Wings of Fate: The Lost Ones

Some unidentifiable sound shattered the midnight stillness. Whatever moved in the forest did so with stealth -- she could neither place the sound nor find its location. Something woke her, though. Something invisible lurked in the darkness. Fearing to move, yet equally afraid to lay prone -- waiting to be snatched into the depths of the shadows -- Raven inched upwards until she was sitting tight against Austin’s back.

His body jerked awake, at sudden attention as he sat up beside her. She placed a cautionary hand on his shoulder and covered his mouth as she struggled to see the fleeting shadows gliding through the clearing. She couldn’t make sense of the sound she heard. What moved?

Unbelievable pain spiked through her neck and shoulder, and the world turned black.

She went on a weekend fishing trip once with some friends back in college and recognized the swaying sensation she felt upon waking. Austin lay curled against her with one fist clenched tight beneath his chin. She listened to the steady rise and fall of his breathing while looking around the closet-sized, oak-paneled cabin in which they were dumped. Other than the bunk-style bed, which the two of them occupied, there were no other room furnishings.

Five feet away, on the bare wooden floor, lay a white porcelain medieval-looking chamber pot. Grimacing at the thought of squatting over the thing, and deciding to ignore any need for its use, Raven glanced to the door. There were no sounds coming from outside the room -- the wooden door stood as a silent guard. Most likely locked.

Kidnapped.

Just one more thing that didn’t add up in this place. DeSolar. It began with Bael -- obviously a disturbed individual -- ranting about the unthinkable, the unimaginable existence of DeSolar. After lying down last night, she was provided with hours alone in which to consider his lunacy. Bael had to be some kind of escaped convict or, worse, an escaped psycho-ward patient.

Austin turned to his side, sighing as he moved. A quick glance at his face assured her he still slept. How had they gotten into this situation? The kid was depending on her and she managed to get them an escort from an insane asylum escapee, followed by a midnight kidnapping. And Tom wanted to have children with me, she thought, ha!

At least they managed to get away from Bael. Of course, switching one crazy man for another wasn’t ideal. Sighing, she climbed out of the captivity of their bed and moved to the door. Leaning her ear against the surface, Raven held her breath and listened.

Nothing.

They could be out there though -- more crazy people. Surely not everyone on the island was crazy. She tried not to remember any island-involved horror flicks. Of course, it was also possible their assailants weren’t crazy at all. Perhaps the men grabbed her and Austin in some desperate rescue attempt. Maybe they could get them home. Maybe this was some secret NASA thing, Raven mused and, with a silent laugh reflected on Baels’ response to her questioning.

She glanced down at Austin, watching him sleep. The jagged ends of his bangs rested against his forehead, becoming entangled in the tips of his eyelashes. He was so young. Until that moment she treated him, looked at him even, as being an older, more mature kid. Drumming up memories of herself at the same age she could only recall her fear of being forgotten.

When the other girls in class craved the latest Barbie Doll or Cabbage Patch Kid, she was consumed with a need for protection and security -- though she hadn’t really thought of it that way. In comparison, the loss of her parents had been a world-changing, upsetting event -- but nothing in comparison to a plane crash on Loony Island.

The thinness of his arm barely showed beneath his head where he kept it tucked pillow-like. His other hand remained fisted under his chin even though he pressed his face against the one flat pillow they were given. She assumed he was knocked out the same way she was and, if that was the case, he would be waking soon. Sighing, she carefully slid the blanket up to his shoulders and turned back to the door.

Waiting for the tell-tale sound of presence from the other side Raven waited with one hand silently gripping the brass doorknob. Still, no sounds came through the door and, whispering a child’s prayer, she twisted the knob.

Finding it unlocked was a surprise, but unlocked it was. Pulling the door open, she stared hard at the bare floor when the panel of wood glided towards her with only the slightest tension on the knob. With a quick glance at Austin’s sleeping body she eased herself through the opening -- closing the door without a sound behind her.

Their cabin was at the end of a short hall with a set of ascending stairs at the opposite end and two additional doors along the one wall. Standing frozen in the semi-lit hallway, she listened for the thud of approaching footsteps but the corridor remained silent. She rolled on her feet, standing on the tips of her toes, and crept towards the stairs. Eventually she came to the end of the hall and slid her fingertips upwards along the smooth surface of the metal stair rails.

A square opening in the ceiling above her head allowed in a thin stream of white light where it danced across the stairs and on the rail where her hand lay. Fat, white clouds glided across a pale blue sky above her head. The boat swayed beneath her feet, rocking in a gentle rhythm so much like being rocked to sleep, she almost forgot her purpose there.

Two male voices floated down the steps. The men sat above deck near the stairwell, making further movement foolhardy. Going back to the cabin she shared with Austin was an option if she wanted to just wait and see what would happen. Or she could stay hidden in the hallway and eavesdrop. Not really a choice at all, she thought without humor.

“Did you see the woman?” a rumbling voice asked, heckling the listener.

“Oh aye, didna e’eryone see her?” another man replied with a laugh. His voice ground out like crunching gravel beneath the tires of her jeep. “Ah, best get ’er outta yer head man.” He continued, “You heard what cap’n said about that one.”

“Yeah, yeah, I know.” The first man grumbled and then continued in a mocking tone mimicking the captain. “She’s important and King Nash will personally disembowel the man who touches her.”

“’Zactly.”

“Well he didn’t say what made her so bloody special, did he now? All the others he’d not cared a whit about. Now all the sudden we’re abducting some princess.”

“Who’d ye hear claiming she was a princess?” the gravelly-voiced man asked in surprise. Raven’s frown went unseen in the shadows of the stairwell where she waited for a response.

“Well, why else would King Nash get involved and demand special treatment for her? I admit, she’s a looker definitely but that don’t mean a man’s gotta treat her like she’s precious cargo. She is just a woman.” The first man announced derisively.

“I don’t know man but I wouldna worry ’bout it. Just stay away from ’er.” Chair legs scraped against the wooden deck a moment before her view of the sky vanished. Panic raced through her when she met his dark eyes through the shadows casting across his face. Raven, unsure which of the men glared down at her, turned and quickly fled to the cabin.

Austin sat, wide awake and blinking, in the center of the bed with the blanket tangled around his legs. His tousled hair needed a brush and he was in desperate need of a bath. “Did you bring me any food?” he asked, wrapping his arms around his stomach. “I’m so hungry.”

Raven thought back to last night, remembered the conversation she had with Bael about breakfast. Austin went to bed without dinner, having fallen asleep before the rabbit meat was ever brought into camp. She was unconcerned about his missing dinner because Bael promised to have breakfast available. No wonder he was hungry, she thought, overwhelmed with her inability to provide food for him. There was nothing in the room to feed him and her purse was left behind at the camp site. “I am so sorry Austin, I’ll make sure to get you something to eat as soon as I can.”

Unhappiness settled over his features as he stared at the floor, making Raven feel worse about it. “When will that be? Where are we?” he asked, meeting her eyes again.

“A boat.” She answered, sighing.

“A boat? I don’t remember getting on a boat. I thought Bael said we were walking to the wise woman’s house.” He said, confused. Raven sat on the bed beside him and stared at the chamber pot across the room. Maybe it was because she snuck out of the room and got some fresh air, but she was suddenly nauseas from the wet, musty smell permeating the cabin.

She tried to breathe without smelling or tasting the air but it was no use. The pervasive dampness of the room seeped into her nose anyway. A window was built into the room, low enough to reach, but obviously meant for viewing and not opening. She could allow fresh air into the cabin by opening their door -- but who knew what waited outside.

“Bael isn’t with us right now Austin. I don’t want you to get upset because I’m sure there’s a solution to the problem but it looks like we’ve been kidnapped.”

Austin twisted his head toward the door. “But, you were just outside.”

“Yeah,” Raven said, frowning. “They didn’t lock the door.”

“So maybe we’re not kidnapped?” He suggested with so much hope for the suggestion she almost laughed. Hysteria, that’s always good, she thought.

“Yeah, maybe, Austin but I don’t think that’s the case.” She met his eyes, wondered again at the openness of his gaze. The kid truly had the largest eyes she had ever seen on a child -- or an adult. Tom had large eyes -- almost as expansive as Austin’s were but not quite. The silky, chocolate coloring though, was uncannily similar. Austin watched her with something suspiciously like trust and she forced herself to cover a bothered sigh. It wasn’t as though she could tell him not to have faith in her. But really, what did he expect her to do?

“Then why didn’t they lock the door?” he asked.

Glancing at the unlocked door, Raven shrugged. “Probably because there are a lot of enormous men on this boat and we’re in the water somewhere so I bet they’re counting on us not jumping overboard.” She raised her eyebrows at him.

He sighed. “Yeah I don’t want to jump overboard.” He sounded so forlorn Raven felt compelled to drape her arm around his shoulders, hugging his body against her side.

“Me either.”

“What are we gonna do?” he asked, raising expectant eyes to hers.

Frowning at the barren room, she expelled a heavy breath. “We wait.”

Hours passed without event. Austin spent half an hour walking along the edges of the room, placing one foot in front of the other and counting how many of his feet-sized feet there were to each wall. Had the room been larger, Raven figured that sort of activity would have provided longer amusement. Thirty minutes comprised of the room being counted, recounted, and then counted again. She did her best to tune out the sound of his voice counting, one...two...three...four, several times over, just to repeat it all again.

On occasion he would pause to hug his stomach but he didn’t mention food to her. Wishing she had stuffed some rabbit meat in her pockets, Raven comforted her own growling stomach and wondered how long it had been since dinner. After a while, Austin gave up on playing, lay on the floor, and was soon asleep.

She lay on their stiff bed and stared at the ceiling.

If Bael was crazy, then so were the men on the boat. She and Austin could have landed on Loony Island, but Raven was beginning to think, less reluctantly, about all Bael told her. Okay, time to find some acceptance with the event. Somehow their plane crashed landed them on the unknown planet of DeSolar, which clearly had nothing to do with NASA.

Strange men who lived to be hundreds of years old greeted them and took them to a wise woman in a nearby village. Then, their plane disappeared. Bael was not crazy, he was trying to help her and Austin, and they would learn more once they made it to the village -- if they made it to the village. If Bael was sane, then the men upstairs were loons.

Who was this King Nash and why did he want her enough to kidnap her? She and Austin hadn’t been on DeSolar long enough for anyone to be aware of their presence. It didn’t add up.

She had stepped into some kind of horror story. Did there have to be chainsaws and laughing porcelain dolls in order for it to be considered a horror story? Raven doubted it. She imagined anytime something awful happened it could be considered horror.

Footsteps pounded against the ceiling above her head. Curbing her line of thought, Raven listened. All morning long the footsteps above had been slow -- relaxed. These steps sounded urgent as they raced from above her head to well past their medieval chamber pot. New footsteps ran the opposite direction.

When the sound of yelling reached their cabin, Raven bolted upright in bed. Other voices returned the yells and then a horrible grating sound exploded nearby, causing the boat to shudder and list to one side.

Raven, thrown from the bed, leapt to her feet and caught Austin before he slammed into the wall. “Austin, it’s time to go.” She whispered.

“The kidnappers came for us?” he asked, rising.

Pulling him by his arm, she walked with him to the door, turned the knob and peeked into the hallway. It seemed all the men on the boat were occupied with whatever was happening on deck. Austin followed her down the hallway to the stairs where she stopped to look back at him in concern.

“I didn’t even think Austin, do you know how to swim?”

He looked at her as though she were dense. “I’m ten, Raven, of course I can swim.” She smiled at his obvious offense. Kids.

“Good, the plan is to race up these stairs, race across the deck and jump into the water -- cannonball style. You do know how to do a cannonball, right?” she asked, both mocking and challenging him. While he was still sputtering, she climbed the stairs.

Madness exploded on deck. Madness and bodies.

Several unmoving men littered the wooden planks, narrow russet streams of their blood ebbed away to fill the thin cracks between the planks. More men had swords drawn -- running to the opposite end of the boat. Swords! She thought, shaking her head. Raven turned to see what was going on but her view of the other end of the boat was impeded by an empty captain office.

Right behind her Austin climbed out and, wasting no more time, Raven grabbed his hand and they ran across the deck. Falling against the rail, she glanced over the edge to ensure they would be jumping into water and realized the scraping noise she heard was the boat running aground. They reached the shore. Glancing up at the cliffs surrounding the shore’s edge, she could just barely make out the top of several buildings.

“Raven hurry.” Austin whined, tugging on her hand.

She turned to him. “Sorry. Climb up and we’ll jump in at the same time.” She ignored the men’s bellowing behind her. As long as they weren’t paying attention to her and Austin’s escape she didn’t care what they did. Swinging her left leg over the rail, Raven wrapped it around one of the horizontal bars to hold her body in place, and then swung her other leg over. Austin was already perched on the rail ready to go. “One, two -- jump!” she whispered.

Wind whipped through her clothes as they fell through the air. The water approached at an alarming rate, giving her only a second to reconsider the decision to jump before she hit the water. She landed hard enough to sink deeply, far below the water’s surface. She stared at the receding sunlight wavering above her head on the water’s surface as she savored the minutes and continued to sink.

Raven allowed herself to enjoy the cleansing of the water against her grimy skin before she began kicking her legs towards the dark blob of Austin’s body bobbing at the surface. When her mouth cleared the water she gasped in a deep breath of air. Austin’s face was a contradiction of concern and anger.

“What?” she asked, treading water beside him.

“Nothing.” He growled.

“Okay then, let’s swim to shore. We’ll have to do most of the swimming underwater and then when we reach land...” she suggested, trailing off, searching for a hiding place. “See that spot over there?” she asked, tilting her chin in the direction she wanted him to look.

“Where the trees are?”

“Yea-” she broke off, ogling the sarcastic expression on his face.

“Just follow me. Such a pain in the-” she replied, sinking below the surface again to head towards the tree-lined shore.

Since the boat was beached, they didn’t have far to swim and, before long, she was inching her body snake-like across the white sand. Still choking on salty seawater, she grabbed Austin as soon as he was clear of the water and they darted into the brush to hide. Raven wiggled her toes in an attempt to dispel the uncomfortable feeling of water-logged socks swollen inside her shoes.

Her long hair wrapped itself around her neck in a strangle hold, which had to be pried loose as she peeked around the side of their cover to stare hard at the boat. The men were still fighting. Had someone boarded the vessel and attacked? There hadn’t been time to see any the men who abducted them so she didn’t know which of the figures were their abductors and which were the attackers.

A quick scan of the beach turned up no visible enemies. No one approached the hiding spot and so she turned back to the boy, crouching low to the ground beside him to catch her breath.

This was an impossible situation. She had no idea where they were -- no idea where to go. She had a strong suspicion the city over the cliff belonged to King Nash. If she took Austin there, they would be in just as much trouble as if they stayed on the boat. They could try to head to the village but she had no idea where that was. In direct relation to where they stood Raven had no idea, even, of where their plane crashed.

She glanced at her watch, which was apparently not waterproof. With a heavy sigh, Raven wrenched the useless circle of metal from her arm, tossing it to the ground while trying to capture a glimpse of the sun. Knowing what time it was would help to gauge how far away they could be from the village but it didn’t help not knowing how many hours, if not days, they were unconscious. It also didn’t help not knowing which direction the boat had traveled. All of it was a big unknown.

They could always travel in one direction, staying hidden, until they were able to find a town where she could ask someone how to find the village. But that was assuming she wouldn’t be taking them into a more dangerous situation.

Wanting to curse out loud, she eyed Austin and settled for growling under her breath. Cooling drops of water coursed along her skin, sliding from her hair to her neck and then down her clinging t-shirt. She sighed, grateful, as the hot air melded with the seawater on her skin, transforming into a cool breeze. If she closed her eyes she could pretend she was relaxing on the coastline back home. Relaxing -- where she sat huddled behind a tree, hiding from imminent death, she thought, her eyes popping open.

Male voices echoed over the sandy beach. Peering around the side of their sheltering tree, she sucked in a deep breath. The men moved to the shore. More men stumbled across the sand, bloodied, running at each other with swords. As she watched, Raven spied a familiar uniform.

Bael.

She watched the black-clad man as he simultaneously cut down two men with a black knife before moving on to another sailor. In the midst of the fighting she recognized another man, recognized the uniform first and when she looked at his face realized he was the shy man who remained close to Bael.

As she watched the two warriors fight against warring sailors, two of the kidnappers battled against each other -- their movement leading them towards where she and Austin sat. Pulling her head back behind the tree, she pressed it hard against the bark, holding her breath, waiting, but no one appeared.

She and Austin crouched low, hiding in the shadows behind the tree as they waited to discover what their fate would be. Raven decided that even if Bael was out of his mind, he at least knew his way around DeSolar. She needed him. Please don’t let him die, she chanted with closed eyes, please don’t let him die. Opening her eyes, she caught Austin staring at her.

“What?” she mouthed. He shook his head and tilted his chin towards the beach. Raven inched around the trunk again to see what was happening in the sudden silence. A dozen bodies littered white sand now soaked in blood. One man moved amongst the bodies, staring at each one in turn until he found the one for which he searched. Falling to his knees, he bowed his head, and placed his palm flat against the fallen man’s back.

“You can come out now.” He called.

Austin’s eyes widened.

“Bael.” She supplied. Relief brightened his face as he darted towards the beach. His footsteps faltered, coming to a halt before he made it out of the brush. Raven laid a hand on his shoulder. “Just don’t look at them.”

“They-they’re everywhere, how can I not look at them?” he whispered.

“Well if you’re going to look at them, just remember these men kidnapped us. We have no idea what they planned for us but I’m willing to bet it wasn’t a theme park ride.”

“You think they were really bad men?” he asked, uncertain.

“Yes, actually, I really do.” Raven said. And she didn’t doubt for a moment she was right. Austin must have heard her certainty for he straightened his shoulders and, cutting a wide berth around the carnage around them, headed straight for Bael.

Bael hung his beanie-clad head as he stood over Jeswein’s body. His friends’ dark uniform was caked with red sand. When he stumbled to the body, Bael felt relief course through him -- relief that Jeswein lay face down on the beach making it impossible to stare, one last time, into the eyes of his oldest friend.

He was supposed to return to Allegora with Jeswein. After all these years of waiting for Raven to appear, after all the dangerous missions and surviving battles in which other men lost their lives, after all that -- it was finally time to return home. And now Jeswein was dead.

Nearly every memory he had included Jeswein, the friend who was born two years after he, who lived down the street from him and his wife, who had a whole bundle of children who had grown without their father there. What was he going to tell Clislyn? He promised Jeswein’s wife he would bring her husband home. His friend spent the last few years talking about nothing but returning home and seeing how his children had grown. But Bael made him wait -- told him they would go home together as soon as he saw this woman to safety.

Now the ocean water lapped against Jeswein’s legs as though trying to pull the fallen man into its cool embrace. Resigned, Bael reached towards the ground, wrapping his hands around the still-warm chest of Jeswein’s body, lifting it up and over his shoulder. The body was awkward. He carried it across the beach until he was wading thigh-deep in ocean water towards the enemies’ boat. It was a long and difficult climb into the vessel. Blood smears coated the rails and floors, the sight of it reminding him every one of the enemy sailors died and, in that, he found a small amount of comfort.

Bael, shifting Jeswein’s weight on his shoulder, anchored the body tight against his neck as he descended a set of stairs leading into the belly of the boat. Moving through shadowed corridors, he searched for the cargo area and when the fat body of a boat rat screeched across his path, he followed it.

In the dimness of the windowless room, the shadowed outlines of crates and boxes stood lined against the walls. A low-burning candle hung against the door, nestled within a glass shield. Rats, undoubtedly having heard his approach, scattered into the darkest recesses of the room -- their sharp claws scratching at the wooden floor as they made their escape.

He pulled Jeswein over his shoulder, bracing his own feet solidly against the soft sway of the boat, slid the body down his arms and laid his friend at his feet. Standing frozen for a moment, hunched over, Bael allowed himself to weep in the darkness of the room where no one would be witness to it.

While Bael continued dragging bodies onboard, Raven rushed around the boat looking for the pantry. The men have to keep food on this thing, she thought in annoyance when she found one room after another containing only beds or crates. Bael made quick work removing the bodies from the deck before returning to the beach for the men who died there. Once he cleared off the deck, she and Austin hurriedly climbed onboard. They refused to acknowledge the blood now repainting the boat and instead busied themselves doing other things.

Raven soon declared to Austin she was going in search of something to eat and he nodded before wandering away. When she found the pantry, she let out a whoop of excitement. Within the cabinets were boxes of crackers and other dried food snacks. Along the wall, an old-style, wooden meat locker posed as storage for two enormous melting blocks of ice and dozens of small packages of frozen food. No stove, however -- just a fireplace with a big cauldron pot hooked over a poker in the center of where the fire would be.

Sighing in resignation, she turned back to the dried food cabinets and carried the cracker boxes with her. Austin took a box of something called Bread Shells and wandered away again. She stared after his bent head for a moment. He was most likely tired, as was she, but he didn’t seem as relieved for the rescue. She watched the stiffness of his movements as he turned a corner, which took him out of her sight, and decided to talk to him as soon as everyone ate.

Taking the remaining three boxes of various crackers, she went in search of Bael. When she found him in the steering room he looked as though he were making ready to launch the boat.

“Do you know how to work this thing?” she asked in surprise.

“This planet is, in large part, comprised of water Raven so, yes, I know how to work ‘this thing’.” He answered, moving about the room in a knowledgeable way and she figured he probably did know what he was doing.

“I found some crackers downstairs, would you like some? I have something called Jenoan Bites, or Sailors Chips, or some more Bread Shells.” She offered. When he didn’t respond, she chose the Jenoan Bites for herself and sat the other two boxes on the floor by the door.

The box had already been opened so she stuck her hand inside and pulled out something that closely resembled Oyster Crackers from back home. They were dry and difficult to choke down when she was already so thirsty, but the salt tasted good and, in all honesty, she was hungry enough to eat the crackers even if they tasted like dirt.

She watched Bael in contemplation. He was quiet while he carried the bodies onto the boat. When Austin asked him why he was bringing all the bodies along, Bael hadn’t answered. If it hadn’t been for the near-constant flexing of his jaw she would have described him as defeated. Or infuriated.

Bael retrieved the boats’ anchor before returning to the room they now stood in and after jacking with the switches, the boat shifted beneath her feet.