赤裸裸的滑稽故事

Ashleigh covered her face with her arm, trying to push past the heat of the flames, but each time she attempted to enter the room, the heat grew.

‘Go back.’

‘She chose this.’

‘There is nothing to do.’

The voice had been whispering nonstop since she entered the building. She would be lying if she didn’t admit that she was tempted. At this point, she wasn’t even sure she could safely guide Alice back up the stairs.

‘Go before it is too late!’

‘She knew the risk!’

‘They will both die, and the world will be safer for it.’

A soft growl in the back of her mind was the reason she couldn’t let go. It struck something deep inside of her. A feeling she couldn’t identify.

Once more, she tried to push into the room, but an explosion further inside seemed to set off several others, and another burst of flames sent her falling back out of the room.

Her elbows hit the ground hard, and the pain flared through her arms.

‘If you stay, you will die!’

‘She is not worth our sacrifice!”

‘Your life is more important than hers!’

Ashleigh shook her head, but the whispers persisted. Finally, she got to her knees and looked into the room. Her eyes widened as the smoke and fire cleared enough to see Holden stab Alice in the stomach. Alice fell to her knees, and Holden drew his knife high above him.

‘It is too late.’

‘Close the door, and both threats will be gone.’

‘You have made a reckless mistake.’

The growl inside her grew over the whispers and then echoed into a howl.

Ashleigh grabbed her head as a spike of pain shot through her skull. She cried out as it spread over her head and down her neck. She felt as though she were being torn apart.

‘Your voice is the only one you need to listen to, Ashleigh….You know yourself better than anyone.’

Ashleigh gasped at the sound of her father’s words, a memory, but it still touched her heart.

And then silence followed. Not the whispers that scratched at her thoughts, not the memories that touched her soul. Just silence, a frozen moment.

“Who are you?” a soft voice asked.

Ashleigh looked up, expecting to still see the fiery scene around her, the black haze of smoke that burned her eyes.

But that wasn’t what she saw.

Instead, she was on a mountainside. The snow was thick and heavy. She turned and saw a white wolf lying in the powder; beside her lay a dead rabbit.

Ashleigh took a step forward, and the wolf lifted its eyes to her, its bright, hazel eyes.

“Who are you?” the soft voice asked again.

But this time, Ashleigh recognized it.

It was strange to realize that she had not recognized her own voice.

“I am… you,” Ashleigh replied.

The wolf growled.

“Who are you?” It asked again, with less patience this time.

‘She doesn’t recognize you,’ the memory of Lily’s words whispered on the wind. ‘Do you still recognize yourself?’

Ashleigh swallowed.

The scene before her changed. Still on the mountainside, and still the white wolf. Only now, the wolf was trudging down the mountain, limping and stumbling along the way.

Ashleigh remembered this. It was painful, excruciatingly so. She didn’t know at the time what was broken or damaged in her body, only that she would get down the mountain. She would complete her task.

When she returned home, she was in treatment for almost two weeks. But she had fought for every step she took down that mountain. She had held herself upright until the moment she stood before her father, and he told her she had finished her task. Only then did she let herself go. Only then did she allow the pain to overwhelm her.

Ashleigh swallowed at the scene.

How long had she allowed her pain to rule her thoughts and actions?

She heard his laugh and clenched her jaw.

Ashleigh looked up to see images all around her. Happy moments of her time with Granger. His smile, his touch, his kind words.

It made her sick.

Now, she heard the small lies in his whispers, the need to control her in his ‘loving’ attentions. She saw the jealousy in his eyes, the claim in his touch.

“What a fool I was….” she whispered.

She had fallen for his lies for so long. Even after she chose Caleb, he still managed to trick her. To cause harm to so many because of her and through her.

“Who are you?”

Ashleigh turned to see the white wolf standing beside her.

“I don’t know,” Ashleigh whispered.

The wolf looked at her and huffed, padding forward through the memories of Granger, making them fall away as though they were nothing.

Ashleigh followed after the wolf.

‘When I put you down, run to the tree, and then run to the safe zone. Do not look back, and do not listen. Just get up the hill and into the safe zone.’

Ashleigh turned past a tree as she heard the words. Before her, another memory played out.

She saw herself whispering to Abe, the small boy from Fiona’s test in Summer. She watched as she put him down and turned to fight Fiona.

The match between them jumped from scene to scene. She saw herself flung like a ragdoll. She heard the sound of the bones in her shoulder snapping as Fiona crushed them between her fangs.

Ashleigh remembered waking in the hospital, broken and trapped for several days as her body recovered from that attack. But she had won. She had won because she no longer tried to prove herself and no longer wanted to show she was the strongest.

Ashleigh had won because she believed in doing the right thing, even if it cost her something she wanted more than anything else.

‘We all lose sight, we all make mistakes, and sometimes we get dragged down by them,’ Wyatt’s voice called out from memory. ‘But you can’t stay in the dark. You can’t listen to these poisonous lies. No one, alive or dead, can tell you who or what you are except for you.’

The memories fell away. Before her was a scene of fire and smoke. Holden stood over Alice, holding the knife high above him, ready to strike her down.

But to Ashleigh’s eyes, Alice was changed. No longer the spy, the traitor, the liar. Instead, before her, she saw the girl from the picture. The smiling child with the twin braids.

No matter what Alice had done in the past, it hadn’t been her choice. But what she had done today, saving the children, sacrificing herself. Those had been her choices.

Ashleigh didn’t know what kind of Luna she would be. She didn’t know what kind of leader she could be. But she remembered now who she was.

Ashleigh was the child in the mountains that accepted help and wouldn’t give up. She was the woman that wanted to save innocent people at the cost of her own life. Ashleigh was someone who believed in redemption and, at the same time, justice.

She got to her feet and focused her gaze on Holden. Clenching her jaw, she took a step toward him. The fires around her bit at her skin, the smoke burned her eyes, and she was almost forced back.

Ashleigh growled, pushing herself to move forward. Determined she would save Alice.

A howl in her mind echoed loudly, and Ashleigh was suddenly filled with a strength she had never known. She took a deep breath, but instead of smoke, she tasted the cold air of the mountain and the sweet, crisp scent of the lilies.

Without seeing it, she already knew her eyes carried that glow of moonlight; for once, she wasn’t afraid of it.

Ashleigh charged forward, and Holden’s hand came down, only inches away from Alice.

Ashleigh focused her power on him. To her surprise, he flew back and hit the wall with a satisfying thud.

She reached Alice, standing between her and Holden. She looked down at the weasel as he gathered himself to stare back at her.

Holden gasped as the smoke around her moved away, and he was faced with a vision that filled him with dread.

A layer of spectral armor appeared to form over her body. Steel with golden accents and fur lining at the shoulders.

A circlet of gold and steel adorned with a set of small wings at her temples.

In her hand, she held a great sword of steel and gold.

And that haunting glow of the moonlight in her eyes.