Chapter 6

Eska tries to understand the meaning behind these words but she can't seem to understand the situation. She sees a figure in the shadows, slowly walking towards her. The soldier that sent her flying into the house is making his way closer, ready to finish the job.

Eska sees the soldier getting closer and closer. Time is slowed to a crawl. She looks around at the house in flames, the fire advancing throughout the walls and furniture.

She looks at Oblea, in agonizing pain while she tries to reach the soldier, still trying to protect Eska. The soldier ignores the burning woman, he simply kicks her out of the way. He locks eyes with Eska, bringing his hands up, and lightning them ablaze.

"Let. Me. In" The voice says in monotone. Eska's tears run down her cheeks, as she simply lets go.

Her eyes suddenly widen, her chest rises and her limbs stretch in pain. Dark tendrils of agonizing pain run through her veins, they seem to trace a macabre map beneath her skin. They expand from her hand to her upper body, then from there they expand through her neck and the rest of her limbs. She convulses in pain, twisting her body left and right but the pain doesn't subside.

The soldier hesitates, taking a step back in what seems to be fear and confusion.

Time then seems to resume as Eska then lies in the same spot, unmoving.

The soldier looks back, outside of the house and speaks to the others outside. "The Mimic! The mimic is in the heretic!" He screams out loud. He turns back to where Eska is and paralyzes.

She is not on the floor anymore but a few inches from the man, looking up at him. His eyes quickly look down. The rest of his body won't move. Her face shows no expression, she just pushes him aside with her hand and the man falls in several pieces, raining blood on the wooden floor. His eyes still open, darting around as if trying to make sense of the situation.

Eska makes her way to Oblea and speaks words of wind. The fire on her is blown away, but it's too late. Oblea shows no sign of life.

Eska touches Oblea's shoulder, then kneels beside her. Tears continue to flow from her eyes, now more violently. Her gaze now fixed on the body of the one person she had considered as a mother. She sobs, no longer feeling the pain. All she feels is the pain of losing a loved one, her only family. She hugs the body. Holding on to Oblea like her life depends on it. The flames around her consuming the rest of the house. They are more fierce than before, spreading much faster. The house is consumed in minutes.

The soldiers outside can't even stand close to the house due to the heat. The entire house now is on fire, collapsing on itself. Eska's tears continue to fall as she cries in agony. To her, the rest of the world is now blank.

The soldiers argue amongst themselves "Why isn't Rich coming out?" One of them asks. "He said the mimic was in there." Another answers back. The leader quickly replies "We have our orders, and eliminating heretics is part of our duty. The fact that both of our divine missions have now converged must be a sign from god. We must not falter, and eliminate the target." He said confidently while covering his right eye, bleeding over his gloved hand.

"We wait for the fire. It should do most of the work for us. Then we identify the bodies or eliminate them. Understood?" The soldiers respond affirmatively and continue waiting. The leader waits patiently.

The fire continues to rage. As if fueled by wrath and despair, frustration and drive. The flames last for a few hours and it dies down. The sun begins to hide itself on the horizon. The starless sky covers the forest.

The silent forest.

Most of the house has burnt down, only a room on the second floor and the storage closet under it remain. They are both on the side of the river. Eska is covered in burnt wood, there seem to be several red tendrils holding the house's burnt remains above her. Black streaks run along the bloody supports, coming out straight from her back.

She holds Oblea's lifeless body in her trembling hands, tears run silently down her cheeks and fall on the ashes of her charred corpse. The once mentor and mother now lies before her, reduced to nothing more than burnt remains and memories. In the remaining flickering light of the pyre, she struggles to reconcile to the new reality. Oblea is gone. The remaining flames behind her crackle and dance, casting an eerie shadow across the house, enveloping those responsible. Every touch, every caress, every movement only serves to reinforce the finality of the loss as she begins to crumble away into ashes. In that moment of profound despair, Eska feels as though her very soul is consumed by the very flames that consumed Oblea. And as her body dissolves into complete ashes. Eska turns towards the soldiers.

Her bright yellow eyes are wide open, unblinking and filled with intense emotions. She stares at the soldiers who seem to be paralyzed as the gaze surrounds their entire body. Her tears flow down and fall onto the ashes of her past. Each drop is a testament of immeasurable wrath building up. The weight of her grief, suffocating her lungs as her lips quiver with unspoken words. Her heart torn to shreds.

She stands, moving the burnt wood around her aside. There is silence, nothing but the crackling flames fill the clearing.

"Kill. Them" The monotone voice suggests. Without warning Eska charges at the monsters.

She aims for the one in the middle. The soldier on the left wields earth magic and he, in a panic, raises his right hand waving it towards Eska. Several earth spikes come from beneath him and hurl at Eska. She jumps towards the attacker, deviating from her initial direction and splashing some of her blood in front of her with her right hand, the blood that had been coming from her shoulder from the wound that sent her flying. As the spikes make contact with the droplets, they expand, deflecting every spike away from their initial target.

Suddenly the leader of the group, thinking she is fully open to attack, throws yet another kick. This time his leg is enveloped in spiral fire. In a blink of an eye, Eska draws much more blood from her bleeding shoulder. As if a wing had suddenly grown from her right side, it pushes her enough out of the way to avoid the deathly attack. She uses her momentum to land and spin on the ground, extending her leg and sweeping the soldier, which jumps in the air to avoid the attack.

Without missing a beat, Eska extends her right arm upwards creating a blade and cutting through armor, skin and bone. The leader of the group is barely able to shift himself to the side to avoid a deadly blow. He falls to the ground, now missing an arm.

Eska quickly turns as her bloody wing reverts back onto her arm, covering her entire left side. She raises her bloodied arm and meets a blade made of earth. The blade bounces away as the blood hardens.

The blood, now covering her entire left side, uses the ground to absorb the force of the soldier's swing, and without hesitation the reddened armor parts itself into thinly slithering tendrils, quickly whiping outwards. The soldier takes a step back, but as he finishes he simply bobs, fighting to keep himself standing.

His face bleeds from several horizontal cuts, the top half of his armor falls in pieces revealing the same cuts, oozing blood as he falls to his knees. Too weak to move but still trying to fight his body, the soldier simply closes his eyes, and he lets out his last breath.

Eska turns towards the soldier on the ground, the remainder of her blood now shapes onto a small blade, resembling a dagger, on her hand. He is panicking, trying to keep his blood from spilling out of his missing arm.

He turns in anger towards the last soldier "What the hell ar-" He stops himself as he notices the man is on the ground, his head impaled by two earth spikes. The soldier turns back to Eska, his face pale from the lack of blood.

Eska ignores the words of the soldier and instead makes her way towards him, kneeling in front of him. Her eyes lock with the soldier, her expression is emotionless. The soldier unsheathes a knife and tries to repel Eska, but he is now too weak due to blood loss. She simply smacks the knife away.

The soldier's face now fills with terror and anger "We will find you, heretic" He pants. "My death simply means the beginning of the hunt for YOU."