The Songbird

Chapter 8: We Are All Lost

Even an empty sky has eyes that we cannot meet,
No matter the need, want, or cost.
Yet we prepare our defiance in a well-armed fleet,
Refusing to concede that we are all lost.

* * * * * * *

"Run, Mina."

Her chest heaved as she gasped, digging her feet into the ground and stumbling blindly. There was no light, no sight to grant her clarity, but she continued to run as she felt she had done for an eternity.

"Help me!" She cried out for her shadow, knowing his voice was the one she heard. She had no time to feel foolish or even consider that perhaps he was the one who chased her, as he often did in dreams.

But this was different. Something else was there.

"Get going."

"Who's after me? I don't understand!" She yelled, turning her head in every direction, trying to will some semblance of sight to light her way.

"He's going to catch you."

"Who?"

At that moment, something shot out and grabbed her ankle out from underneath. Mina spiraled to the floor, feeling herself dragged backwards. She dug her hands into the ground, but her skin met the texture of cold metal. Thousands of pieces, all clinking against one another, beginning to glow as she was raked across them.

They were silver coins, all marked with the King's stamp.

Mina flung her head backwards, still trying to cease the dragging, only to see that a red cloth lay tied around her foot, drawing her closer to a figure shrouded in shadow like a puppet on a large string.

"No!" She cried out, recognizing the knight immediately. "Let me go! I haven't done anything, you beast! Let go! Let go!"

The pulling stopped.

The knight tilted his head, almost as if pondering her demand, then went completely still.

She watched the cloth as it disappeared from her leg.

And that figure, the one she'd known down to her bones was the knight, now looked less like him and more like the formless entity that had been with her since childhood.

"I won't go with you, shadow. I've told you a thousand times, and I'll tell you a thousand more if I must."

"No need," he said, beginning to fade away with each whispered word. "You'll be found out soon enough."

"What?" Mina demanded.

"You could stop him, you know. You could stop them all, little Songbird."

* * * * * * *

The morning sun made cutting slashes against the dark walls of the shack, illuminating the space and its contents for Mina to behold.

Her floor was fissured and cracked worse than she had seen it in a long time, and plaster from the ceiling had coated the few items she had in a fine powder. There had been no storm the night before to cause that. And she was beginning to wonder if thrashing in her sleep really could make the ground scar itself like that.

She'd always been fitful, so that's what she told herself to account for it. Even her parents had once said the same.

"Just try to be still, Mina darling, and dream of sweet things."

What sweet things were left to possibly dream about? Why did her house seem to tear itself apart every time she woke up thrashing?

In the days since she'd encountered that knight in The Square, her nightmares had strengthened. And despite the gift he'd given her, a gift that had allowed her the means to buy food and pay Lorenzo overdue debts, she still feared him. Nothing could take away that mental image of darkness wrapping around that poor fool as he was dragged away by the knight.

Much like she had just been dragged in her dreams.

Mina looked around at her room, one that seemed to fall apart more with each passing day, and began to wonder, to think, to fear.

The shadow she'd always dreamed of. The knight that could control them. The nightmares of being chased, of being taken somewhere she knew she couldn't go. Those ominous warnings, ones that said she'd be found, that she couldn't hide forever. She thought of the people she performed for from dawn until dusk, the looks on their faces as she begged them with nothing more than her voice and a song. The way they watched her, focused and yet...absent. The way they always slightly shook their heads when she finished, as if waking from a daydream.

"Why?" She'd asked that knight, incredulous that he'd given her anything at all.

"I liked your voice," was the only answer he had.

Mina's heart was thumping loud enough to feel it in her ears, and her breathing had become shallow.

Foolish, she tried rationalizing with herself. Nightmares and old stories. You're not, you're not, you're not...

The shadow's words came back to her.

"You could stop him, you know. You could stop them all, little Songbird."

The glazed eyes of her audiences filtered through her mind, one by one. She stared at the damage inflicted around her, taking in each new tear and crack.

It's not true. It can't be.

Mina scrambled to her feet and fled from the house, echoes of bad memories and a song swarming her head, one phrase repeating over and over in a frenzy with each stride she took.

We are all lost.

We are all lost.

We are all lost.