dying incursion.
Her
father’s wails startled her back to reality and she blinked at the morbid
scraps of chaos that surrounded them—bloodied stragglers stumbled toward the
tunnel entrance, stretches of crushed bodies littered the mauled meadow, a
handful of beasts lagged behind to gnaw at the spoils.
A few lingered near the balcony’s line of shadow with snouts low to the
ground.
Marissa wrapped her arms around her father and struggled to coerce him to
safety.
“Get
up,” she cried, “now—hurry.
Before they find us.”
But
Donovan merely slackened in her grip, sobbing.
Marissa tugged harder.
“Father!
Come on!”
“But—Eden,” he wailed, “my love, my obsession . . .”
Marissa
rounded on him and seized his reddened face.
“She’s dead, Father.
Dead.
There’s nothing we can do for her now.
And if you don’t come to your senses, we’re going to meet the same
fate.”
Donovan choked into silence; his despondent stare drifted her way. Along the walls, more beasts sniffed, their stench drawing closer. Others licked blood from the nearby grasses with their black tongues.
“So
get up—now,” she yelled and gave him a desperate shake, “before they kill
us.”
With
a start, Donovan glanced round.
“By the Maker . . .” he whispered.
At once, Marissa yanked him to his feet and dragged him through the still-open tunnel entrance, where she slammed the door against several prodding snouts. She forced down the inside latch, then coaxed her dazed father down the dim and narrow passageway toward the echoing sound of worried voices. Soon, the central chamber spread out before them and Marissa paused to observe the bleak scene before her.
Dark
figures with pallid faces huddled amidst the shadows.
Numerous people lay groaning upon the rock floor or in the tattered
makeshift beds, their wounds washed and tended by others less hurt.
Several soldiers filled elixir into scavenged lanterns, which they
distributed to spread light throughout the cavern.
Marissa’s heart sank.
Few had survived.
At
her side, her father let out a moan and collapsed to his knees with hands
outstretched.
Marissa crouched, grasped his cold fingers, and brought them to her
cheeks.
“I’m here, Father,” she said. “I’m here.”
“Love,” he whispered, “your mother, she’s—” his gaze melted into despair, “she’s gone. I have nothing left of her. Nothing.”
His
face crumpled.
Marissa pulled him close, where he wept once more upon her shoulder.
She stroked his hair, then stiffened at a jingle of chain.
She looked up.
Against the nearby rock wall leant her half-brother, who stared at her
with stark emerald eyes and the faint play of a malicious grin upon his lips.
Marissa glowered, turned her head, and clutched her grieving father.
“I
love you,” she whispered to him.
“We’ll not fall victim, I promise you.”