For you, I'll stop the clock

Chapter 3 : The Awakening

Alec awoke with a gasp, choking and spluttering, breathing in air, dust and dirt from the ground above him. His body felt like it was on fire, like a dozen seraph blades stabbing into him from the inside. The darkness weighed down on him and he couldn't move. When he tried, a hail of dirt and rock greeted him, collapsing on top of him, almost knocking the wind out of him with its weight.

He could hear sounds above him. Voices fading in and out of the dull ring in his ears. He tried to cry out. To call for help but no sound left his lips. A strange hollowness was coarsing through him and although he couldn't figure out what it was, he felt an emptiness beyond anything he'd felt before within his chest. His torso felt like it was caving in on itself and his body felt cold and foreign.

Then he smelt it. The cool, raspy, metallic smell of blood. Just above ground. He could get to it if he could just move a bit further.

Alec snarled and began to dig.

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The silence of the grave yard was deafening. The knarled, crooked trees hanging over the area whispered ominously around the small group gathered around the ground.

Isabelle watched as Jace began to dig, his muscles tensing and relaxing through the material of his shirt as he heaved clumps of dirt out of the ground with his showel. Simon and Raphael were with him, also digging but with a speed that no mortal could imagine to wield. Their movements were similar, cat like and agile. They moved quietly, darting here and there in a complete syncronised silence.

Isabelle sat a little distance off under a tree, her back against the cool wood of its bark. Next to her lay Alec. His head laying in her lap, his dark hair fanning out where he lay and his eyes closed, his eyelids almost blue with cold. Isabelle held her brother's hand in hers, kissing his icy cold fingers and tracing the prominent dark nerves that raced across his papery skin.

"Izzy?"

Isabelle looked up and saw Clairy, her long red curls standing out with a startling vibrancy against everything else in the grave yard. Her green eyes were narrowed in worry, her eyebrows knitted together as she kneeled down next to Isabelle and took Alec's free hand.

"He's so cold...." She whispered, rubbing circles over his hand as if she thought it would cool it.

"Of course he is. He's dead" Isabelle heard herself say, her voice sounding oddly hoarse and distant in her ears. Clairy looked up at her, pity in her eyes but not for Isabelle. For Alec.

"Why did he do it? Did.....did he tell you?" She asked Isabelle, who shook her head, her dark hair falling in front of her eyes as she did so.

"I didn't even know. I was so caught up in everything....I....I didn't realize....I didn't know how hurt he was. I didn't see it. How could I not see it, Clairy? I....I saw him earlier today. I could've stopped him but I didn't. I was so stupid. I didn't realize.....I didn't realize...." Isabelle bent over and finally let go of herself. Tear after tear rolled down her cheeks falling onto Alec's pale skin and rolling off. Her body was racked with sobs as she clutched Alec to her chest and held him, rocking him back and forth slowly.

"Izzy...." She felt Clairy sit down next to her and put her arm around her shoulders.

"Izzy, look at me"

Isabelle turned slowly to look at Clairy, tears still running down her cheeks.

"Remember when Simon was Turned? Before it happened, he called me. He told me that he thought he was sick. But I told him that he was probably exaggerating and convinced him that he was fine. And then......the next thing I knew he was laying in front me, like Alec is now"