I've been having a lot of fun with this, my brain vomited up a huge random backstory for this that I'll add here when I finish. Hopefully the story hints at it. I tried.
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The water in the bucket sloshed dangerously, threatening to spill over the metal-lined brim with every heavy, echoing thump of Rowan's boots against the worn stone floor. She gritted her teeth, tightening her grip on the wooden handle, which had begun to slide out of her sweaty hands. The fate of humanity rested on that bucket, or rather, the water inside the bucket, and she could not afford to lose a single drop of it.
One hundred and twenty seconds to midnight.
Although it was taking every ounce of her willpower not to sprint towards the charred doors at the end of the empty throne room, she agonizingly slowed her pace, lightened her footfalls. There was no room for error, not anymore, with the countdown at less than two minutes. If she messed up now, it would be the end of her mission, and the beginning of the worst future the world had ever known since the tragedy one thousand years ago.
One hundred seconds to midnight.
Rowan nearly stumbled, cursing under her breath as her toe caught on the edge of the stairs leading up to the dais that hadn't seen a ruler in millenia. Once majestic, it was now covered by a fine layer of ash, like almost everything else in the castle.
The townsfolk believed the castle was haunted by the ghosts of all who had lived there before the Burning. They said that a hundred years ago to this day, a little girl had wandered in and never come out, that the ghosts had exacted their revenge on her. Children were warned to stay away.
If anyone was brave or reckless enough to venture in now, they would only find scorched, bare stone walls, like the bones of a skeleton picked clean by scavengers. They would not see the red-haired young woman, the closest thing to a living occupant of the castle in a hundred years, and she would not be able to see them, not from her side of reality, at least until her mission ended one way or another.
Ninety seconds to midnight.
Rowan shoved her shoulder up against the doors, which showed the faintest trace of having once been gilded and grand. Maybe once, the hinges had been oiled to perfection. Now they squealed in protest as they strained and finally creaked open to reveal the only room in the castle left untouched by the fire. Walls of steel guarded shelves of priceless artifacts from another lifetime, but Rowan's focus was on the rose hovering in the center of the room. A rose that had stayed alive long after it had been picked, it had been the object of her first task. When she had retrieved it ten years ago in her timeline, the rose had been in full bloom. Now only a single petal remained, trembling delicately in an unfelt wind.
Sixty seconds.
Rowan upended the bucket, spilling the water she had toiled to draw from a well that had run dry a thousand years ago. Expecting the water to flow down and soak her shoes, she was shocked when it instead streamed towards the rose as if attracted by a magnetic force, gracefully leaping and dancing as it circled the flower.
Fifty seconds.
Unable to pause her work for even a second to contemplate the miracle, Rowan retrieved a small silver whistle and a candle made of a strange, iridescent substance from a nearby shelf. Holding the whistle to her lips, she blew into it as hard as she could. For a moment, she panicked, thinking it was broken, as nothing happened, but then there was a sizzling noise and a spark leapt to the candle wick, lighting it.
Forty seconds.
Rowan's fingers closed around a small glass bottle that was shaking violently, despite appearing to be empty. She nearly dropped it when it jerked in her hand and mentally scolded herself, she could not make a mistake with so little time left. With the other hand, she reached for what appeared to be a rope made out of a dark, powdery material, the same that drifted across the castle like corrupted snow. She caught the cork with her teeth, deftly twisting it off and letting the bottle fall to the floor, where it shattered. Instantly, a wild gale roared out, filling the room, rattling vials and jars on the shelves. Several fell to the ground, adding their contents and more glass to the steel floor. If Rowan somehow slipped and fell down, she was in for a lot of pain, she noted darkly. And not just from the glass.
Thirty seconds.
As the violent gust roared around the room, searching for an escape, Rowan fiddled with the rope, successfully tying one end to the middle, which was practically a miracle given how the rope lashed wildly in her hands. There was no time to test the crude lasso she had created, she just had to pray to whatever god that was out there that it held. Rowan spun the rope in the air, feelling like she was trying to tame a bucking cobra, and threw it in the direction of the wind. She was too late, and it slipped out of the rope's loop.
Twenty seconds.
With increasing desperation she threw it again, holding on tightly to her end of the rope, and was nearly dragged off her feet as the gust of air, which she had successfully lassoed this time, strained angrily at the rope. Rowan dug her heels into the ground, holding onto what little friction the slick floor had to offer, and dragged the rope towards the candle, which, she noticed, showed no sign of burning up - not even a single drop of wax ran down the smooth sides. With a flick of her wrist, the invisible force thrashing within the rope's borders blew over the flame, which did not go out in smoke, but instead somehow was caught within the lasso as well, illuminating the undulating edges of the gale. Now the rope ceased its wild thrashing, tugging Rowan towards the rose hovering eerily in the center of the room. As she released her death grip on the rope, leaving her hands a chalky black, the glowing wind, now as tame as a gentle breeze, glided away from her to hit the water with a whoosh, illuminating it as well. The rope disintegrated on contact with the liquid, however, turning back into the dust it had once been and drifting soundlessly to the floor.
Ten seconds.
It wasn't over yet, Rowan reminded herself as she snapped out of her wonder, snatching up a slender, leather-bound, gilded tome that had fallen to the floor among the glass shards. The pages were filled with a wide, elegant script, a long-dead, long-forgotten language that Rowan had been forced to learn. Of all the tasks, this had by far taken the longest. Rowan began to read out loud. She had expected her voice to be as brittle and dry as the pages of the book after so long of not being used, but to her surprise her steady words echoed loudly off the metal walls, although her words were half slurred from rushing.
"Spiritibus et orientis, filii saeculorum!"
Nine.
"Obsecro ut obliviscaris plebis iniurias defendere annis,"
Eight.
"Nam stare video te oportet nos incidere,"
Seven.
"Innocentes parvulos nostros et iniuriae..."
Six.
"... Puniuntur tribus praefecti eorum qui errat."
Five.
"Nam si non pereamus,"
Four.
"Non solum corporum nostrorum amittetur,"
Three.
"Sed memorias veteris et abierunt,"
Two.
"Et lugent cantatrices spirituum,"
One.
"Et perdidi te usque in sempiternum!"
As the final syllable left Rowan's lips, there was a blinding flash as all of the components appeared to collapse into the rose. Maybe there was an accompanying noise, but it would have been indistinguishable from the roaring of the blood in her ears. The world seemed to snap into a higher definition and the very air itself shook.
But her gaze never wavered as the last petal of the rose detached itself from the stem, with a sound like a soft sigh as it withered, turning into fine black powder that scattered lightly across the floor.
There was no doubt that this was the end. She had made it without a second to spare.
Rowan felt relieved to say the least, but for some reason no weight dropped off her shoulders. Almost reluctantly, she turned to go out the grand doors, to finally leave this prison in the form of a castle that had held her for so many years, to find her family, her little brother, to go back to what her life should have been. The spirits couldn't stop her now. No one could stop her but herself.
Why wasn't she charging back into the world right now? Why couldn't she bring hersef to face reality after all the time that she had lost?
Maybe that was the answer.
And so Rowan was almost glad for a reprieve when the walls started shaking and the screaming reached her ears.
Telling her that somehow she had, against all odds, failed.
~ The End ~ |
