Havoc

"Oh my God, what just happened?" Frances exclaimed, perplexed.

"Everyone, get to the site of the explosion! Ready your weapons!" Josephine ordered.

"Is our camouflage breached?" Mother asked.

"Mother, do not worry. There's no way we have been breached." Josephine reassured, knowing fully well that there was a possibility of a breach.

The women mounted their beasts and rode hastily towards the location. On getting closer to the location, they came to an affected area. It was a wide landscape that sloped down, completely full of trees burning with raging flames.

What happened here? She wondered.

"Fifty of you should put out this fire, the rest of you follow me!" Josephine yelled as they continued their conquest through the burning forest, galloping their way through it.

As they got closer, the entire area that formerly had trees was completely turned into a wasteland of soar ash. The epicenter of the explosion left an indelible scar of complete, dark ash everywhere. The soil now seemed to have been made of ash, and the wind also carried the ash, completely blurring their sight, and making it nearly impossible to breath.

"We forge ahead!" Josephine yelled, choking mid-sentence as her throat got itchy cause of the ash that got into it when she opened her mouth wide to yell.

After a few minutes of herculean forging, they finally got to the epicenter of the explosion. It was a whirlwind that spread the ash in the surrounding air. The whirlwind kept reducing in size and velocity as they got closer. Finally, it stopped spinning, and behold a person stood at the center.

"Isn't that…Walter?" Frances asked.

"It's him." Josephine affirmed.

"Why's he standing like that? Whats with his eye?"

"I have no idea. He seems to have passed out while standing. But his eyes…"

"Yes, they're glowing so brightly. What's going on? And where's Adeola?" Frances asked, looking around to see if she was there.

"I hope this isn't what I'm thinking. It can't be. There's no way this guy could have possibly caused that explosion."

"Whatever happened, it definitely caught up to Adeola too. I just hope she's okay." Francis worriedly said, still scanning the environment for her while gesturing to one of the warriors to take a group and search for their sister. "Oh Adeola, I've told her to stay away from anyone that lack ovaries."

Josephine kept her eyes locked on Walter who kept standing still with one eye closed while the other remained open and glowing so bright that people up the slope of the land could tell his eye glowed.

"Frances, go find our sister, I'll handle this one."

"Wait, he could be dangerous. Be careful." Frances said, holding Josephine's shoulder, stopping her from proceeding.

"Frances, go find our baby sister. I'm not going to die." She replied before continuing her movement towards Walter whose left eye still remained open and followed Josephine's movements without blinking and ever glowing.

As Josephine got closer, she drew her sword, and a group of warriors followed her as they got closer to him. His left eye scanned through, from left to right, and then back to Josephine and maintained eye contact for a few seconds before completely shutting. On shutting his eye, he dropped to the ground, face-down and completely unconscious.

Josephine put back her sword into its sheath and rushed to pick him up. Looking over his body, before deciding to touch. She poked him with a stick to be sure.

"Okay he's truly unconscious." She then rolled him over, and carried him up. "This boy has an abnormal fever. What happened here."

She handed him over to one of the warriors with her, "take him to the Queen, I'll be right behind you."

Before running towards the route Frances went through. On getting to the top of the slope, she mounted her horse and down she went.

Eventually, she caught up to them. She found the soldiers on a standstill, the atmosphere was somber, and they held their faces down.

Josephine came down, "What happened?" She asked the two soldiers she met. They kept quiet and couldn't raise their heads. "I asked you a damn question!" She thundered, but they still remained quiet.

"Useless!" She said, proceeding towards the river.

She met other warriors who's countenance wasn't any different from the previous ones'.

"What happened?" she asked. They kept silent.

"To hell with this!" She yelled as she pushed them out of her way.

She walked hastily towards the river where she found more soldiers, and slowly began to hear weeping.

"That's Frances!" She said to herself, as her heart began to pound out of her mouth.

She got to the bank and saw that soldiers surrounding Frances who was kneeling, with Adeola in her arms, crying.

"What's happening?" She asked, pushing all the people in her way.

"My lady, we found Adeola's body afloat in the center of this river."

Josephine was speechless, and suddenly could hear her own heart beats, other noises began to fade. Just her heart beats remained as she desperately asked with a quivering voice, "Has anyone checked her pulse?"

"Your Majesty, she was afloat in the river. There's no need to–"

"Answer the damn question." Josephine thundered.

"No Ma, we haven't."

Josephine walked slowly towards the body that still lay in Frances' arms. With a fidgeting hand, she placed her hand on Adeola's neck. Her skin was cold, and her eyes were open. Her eyes also didn't respond to light. Refusing to accept reality, she took the body out of Frances' arms, and into hers. She gently turned Adeola's head and placed her hand on the other side of Adeola's neck. There was no pulse, but she kept her hand on the neck as tears began rolling down her eyes. After the first few drop of tears, she felt a weak pulse.

A burst of adrenaline fueled her to yell,

"A pulse! A pulse! Get me a horse! Get a horse! Please! anyone!"

The warriors rushed and in the blink of an eye, a chariot was made available and they placed her on it with Frances and Josephine as they rode off.