There’s a wooden block.
A man standing behind it.
An executioner with a black hood and an axe.
I scour the stage for Uncle Niles, but I trail right past him. Because my eyes don’t want to believe the state he’s in. My eyes can’t accept the shape time has carved him into.
My Uncle Niles stands woodenly behind the block. And he is much older than when I last saw him. My Uncle Niles has white hair, wrinkled skin, and is beaten bloody. Swollen cheekbones. Blue smudges over his jaw and right eye.
Leaving Niklaus’s dad here, in the same timeline as his past self, has taken a toll on his health, and sped up the aging of his body.
“We can fix this…” I whisper. Numbness pulsing through my bones.
My focus flicks back to the block at his feet.
No…
“Dad!” Niklaus’s deep voice booms through the apocalyptic chaos around us. “Dad, we’re here!”
Uncle Niles, though staring death in the face, doesn’t seem afraid. His aged cheeks pull back into a somber smile as he sees us across the courtyard.
“We can get you out!” I yell.
But my plans of escape are burned to a crisp, just as we are about to be. A few guards below us, prepare torches of fire.
How can I get my uncle out of this if I am executed right along with him?
Krimson! Mom! Dad! Please, help us!!!
I avert my eyes and find Vrath staring down at me again.
“Vrath! You can have me! You can fucking have me! But please, spare my uncle! I swear to God, I will give you all of my blood! Please, don’t take him from us!” I scream past my swollen, battered throat, through the fever and clogged lungs.
It’sUncle Niles. He wasn’t even supposed to be here. He has never had the combat training of Uncle Warrose or Aunt Marilynn. He dove in to protect me even though it was almost certain death. He was cast into this awful decade of Vexamen brutality, held captive, and aged prematurely
“Don’t take my father, Vrath.Please. We will work with you! Please, God, don’t let him die!” Niklaus shouts, bucking and thrashing against his pike.
A guard kicks Uncle Niles to his knees, hovering his upper body over the chopping block. But he doesn’t take his eyes off his son.
I cry out, not saying any known words. My cries are weak and guttural all at once.
“You take care of your mother, okay, son?!” Uncle Niles hollers.
“Spitfire!” Niklaus begs.
I nod and concentrate, mentally shoving past that insurmountable barrier of the boundless, godless, mephitic relic in Vrath’s hands. As I shove harder at its primordial barricade, my power streams up my spine, ready to ignite—only to collapse in on itself like a dying star.
A sound of frustration and helplessness slashes out of me that doesn’t feel quite human.
Niklaus gapes at me in unwilling defeat and denial.
“I can’t get us out!” I cry.
I try again and again until my skull cracks apart into a migraine.
“Dellilian!” I try to wake our friend, but that sinister instrument of Vrath’s is keeping her down too.
The executioner’s footsteps are sonorous tremors beating like a war drum into the stage. Boots splashing through the massive puddles. A mountainous human being positioning himself in front of my uncle and measuring the accuracy of where to place his precise swing to align with the neck on display for him to cut.
