Chapter 23 - Annihilate

Althea Zoella Castellanos Silvermoon:

And another day goes by as we wait for Eve to unlock the key to home. As we wait for Circe’s team to return. And as we wish for Alex to succeed.

What once felt like a lost case, looks more like a planned journey now. With Blue Blood and Red Healer with us, we had both the number and the power. We were more together, connected than I felt with anyone else.

They trained together, harder. The Lycans taught the werewolves how to battle against one of their kind, trusting them with their secrets, exposing their weakness, making themselves frail, but making one another undefeatable. They train like they were one.

And I couldn’t be more delighted.

But another day went by.

Circe had one more day to return yet we hadn’t heard anything from Eve yet. And only goddess knew of Alex.

With every sunset, my heart grew more restless and my thought disarray. But like always, I conceal these feelings. I needed Aries with me but so did the rest.

He was one of the best trainers for the young wolves, knowledge, experience, power, he lacked none. He truly was one of a kind. Truly and literally. But he was mine regardless.

I watch them spar from my seat on the thick branch of the tall tree, my mind thousand miles home. My every second lost on wishes, for them all to be safe, for them to be strong and to hang on a little more.

Releasing a deep sigh, I stare at the horizon, the sun setting over that mountain of green, the sky a perfect shade of rusty orange with a crimson hue. A warning to my disoriented self. Time was running.

Fisting my hands tightly, I close my eyes, an anger building inside, slowly. Although powerful, I was useless, helpless. I needed to release these angers somehow, so I set my eyes towards the group sparing on the field. Just as I lock my aim and rise, Sam’s voice halts me.

“Luna.” He stops few inches away, looking up at me with an urgency. “Evelyn has called for you.”

Releasing the breath of anguish, I fall forward, landing on my feet while my heart thunders non-stop, its volume loud. I nod my head and biting my bottom lips, I follow him as he leads the way into the woods.

Just as we enter the clearing in the middle of the woods, I feel the current sizzling through the palm of my hand as Aries joins me. Squeezing my hand tightly onto his, we both move forward without exchanging a word.

And there she stands with this massive pool of golden hue forming a circle, bright and dazzling, lightning up the floating darkness that came along with the night. Her green eyes look at me with pride and a small smile playing across her face. I look in between her and the unmissable portal that she had succeed in opening up. “Eve…”

My feet halts and the words just disappear with the last breath that was squeezed out from my lungs. “Whenever you are ready Althea.”

She nods her head to the portal before her eyes falls on mine again.

She had done it.

Finally, there was a way back home. And it was no less than an arm’s reach. I move forward, my gaze set on the golden circle as the loud thumping of my heart won over the voices around me. My breathing more audible than their words.

“Althea…”

But a soft whisper was all it took.

The tingling sensation of his hand intertwining on mine, filters into the illusion that I had fallen into. I stop just before the portal could shallow me and turn around only to be pulled into a world filled only with that piercing blue light.

I breath out as he tugs my hand and I fall right into his arms. “Althea.” He whispers again, eyes filled with concern flickering around, examining my face. “Are you okay?”

I nod my head once and fall forward, leaning my head onto his hard chest, inhaling that calming scent he carried. Placid, I move out of his embrace and look around at Eve with a soft smile on my face. “I cannot thank you enough Eve. I am forever grateful to you.” My gaze flickers to Noah to Ash. “To all of you.”

“That’s less than what you have done for me Althea. You bought me home. You became my friend.” And again, I fail to understand, to be part of that story. “We are friends, right?”

Those emerald in her eyes holds sadness as she looks at me with hope. And I smile right back. I may not know much of that time, but I do this one. “Friends.” She had done more than what anyone had done for me in the decades of my life. She accepted me after knowing my hideous self, after watching rage fill me up.

Letting go of Aries, I open my arms to hold her, sending the gratitude that I felt deeply. “Thank you, Eve.”

“Anything for you Althea.” I feel her arms tighten and a chuckle leaves my lips. “Anything.” All of these wolves that I have encounter the last few days were all equally just as amiable and as they were naïve. But very welcoming.

They made me feel as if I was one of them. That I too was a family.

All my life, I have never really felt like I belonged. I lived amongst my kind, my people and still I felt lost. I felt alone admits the sea of people that surrounded me, called me their own, filled my days with laughter but left my heart empty. I lived as an outcast.

But this place felt like home. These people like my own.

Like I had returned home.

Smiling brightly for the first time in the longest, I let go of her. “Family.”

And soon my smile falls upon her face. Brushing off the tears gliding down her eyes, she nods her head quickly as a sweet laughter comes out from her.

“Family.” Noah steps forward and so does Ash. “Family.”

“Family.”

And soon the evening echoes our voices once again. Lycans, werewolves alike hover the clearing, the trees, the ground alike, circling us, a smile in each face, a determination in their eyes.

I look at the door back home. “We are going to win this.”

The cheers soon follow after, lessening the gap between us, crowding the land. I turn around, looking at their eyes as I speak. “Soon we will once again step into a land, familiar to some and foreign to others. But no matter what we got one another’ back.”

I take a step back and look forward. “But first we must know the situation. We cannot all just barge in there and be the prey to the unknown. I, myself will go and foresee the situation.”

And before they could revolt, I put my arm up, palm facing outward. “I need to go.”

The wind travels my voice across the land, loud and clear, strong and powerful, and they all drop on their feet.

“My queen.”

“Alpha.”

Equally echoes the sky that was turning darker as the minutes passed. “Your highness, I would like to be permitted to join.”

I look at Alastair on his knees, but his strong eyes do not back off. Sighing, I nod my head. “Permitted to join, Alastair.”

“Alpha—”

“No Ash.” I stop him even before he starts his sentence. I know he too wanted to come along. “You need to stay here. Your pack needs their Alpha to lead them.” And I look at Noah. “You too Noah. Stay on standby. Who knows how early we’ll call upon you for help?”

I walk towards the portal. “Evelyn, Matt and Alastair will join—” But a sizzling tug on my arm halts me and I turn around to see a very dejected Aries, eyes a shade darker, jaws clenched tightly.

And whoever said I was leaving without him.

So, with a soft smile, I finish the rest of my sentence. “—myself and Aries.” And those dark shade in his blue disappears just like that, leaving just a soft smile on his handsome face. Intertwining our hands together, I move forward and nodding at Eve, I step into the darkness that the portal opened up to.

Soon the other joins us and the portal closes, stripping all the light it had projected, only for us to fall into this pitch-black night. But no matter how dark the night was, it never got this dark. No matter how hard I look, I couldn’t point a star in the void space above me.

“Just, where are we?”

Dark. Green. Trees. Vines.

That was all that surrounded us. Vines filled the surface, twisting, coiling the very earth. Tall, wide trees with blankets of heavily sprouted leaves concealed all, leaving nothing for the naked eyes and the wildflowers all over made me lose my senses. I couldn’t smell anything past it. The heavy scent of earth brimmed the air.

But I knew that we were very much home.

“Mum...”

I whisper as my heartbeat fastens. I know it was her doing. Her gift. She was a Lycan loved by the earth itself. So, this can only mean that she was fine right? That she was safe, hidden somewhere amongst the greens.

“Mum?”

I call out louder as I take a step further, but something flies right from the front, its canines glistening even in this darkness, claws ready to strike, but before I could, Aries stands in front of me, its body limping sideways and its detached head on his hand.

“Mine.”

He lets go of its head but holds his foot, scanning the darkness as we all do. “Do not let your guards down.”

We all nod as we make our way further into the dark. But no matter how far, or how deep we step, it was a never-ending loop of vines after vines. I feel hopeless as disappointment spews my heart. I saw no sign of life, encountered nothing other than this vile creatures lottering the dark and couldn’t smell past the rich earth which blocked my senses.

I stop and lower my head as this wretched tear betrays my eyes and fall onto the ground. And in an instant, I’ll pulled into his strong embrace. I let the silent tears fall as I tug on the t-shirt on his back. But before anyone of us could say anything, the subtle sound beneath us, halts us.

The earth vibrates making us all take a step back and huddle in a group. “What is going on?” Alastair bends slightly to examine the massive gap forming on the ground.

And soon the earth opens up before us, showcasing a staircase leading to the ground below. We all look at one another before we take the stairs into the eternal darkness, all holding our breath, alert and ready. Even if it was a trap, I was ready to fall into. I had to take the risk, this chance.

One step at a time, we walk down the long empty staircase, one that had no end and seemed endless. The further down we went, the heavier and the richer the scent of the earth got. And my footsteps only increased with its increasing scent and as did the drumming of my heart.

The marching of our feet faster and lighter as we descend. For a second, I thought I heard a sound, a thud of a heart or was it a soft breath, but it was all, until silence was all that awaited at the end of the tunnel.

Was it my imagination or the reality, but I finally see the exit to our infinite journey to the core of the earth? I see a small opening craved on the rough walls of the earth, with a flickering soft yellow light. And holding tightly onto Aries’ hand and my breath, I leap forward, drumming of my heart booming my ears.

But the moment I take a step on the ground, I take one right back.

Blue flames rage angrily in front of us, creating this barrier, enclosing the secrets it held. I have never seen a fire so intense, so blue, anger so chaste, burning brighter than the stars at night. Just a touch could erase one’s existence, leaving no trace but the ashes.

I knew those flames though.

A flame that never dies. A flame that burns with such a passion. Only she was capable of such destruction.

That meant that they were behind this barrier of blue fire. They were here. They were safe.

“Aunt Ana.”

I call out with hope in my heart, drumming at the pace of meteor. “Aunt Ana. Mum. Dad.” Let there be a voice to answer this anxious heart of mine. I pray, inching closer to the flame as the seconds pass by unanswered.

“Zoella?” It was Aunt Ana.

“Aunt Ana. Yes, it’s me. I’m here.” And immediately the flames extinguish to reveal the other side. And the first thing that I see is this huge bonfire, lighting up the darkness the earth cast.

There she stood with her fiery blue eyes wide with shock but nevertheless moves forward, breathing out loud and pulling me tight into her embrace. “Althea what the hell are you doing here?”

They only call me by my first name when they were displeased with me, but her soft whisper told me otherwise. “How did you even get here? Oh Althea, why have you returned?”

“Zoe?” Another voice calls out from behind her. “Aunt Aya.” And I exhale a breath of relief.

“You are safe. You are both safe.”

I squeeze my eyes shut as I place my head into their embrace, holding them tight into me. With a soft stroke of my hair and kisses to my temple, they pull away, a small smile on their faces but not their eyes. “I’m glad you are too.”

“Aunt Aya, where’s mum?” I look past them and for the first time, I really see what the earth held within itself.

It was the place I once knew as home, surrounded no covered with green, vines over everything that it once stood proud of. Palace walls destroyed at places, vines climbing up the stone walls, decorating the whole exterior, it looked nothing more than an ancient rune, discarded by the people it once held dear.

Letting go of them, I take a step forward as the Lycans hidden within the green slowly starts to make their existence known. There they all were, faces lowered with defeat, body stained with dried blood. And when they finally look at me, all the light in their eyes long gone, no hope for tomorrow in them, they look right back down, some even gasping out loud.

Slowly the Lycans part their ways and I take a step further in.

A huge tree sat in the middle of them all, blooming green as if giving life to everything around. The ground beneath it, decorated with the purest white flowers as if gently planted with love and the approximately of it almost neatly planted with a rainbow of colours.

As I make my way deeper into the crowd, their occasional stares jab every part of me. My cursed eyes. Some look at me with disgust, some with a known anger, hands fisted tightly while others avoid me altogether, my haunting eyes, their worst nightmare.

But I didn’t care for their judgemental looks now, for my sole purpose was to unfold the secrets that laid here.

The flickering of the bonfire directly fell upon garden of rainbow, painting a perfect picture, too dazzling to look. But something about it, makes me tremble in fear, almost halting me in my steps and even turn away. It was as if something was telling me that this beautiful manifestation was only masking an ugly truth.

So, I continue towards it and finally make out an image of a man underneath the crown of the tree, fallen onto his knees, his head bent, shoulders slumped, and hands placed on its trunk. As my ears ring with the pounding of my heart, I quicken my steps because I knew that man.

He was my father.

“Dad—”

But my voice dies as I pass through the land of rainbows.

Finally uncovering its secret, I slow down and eventually halt on my feet, staring down, around at the Lycans that lay within it. Only their faces unveiled while their bodies covered by those thick root-like vines. Eyes shut, faces calm, they slept within the earth, with the earth.

I take slow steps, my lips sand-dry, inhaling the horror that lay around me, unfolding like the horrendous reality of my nightmare. Passing through the garden of rainbow, only to walk into the whites, my heart squeezes tightly.

For it holds no Lycans within it.

With breathing heavy like a deer on run, I continue forward to where it bloomed thicker, wilder than the rest while praying to the goddess to let my imagination just be an empty imagination. But deep within my soul, I knew that I was right.

It was all wrong. Horrible.

Air caught in my lungs, I forgot how to breathe. I now was standing directly in front of the Lycans that lay resting within the bed of soft white petals, as if it were the most comfortable mattress in the world, their face held peace, calm as if they were deep in sleep with a sweet dream playing across their closed lids.

“Grandma, grandpa…”

The white in front of me blurs as my eyes sting with sadness and soon the pond overflows into a river down the valley of my cheeks.

The earth holds the King and the Queen of the Lycans, embracing them within itself. This was all wrong. I tell myself. I had fallen deep into my nightmare, I just had to wake up.

I shake my head. Tears spilling around me as I look at my father. “Dad.” I try once again and step towards him. “Dad.” My suffocating lungs finally figures to breathe again as I inch forward but only to be enlightened with another truth that I was petrified of. My pace slows as my eyes rises higher and I too fall onto my knees, with my eyes now growing wider, trapped on its trunk.

Tears spills like a glacier, uncontrollable and unstoppable.

Because there she was.

Her body one with the tree, the lower half of her body planted within the bark, arms spread across and further elongated into branches, as if the tree itself grew around her, from her. Her face like the rest, peaceful, those soft green of hers hidden behind her now pale skin as if all the life had been taken away from her, sucked right from her.

“No…”

I shake my head, clamping my trembling lips shut. No. It was not true.

Wake up.

Wake up.

But I did not. I could not.

For I was not dreaming. It was all real. And it all did happen.

Raven, the most beloved daughter of the earth was forever imprisoned within her mother’s embrace.

“She saved us all.”

But all I knew, all that I saw was the sacrifices that she made for them all. My mother taken away from me.

“And you all watched her as she did.”

An anger so furious burst out of me. Wind howls around me once again and my pounding heart takes a complete silence as if scared of itself.

My eyes burn with hatred for these Lycans around me that she gave her life for. My only desire to destroy. To turn them into nothing, put them all to sleep in the sea of their own red bed.

I was no sane.

I was born atrocious.

I was dark.

And at this moment I only knew one thing. A need to annihilate life, in order to calm this inferno raging within me.