Chapter 90: Chapter 90

As soon as she fell asleep in hell, the hot air and the smell of sand hit her face hard. Shia opened her eyes. There was a bit of haze, but somehow, she could still see things clearly.

Suddenly, something nasty regurgitated from the pit of her stomach. She popped her head towards the open air of the moving caravan and threw out what she had for lunch.

A smooth hand pressed over her back. “Shia, are you alright?”

She looked back at her. She cannot believe it. It was the face she had missed all these months!

“Mother!” She hugged the woman back very tightly. Her mother had coughed twice before she let her go.

“Are you alright, dear? Does your stomach feel bad?”

“I’m al-” she had meant to say that she was alright, but she had caught another nauseating smell, and she had to throw up again.

“Did you eat something bad?” Her mother frowned.

Her mother... wasn’t she dead?

Shia shook her thoughts away violently, physically shaking her head in the process. How can she think of such dreadful thoughts?

“I-I’m alright,” she said, smiling back at her.

A pair of small hands grabbed her by the waist. His brother Ran bobbed his head into one side and grinned at her.

“It’s because you ate a lot for lunch, sister. You should have given me that last piece of cookie instead of eating it.”

“And let your remaining teeth rot further? Fat chance, Ran!”

Two more pairs of smaller hands – Alia’s and Noran’s - joined in the hug against her back. “Tickle attack!” they chimed.

They rolled inside the moving cart violently that little Aram stirred from her sleep and started to cry.

“Hush now, children!” Shia’s mother said. “Don’t tickle your sister further, or else she might throw up again.”

Amidst the laughter of so many children, the skies suddenly turned dark, and the winds began to howl somewhere.

Shia’s heart began to beat faster. She got the feeling that something horrible was about to happen.

As the wind howled fiercer, the horses suddenly stopped, shaking their caravan violently that the children screamed.

Shia’s heart skipped a beat. This has happened before! She was sure it had already happened, and she knew something worse was about to take place, but she wasn’t really sure what it was...

Think, Shia! What was it? What bad thing will happen?

Once the shaking had stopped, her mother and her siblings quickly climbed down from the caravan. Her heart felt even more fearful.

“No, don’t come down!” Shia yelled to her mom and to her siblings, but it was too late.

In an instant, they were all swept with the monstrous wind, roaring all over them, threatening to engulf them. A few seconds ago, she was standing next to her mother, but all of a sudden, she could not see her. What the hell was happening?

A hand gripped her left arm fiercely, and her heart seemed to have momentarily stopped beating from terror.

“Shia, let’s go!” The hand belonged to a boy with jet black hair and blue eyes that looked so mesmerizing against the howling winds. He tugged her arm once more. “Let’s go, Shia! We have to leave this place!”

Her eyes widened. “W-who are you? Where are you taking me?”

“It’s me, Langrey! Shia, we have to go!” The wind blew more violently than ever. The man’s face was quickly becoming blurrier with the sand and stones that had come up due to the wind, but his beautiful blue eyes that reminded Shia of the ocean still remained.

“Ah, no! Let me go!” She started to scream for her family. “Mom, dad!”

“Shia, where are you?” It was her mother’s voice.

“I’m he-” the man’s hand covered her mouth. “The more that you stay here and see what happens, the more that you’ll be endangered! Come with me, please...” The man who introduced himself as Langrey started to hold her closer by the waist.

Alarmed, she squirmed harder against his embrace. “No, let me go!”

“You can’t be here! You can’t watch this!”

“W-what? What do you mean?!”

“You can’t watch them die again!”

Every word that came from Langrey’s mouth felt like a sharp blade that pierced her heart.

Suddenly, the realizations of who she was, where she was, and who this person trying to take her away had finally hit her.

“Oh no... This... It can’t be!” She breathed in horror. She didn’t want to see it again, but she couldn’t tear her eyes away from the approaching danger and the visions that haunted her dreams even until now.

Langrion looked around him in worry. “Damn it, the door way isn’t anywhere in sight!”

Shia started to look around too. The panel of light was indeed missing. Soon, the scene she didn’t want to see again will unfold. Her eyes began to get heavy with tears.

Suddenly, Shia had seen an approaching figure. The attack was starting.

She unclasped herself from Langrion’s embrace and ran wildly around the sandstorm, her mouth filling up with sand as she screamed, “Mom! Dad! Everyone, don’t look at the figure!”

The winds were too violent and fierce for anyone to hear. Shia ran aimlessly around the sandstorm, all the while seeing nothing but the approaching figure.

There was a pang of desperation in her chest. Even if this was a reality that had already happened, she didn’t want her family to die yet again. She needed to change it! She needed to save them even though this wasn’t her reality!

Unable to see anything else, she quickly charged ahead to the only thing that was crystal clear in the sandstorm – the approaching figure of her family’s killer.

Langrion caught up to her. He wrestled with Shia’s writhing figure as she tried to free herself from his restraints. “No, Shia, don’t! Don’t you remember what the mage had said? Whatever pain or wound you suffer from here will be reflected in your physical body! Who knows what will happen if you attack him? Don’t risk it!”

No matter what he said though, it was useless. Shia couldn’t hear his reason. She was blinded with the desire to hurt him – the person who killed her family - and the desperation to save those she had lost.

She struggled with him in the shifting sands. When she had found an opening, she slipped from his grasp yet again and ran towards the red-eyed figure that was fast approaching.

Shia unsheathed the dagger she had always carried to her side. If she could just stab that monster in the heart, everything will be over. She could save them: her mother, her father, Ran, Alia, Noran, and little Aram. She could save them all today!

Despite being surrounded by the tornado, she was able to reach him – the red-eyed killer - in no time.

Shia stopped. The man whose eyes glowed in deep red looked exactly like Langrion.

She shook her head violently as tears streamed down her cheeks. He wasn’t Langrion. He was Danterion under the influence of Sirion’s curse, but can she really do it? Can she stab him knowing who he was?

This wasn’t her reality, but somewhere in the fabrics of time, this moment was a reality.

Shia acted quickly before she changed her mind. She raised her dagger and stabbed the man – her family’s killer in this realm – at the throat.

The sharp metal sunk in, and heaps of blood gushed out at the site where the metal had collided with the flesh. Shia was still on top of him, trembling, and her hand was still holding the helm of the dagger that pierced the man’s neck.

She did it! She had killed him! Her heart pounded wildly inside her chest.

She could still feel the laboured breathing of the person underneath her. Slowly, she saw that he had opened his mouth, and spoke.

It was in a very low voice. The wind still howled fiercely around them, but miraculously, she heard what he had said.

“Forgive me... Shia...”

A sudden realization had hit her. This man, how does he know her?

Despite the generously flowing blood, she felt around his neck, and in her horror, she saw that the heron’s mark was not in it.

Her heart beat went even fiercer in her ribcage. She hesitated for a moment before she decided to rip the man’s shirt off.

The ordeal felt like it lasted for a lifetime. When she had finally gotten through the layer of clothes and armor, she was awestruck with what she saw.

There, visibly throbbing at the left side of his chest, was the Mark of The Beast.

Almost instantaneously, a doorway of light opened up in the sand underneath the man’s body, and he and Shia were consumed by the immense light, her screams consumed therein.

The next thing Shia knew, she had already woken up.

“Ah...” she moaned as she roused from the bed.

A familiar voice greeted her. “Shia, you’re awake!”

“K-Khailis,” she whispered softly. “I-I’m back, right?... Is this really home?”

“Yes, you’re back!” Khailis hugged her tightly. “We were so worried. You’ve been out for four days!”

“Four days?...” She couldn’t believe it! She had travelled for four days through those time passages. No wonder she had felt exhausted to the brim.

“How about Langrion, where is he?” She wanted to get up, but her legs would not move. “I want to see him.”

She couldn’t shake the thought of what had happened at the final time passage. Langrion saw that too, right? She needed to confirm what she had seen, and what she did...

Shia attempted to rise once more, but Khailis steadied her up in her seat. “Listen, Shia, before you come and see him, I’ll have to tell you something.”

Khailis looked back at her gravely, and her heart almost stopped. “Khailis, what is it?”

“Langrion... He has been hurt... The mage said he may not wake up again...”

“What... What kind of injury did he suffer?”

“I’m not sure, but a wound had suddenly opened up in his body. It looked like he had been stabbed in the neck.”