Blood flowed. Every single breath was a burning agony. She tried to press her hand against the gaping wound in her chest. Yet it kept running ceaselessly between her ice-cold fingers.
Heavy drops hit the ground with a wet splash. In the silence of the moment, in which time itself seemed to have stopped, the sound echoed unbearably loud in her ears. The parched ground beneath her drank up the liquid greedily.
Her whole body trembled. Eventually her legs gave out and she slowly sank to her knees.
Every single drop of blood was like a grain of sand in an hourglass. Not much longer, and the last grain would fall.
But I promised…
The landscape around her was unrecognizable. Almost everything had been leveled to the ground. Thick smoke hung like a curtain across the sky, plunging everything into darkness. Fires burned in countless places. Embers swirled through the air.
Before her, the shadow of a monstrous creature arched over the earth shrouded in flames, so vast that a human in comparison seemed like an insect. More powerful than anything she had ever seen. As ancient as the earth itself. Scales as black as the night and glowing golden eyes that pierced through the darkness.
Her vision blurred and the world around her melted together. With a gasp she collapsed forward and caught herself with her free arm.
Every time she tried to push herself up, her weakened body forced her back to her knees. She simply had no strength left. She had been fighting this battle for far too long. She had lost too much. All the faces that had vanished from her life forever.
For so long she had tried to avert this fate. And yet it had caught up with her. With every one of them. To believe that she could change anything had been nothing more than an illusion. So what was the point of continuing to fight? Who was she even fighting for? When would it finally be enough?
Now. Now it is enough, she thought as her head tilted forward and her eyes drifted shut. The person she had made that promise to was gone anyway. Maybe it was time to join the others.
Darkness enveloped her at once. It cradled her gently into sleep. Would she really be able to see them again? Each and every one of them?
But then someone called her name. A muffled voice in the distance.
No, not just anyone…
"—wake, do you hear me?! Do not you dare take the easy way out!" the familiar voice scolded her.
Take the easy way out? If she could have, she would have smiled. Her old friend was scolding her. He did not mean it harshly. Whenever he was worried, this was what he did. Her heart filled with new warmth.
It might be too late for her, but she still wanted to open her eyes to see him. To at least say goodbye and thank him for everything. She owed him that. Without him she—no, without him they all would never have come this far.
But her consciousness drifted somewhere between reality and sleep. She could not move. Even her fingers felt as heavy as stone.
"Nova!" his voice rang out louder now.
I hear you.
"Nova, wake up!"
"Nova!"
Only when he started shaking her roughly by the shoulders did she manage to gather the last of her strength and force her eyelids open. She blinked several times and winced.
At first she could only make out a blurry shape.
Again she felt the jolt of being shaken. The hands on her shoulders applied firm pressure. She narrowed her eyes.
Little by little the outlines sharpened. The unknown blur before her slowly took shape.
A pair of reddish eyes rested on her. His silver-white hair, which he usually kept so carefully groomed, was disheveled and coated in dust. The lenses of his glasses were partially shattered, the frame bent in one place so that it no longer sat properly on his nose. His pale, sallow skin looked almost translucent in the dim light.
He drew a deep breath, tapped her cheek gently, and said:
"Nova!"
I am awake.
"Hold on!" he encouraged her in a soft tone.
A faint twitch played at the corner of her mouth. She managed to place her hand over his. Compared to hers, it felt burning hot.
Then his face blurred before her again and everything grew darker.
"Stay awake!"
"Nova…!" this time his voice cracked.
I am sorry.
"Or should I rather…" he began, but his voice faded until she could no longer understand the rest. Yet she knew exactly what he had wanted to say. He had kept her secret all this time.
Farewell, old friend. Thank you for being by my side until the very end.
In an instant everything went pitch black.