Chapter Picking Up The Pieces

Sebastien coughed and stood up, he crept over to where the airship had sat and looked down, it had broken apart on the street far below, he hoped his classmates had survived the fall. He walked away from the edge and rested on a nearby wall and pulled out his communication device to report in, but the device didn’t activate despite being fully charged. It was no use, whatever had caused the engines on the airship to cut out was effecting any and all technology he carried.

The streets below were devoid of any signs of life, save for the maze of cars that seemed to have burned out earlier in the day. Sebastian stopped in his tracks and looked up...

“Huh, it must be 11pm local time, but the sky is still white... I guess that’s permanent then” Sebastien muttered to himself as he stared up into the sheet white sky. Sebastien tripped up and caught his left arm on a piece of exposed metal from a nearby car. “Dammit!” He shouted, he looked at the cut, there was no blood... in fact, the cut had begun to turn white.

“Argh! Ahhh!” Sebastien yelled in pain as the white began to flow through his veins. He began to panic, as the white blood began to near his shoulder, he felt a blinding pain... he fell onto his back and saw a man wearing a black and purple set of Crystalline armour. He went to push the man away, but his arm wouldn’t respond, Sebastien looked at his left arm, or rather his lack of one, and passed out.

The man cast an incantation on Sebastien, and his blood returned to the natural red colour, he then placed his hand on the wound and cast some kind of fire spell onto his hand and burnt the wound closed. The man picked Sebastien up and threw him over his shoulder. He glanced over to the remains of the airship, where he noticed the hooded figure silently observing him.

“Hm” The man grunted, then began climbing the wall at incredible speeds, the hooded figure just watched, then turned back to the airship full of students, and grinned.

Three weeks had passed since the fall of Una Academy and the city of Terrana, the city had been closed off permanently.

Roisin had begun coming to terms with her loss, and had been to a memorial service with her Aunt and Uncle the day before. The loss had given Roisin a determination to study harder than she ever had before, Ashe made sure she didn’t push herself too far though, the two had grown to be friends by now, with Ashe having helped her through the last few weeks.

The classes had finished for the day, Ashe, Logan and Roisin headed out into the courtyard, where a field of green flowers had been grown, the exact number of them was the exact number of all the final year students that had been lost that day, Roisin looked over them and sighed.

“Come on, let’s go into the city this afternoon, get away from all this for a little bit” Logan patted Roisin on the shoulder “I guess we could do with a change of scenery” Roisin smiled back “Also with the Autumn Festival nearing, there will doubtless be something to do down there!” Ashe nodded The three of them headed to the Aircarriage landing, it was pretty empty of people, which was unsurprising, people were on edge about leaving the safety of the Academy ever since the incident in Una. The three boarded and got three seats facing the window, the Aircarriage took off and flew back down toward Ishtall.

The gleaming glass towers of Ishtall glowed orange in the light of the setting sun. Roisin stepped over to the window and looked at the streets below, they were somewhat busy, but nothing like they usually were at this time of the year.

“I wanna go on the Ferris wheel first!” Ashe yelled as the three arrived at the funfair area of the festival.

“Pfft, what about the roller-coaster?!” Roisin grinned devilishly as she pointed at the 20ft high peak of the roller-coaster.

“I’m gonna go to the arcade” Logan said in a matter of factly way “But you can play video games any time! How often do you get to ride a roller-coaster!?” Roisin shook Logan “Uh, um well... errrm” Logan fumbled “Oh... my... Gods” Ashe laughed “You’re afraid!”

“No! I just don’t think it’s very safe...” Logan rebutted, as he caught the eye of the operator of the roller-coaster who shot him an angry look “I’m sure it’s perfectly safe” Roisin said as she pulled his arm toward the coaster, with Ashe grabbing his other, both of them laughing like they hadn’t done in weeks, Logan noticed how happy they both looked, and decided to play along.

On a cliff overlooking the city, the hooded figure from Terrana stood, they held a pair of binoculars and were watching the fair.

“Found you, dear sister” The figure grinned and pulled back their hood, it was Roisin’s brother, his veins were glowing white, as were his eyes, his skin had an extremely pale complexion. He put the binoculars away in his pocket and walked away from the cliff.