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Toni’s voice resonates in his head, and Cricket runs.
He remembers sprinting away from a pissed off noble in an nameless city - he hadn’t timed his move perfectly with Halvar, missing a beat when he should have stepped back, and the pompous rich lady noticed the missing sapphire and gold bracelet off her wrist. She yelled and suddenly, he was running off, faster than he’d ever ran before, iron guard on his trail. From a time when stealing was tricky, when his fingers fumbled and his step faltered with incompetence, he remembers the adrenaline, the fear gripping his gut.
“Cricket. Get Siggy. Get back here, now. Hurry up”
He runs faster than he thought he could.
The rocks and stray branches that litter the forest floor make his feet ache with the force of his footsteps. He pushes it aside, as focused determination takes over and he treads the zigzagging dirt path he took but seconds ago.
“I’m coming, I’m coming”
His voice trembles. His mind feeds him nightmares as he runs. Did something happen with the Sumner kids? He doesn’t hear anything, beyond his frantic breath and the pounding of his heart in his chest.
He catches it, then. A violent crash of stone and wood, coming from the house. It sounds like something huge, something dangerous, and, erratic, he pushes his limbs to carry him further.
He’s a fucking idiot. His lungs burn, and he thinks, good. That’s what he gets for straying too far. The ring on his finger feels like lead, a different type of acid staining his flesh.
In the distance, he hears screams.
A sound escapes him, desperation, like an echo of his family’s pain. A pain he can do nothing about. Seconds tick by and it feels like an eternity, the woods stretching on and on and on in a never ending maze.
He runs, and he runs, but it’s not enough. Hopelessness claws its way through his chest, wrecking apart a learned customary dignity, as his body leans forward and his hands meet the dirt floor, propelling him forward on all fours. He stops trying to avoid the branches on his path, and he distantly senses teardrops of blood streaking his face.
He sees a figure running towards him, and it only takes him a second to recognise Dusty. He thinks the terror in the child’s eyes will forever haunt him.
He thinks of Toni, of Siggy, and Saedie. Of Willow. What hell they must be fighting. He feels sick.
He needs to see, so he climbs. The bark is sharp under his hands, like glass cutting through his skin, and still, he keeps going.
It only takes a second. Just one. One stupid glance, and he falls.
He sees the tip of tentacles, black as the night sky, sucking out the colour, the spirit, out of him.
No. No- please, no, he thinks. I need to get to them.
Nothing responds.
His hands, his legs, drained of any strength, fail to grasp the tree, and he feels himself fall, as the sight of the creature, like a dagger to the throat, bleeds him out in an instant.
As he watches the sky turn upside down, the green leafs of the cedar and pine trees turn into something more familiar, a trace of home. He’d swear he sees two figures in the distance, before they disappear.
Is this it?
Is this how he dies? Useless, wanting, and alone?
He wants to fight it, the darkness at the periphery of his vision, quickly flooding his mind. He should- he should be with them.
He meets the forest floor with a large thud, and he feels himself go, pain but a distant ghost, a fading memory.
And then, a weight upon his chest. A pulse. A warmth. Like the gentle sound of Siggy’s lute, the comforting colours of Toni’s dome, Saedie’s laugh. Willow’s gloved hand in his.
He promised.
It fades to black.