Chapter 14: Chapter 14: Secrets Revealed Part 1

I've never heard such a sound.

Like seeing one's childhood nightmares appear. Watching them come for you, believing in that kind of evil, knowing it still exists. Terror. I know it. The feeling. Being stripped of your voice, of your ability and freedom to fight back. Of everything keeping you alive, keeping you human. But she fought. If only for a second. And we heard it, hanging in her scream, a warning cry to us all.

It's real. It's all real...

A dust cloud blows over and everyone has vanished. Even the Water Pole lies hidden beneath waves of the grey ash. They sweep from the trenches, skirting the matted, cracked dirt and separating us in billowing sheets. Footsteps draw nearer, slowly at first, just as silhouettes emerge through the veil. All drawn by instinct to the cry, they narrow their direction to me.

I'm about to tell them they're mistaken - they've got the wrong girl - when a voice croaks behind me and I turn.