From The Ashes 2

A ray of light stretched across the horizon of the endless field. It was almost sunrise outside, but the cellar was still as dark as night, for the lack of better lighting. 

Adeline, still sprawled on the floor, slowly stirred. She pulled her upper body up and dragged herself to a corner, letting her back hit against the cold metal bars. 

"Lady?" a whisper hesitantly called. 

Adeline hummed, albeit still lost in her mind. 

"After all they've done, d—did they...?"

Those who had been dozing off suddenly jolted awake. Their ears perked as they tensedly waited for her reply. 

Smiling bitterly, Adeline shook her head.

It wasn't strange asking her such question. Perhaps they found it strange that they hadn't touched her face, and they could only assume they left it as that because they might have fancy her. 

But...

"No," she finally replied, although she was as confused. 

However, did it matter if they did or not? What was one less scar off her face from the wounds on her body?

"We are glad." 

Her people sighed in relief, and there was a comfortable silence, allowing them a little bit of peace. 

But no peace could ever last in a prison cell.

When afternoon came, the cellar doors opened. Bright light peeked through, blinding them who had been used to the darkness.

Adeline raised her head and squinted. She could make out the figure of two men who were dragging another person. 

There were murmurs among the rest of the captives, and Adeline herself started to feel anxious the closer the people came. 

"Let me go!" a familiar voice shrieked. 

The captives gasped, Adeline included. She quickly scrambled from her position, though the long hours spent in a torture room and the days without food left her weak. She couldn't stand, but still she went on and pulled herself close to the front bars. 

"Idaliah..." she whispered, her lips trembling.

The empty cell next to her was opened, and the brunette was thrown in. She groaned for a while, then later angrily stood up and attempted to push through the men who were about to leave.

"Fuck you!" she shouted when the men caught her, as she twisted her body around in a foolish attempt to escape.

The larger of the two men started to growl, then in a blink, an echoing slap sounded inside the prison cell. The brunette's movement stopped, and a trail of red dropped from the corner of her lips as she held her red cheek.

"You don't fuck us," the man who slapped her said then leaned close to her. He held her chin, and studied her terrified eyes for a while. With a pinch, he threw her face to the side and spat, "We fuck you."

Laughing, he turned to his friends and left with them. 

The brunette helplessly slumped down the ground for a while, until her red and glossy eyes began to roam the place. It stopped and met another pair of empty eyes. 

"A—Adeline!" she exclaimed, wide-eyed.

"Idaliah," Adeline responded, gripping the silver bars. With a pair of worried eyes, she scanned the lady for further injuries. "How badly does it hurt?"

Idaliah's held back sobs suddenly came crashing down, and she quickly crawled near Adeline. 

"Adeline, I'm so sorry!" she cried. "I—I failed!"

"Calm down, Liah—" Adeline quickly reached out to stop the brunette from inching closer for fear of having her touch the silver-coated bars.

"Addie," Idaliah whispered, her tone edged with distress."I couldn't protect her. I—I was useless. They... They killed the girl."

She curled herself and began choking from her sobs. She tried to make out words to apologize, but her throat would constrict as soon as she opened her mouth to speak.

Adeline's lips pursed. She didn't know what to say, and not even how to respond. So she looked away and faced the small window, leting the brunette cry her guilt out, until she couldn't cry anymore.

IT WAS unknown if the night had ended and it was the beginning of the morning, but the sun was certainly still hours away from rising. 

With a faint click, the window closed behind the slender back of a lady dressed in all black. 

She slowly raised a paperbag to her chest and looked around. Seeing nothing but a dark sky above and an empty alley below, she carefully switched her footing and climbed to the next window below her.

Her stealthy movements let her land fast and quiet wherever she placed her foot, and soon enough, she finally touched the ground. 

She looked around one more time and began to speedwalk to the north as her free hand began to crumple a small handwritten receipt, completely erasing traces of her ever checking in a southern inn.

When she reached the end of the alley, she paused and looked up. 

The moon was bright; it was beaming. And yet instead of being comforted, coldness crept up and down her body. 

She shook her head and opened the paper bag. Her hand raised a black bonnet, in which she placed on her head until only a pair of cold blue eyes gleamed under the moon. 

She picked a lighter out from her pocket and lit the the paper bag on fire. A plastic scent filled her nose, but it was quickly replaced by the smell of smoke and the scattered ashes. 

She blew on the lighter, and the flame went out, then she looked back up to the sky and glared.

DUSK CAME and Adeline looked away from the window, unable to face the rising moon. Idaliah finally calmed down and was crouched in a corner, rocking herself to sleep.

"Don't blame yourself," Adeline said comfortingly. "You have done your part, and..."

She sighed. "We are but extras to fate's will."

And yet even she couldn't hold on to her words. She knew how Idaliah felt. The guilt, the helplessness, the uselessness—she understood them all. 

It was suffocating living every second carrying them all, and especially so when nothing could ever ease them but the undoing of what had transpired, in which would never be possible. 

But she knew she had to try, even if trying was the best thing she could do. 

"A—Alpha?" Idaliah's tired voice raised, and Adeline tried not to tremble.

She opened her mouth, wanting to speak, but the worss were stuck in her throat. She could only turn to face Idaliah, her trembling lips stretching in an ugly smile.

Idaliah's tears rained down, wetting her newly dried eyes. But instead of crying for the second time, she swallowes the lump in her throat, straightened, then wiped her tears. 

 

"Then... be strong for us, Addie," she whispered, her voice holding a newfound strength despite the dryness. "And for Xavier."

She stood up, and soon the cell was filled with the sounds of chains hitting the floor. Idaliah flashed her a tearful smile, closed her eyes and bowed her head with her right hand on her chest. 

Speechless, Adeline stood up, but she only stood there, her hands shaking and chest burning as the chains shook with kneels after kneels that followed when Idaliah herself kneeled. 

She absentmindedly looked around and found fifty hearts offered and fifty heads lowered for her.

"Alpha."