Bel
I know it before I even look at him.
Something is very wrong.
Fire races through my body, starting at my back and flowing outwards.
But this isn’t my agony.
“Fritz!” I scream, but it’s too late. When I do look up to see him, he has a hunter behind him, barely standing but still able to cause one last death today.
Fritz doesn’t seem to hear me; he just screams in agony before he drops to the floor, bringing the hunter down with him. Fritz’s eyes are dazed, and I’m running before I can help myself. I land beside him as he stares into nothing, the edges of his body starting to blur and break off like dust in the wind.
“What’s going on?” I cry, but there’s no answer. “What’s happening?” I plead with anyone who will listen.
“I’m sorry, Bel,” Caspian sinks beside me.
“What do you mean,you’re sorry?What’s happening to him?” I cling to Fritz’s shirt, but it just dissolves, followed by his hands, first the fingers, then his palms. “No, no, no, no, no,no.”
What’s left of Fritz slowly dissipates, leaving nothing behind but ash.
“Where is he?” Tears flow down my face in an unceasing flow. “Where is he?”
“Hell,” Caspian whispers, “Vankhala.”
“No,” I tell him, though I know deep down it’s true. I can’t feel Fritz the way I could just moments before. “He can’t be. I need him.”
The world before me starts spinning, and I blink to clear my head.
“He’s gone, Bel,” Eamon announces, sorrow filling even his face.
“This is your fucking fault,” I scream at him, needing somewhere to put all this rage. “You told me that as long as we bonded he would be safe from that place!” The ringing in my ears grows to a roar, nearly drowning out everything around me.
“I-“he pauses, watching me with growing concern. “I told you that we don’t know anything for certain. Everything we think we know is just theory. I’m sorry, really I am but he’s gone.”
Spots dance in my vision, the floor suddenly seeming much closer. The last thing I register is Caspian screaming my name and someone cradling my head against something hard, warm, and sticky.
Where am I?
I don’t remember opening my eyes, but I can see. Though there’s not much to see, I suppose. It’s neither dark nor light, cold nor hot, just gray vastness.
I can’t feel anything. Am I dead? Is this what death feels like? An emptiness going on forever in all directions?
I don’t feel ground beneath my feet or the wind in my hair as I try to move. I’m just… floating through nothing.
The only thing around me is a glittering mist that I can see but not feel. If I reach for it, it dances out of my reach. Beautiful, swirling smoke of glitter in shades of red and white and black.
Out in the distance, a mist calls to me. Not with sound or any determinable act, but I know that one. It’s mine. It matches the piece in my chest, the armor surrounding my heart. They’re the same.
But how do I get there? Or get it to come to me?
“Fritz!” I try to call out, but no sound belongs here. A place without time or space or thought.
Vankhala.
I call out again and again, but the fog doesn’t respond. He’s so close, and yet I can’t get him. Can I swim in this place? I try to no avail. Again and again, I try to reach the piece of my soul locked in this place of endless death.
Someone far away shouts my name. They scream it, even. Another voice joins them, but they’re so far. And Fritz needs me here. He can’t be alone in this terrible ocean of nothing.
