Shades of Grey

JZASACH— NOVEMBER 1843

For three long days, the three of us were trapped in the safe room. For three whole days, I could not remove my Pallitus and Forma could not shift. We were both ensnared in disguises we hated.

“Grey, I’m going to die if I have to be a damn horse for another day. Please tell me all is clear!” Forma complained to me on the morning after our third evening in the room.

I chuckled at her restive fervour (which I completely shared) and slowly went up to the trapdoor. I carefully undid the latch and pushed it open, climbing up onto the hardwood floors…or what was left of them anyway…

“Forma you need to see this.”

Forma looked to ensure Farrah was still asleep and quickly transformed back into herself. She flew hastily out of the safe room and increased her size, looking around the ransacked house in shock.

The front door had been pulled completely off its hinges and a path of devastation wrapped its way around the first floor and up to the second. Forma flew quickly up to my room to verify that our things had not been stolen. She returned with a reassured expression.

“Nothing is missing.”

“Of course not,” replied Farrah as she ascended the stairway. Forma quickly changed back into her horse form just as Farrah reached the floor. “They don’t seek to steal. They only want to eat. They were looking for food.”

I nodded and examined the first floor, fully surveying the damage.

“There must’ve been more than one, this place is utterly...”

Farrah then saw something through the gaping hole that had once been the front door and gave a sudden gasp.

“Oh no!” she muttered under her breath, quickly picking up her skirts and running out of the guest house and into the main house. I turned to Forma, who gave me a fierce look that read ‘don’t you dare leave me here’, and I quickly followed Farrah.

“I hate you, Grey,” she said bitterly.

“I know. See if you can’t tidy up a bit,” I responded with a derisive grin.

“Yes mistress,” she shot back mockingly.

Farrah ran up the back porch and into the main house, which was not as widely damaged as the guesthouse. Save for a few minor gashes in the floor here and there, the place appeared fairly normal… until I followed Farrah down to the basement.

“Father!” Farrah cried hysterically, rushing over to her father, who stood over the blood-spattered body of his wife. Ariella was nowhere to be seen.

I froze in the doorway, my mouth agape in horror.

“I tried to stop, but, I… I couldn’t control myself!”

Arthur Hallington, the tall, composed man I met only days before now knelt in tattered clothes as his strong blood-covered arms held his lifeless wife. I covered my mouth as I noticed the gradually increasing pool of blood around Arthur’s knees. I resisted the urge to vomit, clapping my hand over my mouth.

“It’s not your fault, father! It’s not your fault!”

Arthur and Farrah knelt collectively and cried, holding each other. I turned around and walked out of the basement to allow them privacy, the pain of Loria’s death suddenly rushing back to me. The cruel ironic parallel was almost too much.

Then a strange, resonating knell caught my attention and I saw that other families were also walking outside with similarly saddened looks of horror on their faces. They all stood on the sidewalks in a single wailing dirge. I took it from the depth and intensity of their grieving reactions that they all had unexpectedly lost loved ones as well and that this many fatalities was not a regular occurrence.

“Forma, I think the wolves in these men know that I am here. There seems to be more deaths than these people are accustomed to.”

“What do you see?”

“Hundreds of people lining the streets, all of them crying and mourning together…”

“That’s odd…” Forma said plainly, as though I had just told her that my Flamesword had ignited of its own accord.

“Forma, every single citizen is outside: it is as if the rivers of Babylon have sprung up in Jzasach. Something is terribly wrong…I’m looking at the rest of the buildings in the city and it appears that most of them are fine, save for the doors.”

“What’s wrong with the doors?”

“They look as though they’ve been ripped off their hinges…”

“Were they all trying to get to you specifically?”

“I don’t know, but I think it may be time to reveal myself.”

Forma’s silence told me she agreed.