Evelyn Earth Part 39

“Are they all as deluded as you?” he asked blandly as he stood up, “all of these people with these horrible powers. Do you all think that you can magically change the world?”

“You’re an idiot” I spat back at him, “it is people like you who have allowed our world to get to this point. This is not magic! This is nature, nature at its essence. It is tangible and it is real and it will be the thing that saves us all.”

“How can a power that kills, destroys and disintegrates things save us? That’s like saying a nuclear bomb is a good thing for fucks sake. When has force ever brought about peace? You should know about history Evelyn, tell me that please, when has war or global destruction, ever brought about world peace?”

“If a nuclear bomb targeted everything that was wrong on this planet and left no traces of its presence then it would be a fair comparison to our power, and it would be a good thing. A GREAT thing!” I threw my hands up above my head, “I’m done talking, we’re leaving, Manoel lets go.”

“You’re just going to walk away from me again?” he said in angry disbelief.

“What do you want me to do, sit here and debate the state of the world with you? You saved my life Owen. If you want to come with us, to really be with us, then come.”

“I don’t want to be part of a killing spree. I don’t want to see you destroy…everything” he sighed. I shook my head from side to side.

“You need to believe. Believe in the goodness of what we’re doing because if you don’t then you fall into the category of people that stand against us.”

“And you will kill those people right?” his eyes took on a desolate look, the kind of look a trapped animal gets after it realises that there is no way out.

“Humanity is insignificant in comparison to the life of the Earth” I said again. There were only so many ways you could say it.

“I’ll come with you, not because you’ve convinced me, but because I don’t think you have completely convinced yourself.”

I shook my head again. There was no turning back now no matter how much Owen might try he would never make me believe otherwise.

“Fine, let’s go.” I turned towards the fallen rubble of the city and tried to sense where Sebastian might me. I let my intuition guide me and set off. I would have to deal with my leg and shoulder when we were all re-united.

We walked for what seemed like hours. Every street we turned down there was a fallen building or rubble in our path. Every different road we took there was more debris and fires to stop us in our tracks. If this had happened to me two days ago I would have simply concentrated on my darkness onto whatever was blocking our way and made it disappear, but my body wasn’t the same as it was two days ago. With every step I took shooting pains ebbed throughout my leg and back. Every time I felt tempted to reach inside and coax my dragon out I felt the overwhelming weariness that had sunk into my bones after yesterday’s expenditure of power.

Owen had made two torches for himself and Manoel to carry, but I continued to rely on my enhanced eye-sight. If there was one thing I was willing to spend my energy on right now it was seeing danger coming from a mile away. That and seeing Sebastian. It was strange having Owen next to me once again. The way he walked, the way he sometimes looked at me as if he was making sure I was okay. There was something about his presence that mellowed me, that had always mellowed me and I think that was one of the reasons why I had pushed him away.

If I had never been chosen as one of the Mother’s warriors I wouldn’t have hesitated a second if it came to choosing between him and Sebastian. Now though, now things were different and Owen didn’t believe in me whereas Sebastian was like another part of my very being.

We barely spoke as we walked, but as the hours grew longer and the detours made things ever more discouraging we both needed to speak, to keep ourselves from going crazy. I managed to pry out what had happened to Toya. She was staying with a small group of people near the beach in South Melbourne. Owen had stayed long enough to make sure she would be fine before heading back into the city. He said that he didn’t know why he had decided to go back into the danger zone, but the way he looked at me when he said it made my heart beat faster.

He had been by the river when he saw my cloud of darkness snake its way through half the city. He knew that I must have been at the centre of it and tried to get closer, but groups of people had emerged onto the streets. The places where they were staying must have been hit by the darkness and forced them out into the open.

Everybody looked panicked and on edge, any interaction was a possibility for disaster so he had decided to wait it out. When it got darker and colder he sought out the fires that had erupted all over the disintegrated area. That’s when he had seen Manoel and me inside the room. Sheer coincidence. Or fate.   

“What about you? Are you going to tell me what happened when you almost died?” he asked quietly. I stopped walking.

“Maybe we should camp out for the night. It doesn’t look like we’re getting very far and I’m…”

“In pain?” he interrupted me, “I thought that was the whole reason for rushing, so that Snow could fix you.” I nodded in agreement.

“I need to rest, I can’t walk anymore.” Manoel said something as well and motioned towards a fairly intact looking building not too far down the road.

“The kids got the right idea, come on.” Before I could protest Owen handed his torch to Manoel and scooped me up like a child. My first instinct was to struggle and demand to be put down, but as I rested my head on his arm I felt better, better than I had felt for a while.