Fic: Whisper of the Fallen: Chapter One
Title: Whisper of the Fallen
Fandom: Stargate SG-1
Characters: Malek, OC
Pairings: None
Category: Angst, Drama
Warnings: Death and torture.
Summary: Malek had several hosts through the years, but it was always a traumatic experience when one of his hosts was taken from him in a violent way. His newest host was somewhat different than most of his previous hots, but they came together under extraordinary circumstances so it was no wonder they would make an extraordinary team.
Rating: M
Prompt: 064. SG-1, Malek, I want to hear his backstory.
Chapter One: The Death of Hope
Someone had scattered the stars that night. They lightly dusted the heavens but they were oblivious to the plight of the man staring up at them as he lay dying in the grass below.
Pain. It was everywhere, flooding his veins like a fast-acting poison. Every fiber of his being screamed in agony from the wound in his side. He tried to lift his head, to see whether or not his legs were still there because he could no longer feel them, but it was an impossible task.
He closed his eyes and wished for death to come and claim him, but he was denied even that mercy. Every breath he took felt like fire in his chest. Every time he tried to move, even so much as an inch, he was overcome with a blistering pain that rocked him like a lightening strike.
As he lay there, waiting to die, he could see her. She was just beyond his reach, laying in a pool of blood, her red hair fanned out like a halo around her head in the pale moonlight, her head resting on a pillow of crushed, blood stained daisies. Her dress was torn and dirty and she was missing a shoe. He tried to stretch out his hand, tried to reach out and touch her, to brush the hair away from her face so that he could see her lovely mismatched blue and green eyes, but he could not reach her anymore. She was gone where he would soon follow if the Gods were merciful.
Ava. He said her name over and over in his mind until it became a litany and the only thing that could take his mind away from the pain.
The pain in his side began to subside, and he was not sure if that was a good thing or a bad thing, but he was grateful nonetheless. It never completely vanished, instead it became a dull ache, like a bad tooth or the pulsing blood behind a blackened bruise.
The night stretched on for what felt like an eternity. The moaning around him slowly died away and he was left with only the sounds of the night to keep him company: the melody of crickets and frogs as life continued around him regardless of the death in their midst.
When the stars began to fade in the gentle light of the dawn, he heard voices approaching the field and the ruins of the town upon which it lay. They were gruff, emotionless. Orders were issued in a language he did not understand and the acrid smell of smoke soon filled the air. He choked on it and emitted a strangled cough.
One of the faceless voices came to investigate the noise. He closed his eyes as a shadow fell over him.
"What is this?" said the voice. "A survivor?"
"No," said a second voice. "He is dead."
"I thought I saw him breathing a second ago."
Something hard was slammed into his side, a boot covered foot, and his eyes flew open. He howled in pain as the wound on his side flared back to life with a vengeance. White lights popped in his vision and tears blurred out the faces standing above him.
"I told you I saw him breathing," said the voice triumphantly. "Take him and put him in the ship with the others."
His vision cleared enough for him to see the matching marks on the two men's foreheads.
Damn it all, he thought. Why did it have to be the Jaffa who found me?
He was carried, none too gently, to a waiting ship and dumped into a cage with other survivors.
Most were in better shape than him, but some of them looked half dead. He imagined that he resembled the latter. At any rate, he felt like the latter. Bloodied and broken beyond the measure of grief, he was just as wretched as the rest.
A small girl cowered behind a man with blank eyes, a man wearing a military uniform was slumped against the back of the cage, a woman sat weeping in the corner, and each new face he saw was more pitiful than the last.
The ship was small, a tel'tak perhaps, and the cage that had been placed in the rear was nearly filled to capacity. It was hot, despite the mild temperature outside, and the air was stale and reeked of death. The floor felt mercifully cool under his hands and he turned his head to rest his feverish cheek on floor and take advantage of the small, fleeting respite.
"Are you alright, friend?" asked an older man with a bandage wrapped around his head, covering one eye and part of his face.
"No," he managed to say weakly. "I'm dying."
The old man frowned at him and pity shone in his one good eye. "No, my friend, if you was dying you should have gone and done it out there with the rest of 'em. Where we're going, you'll only die when the masters tell you to."
"I'm dying," he repeated.
The old man just shook his head. "It don't matter no how. They have ways of bringing you back...and, don't mind my saying so, but you're dressed awful fancy like. They won't likely let you die quietly. By the by, my name is Mylos Tohno. What's your name?"
"Sebastian," he said weakly. "My name is Sebastian."
"Sebastian? If I didn't know no better I would think you was him that started this rebellion, you have the same face and the same name, but someone like him would never set foot on the battlefield. Well, Sebastian, it would seem that you and I and all of these other poor, pitiful souls who did not have the decency to die out there with our families are up the proverbial creek without a paddle."
Sebastian tried to laugh at the man's bad joke, but he could no longer draw in breath. His vision had begun to dim, but the pain in his body was gone. It was such a sweet relief not to feel fire running through his veins.
He could hear the old man named Mylos calling his name, but he could no longer see him. The world had faded to black and he was finally free.
Except that he wasn't.
When next he opened his eyes, he was lying on the polished stone floor of a receiving chamber.
Daylight streamed through the floor to ceiling windows and dust swirled in the air above him. His head felt heavy, as if it were filled with cotton, but it was merely the last vestiges of a deep sleep.
The hole in his side was gone, and only the torn fabric of his shirt remained as a reminder that it had ever been there at all. His skin felt sticky from the grit and grime that was dried on it and he wanted nothing more than to wash it off.
He picked up his head without pain and looked around the room. He did not recognize the place but he assumed that he had been brought to the stone pyramid across the ocean. It was said to be the home of the old gods of Athelos,false prophets whom his people had rejected long ago. The chamber was rich with brightly colored accents and floor to ceiling windows, absent glass, that displayed the picturesque, rolling countryside like a mural painted by a master. A gentle breeze stirred outside and swept through the windows. The scent of wildflowers danced on the wind and he inhaled deeply. His heart sank as a vision of Ava lying in that field of daisies assaulted him and he blinked back angry tears.
He moved his gaze from the window to survey the rest of the room. A few feet away from him, sitting on a chair that reminded Sebastian of a throne, was a man dressed in an opulent robe of purple and gold with jewels adorning each of his fingers. He was tall with sharply sculpted features and blonde hair that fell to his shoulders. He twirled an unsheathed dagger on his knee while he watched Sebastian with a mild expression of disinterest on his face.
Sebastian took stock of his body, cataloguing his injuries, or lack thereof, before he attempted to stand up. The old man on the ship had been right after all: he had not been allowed to die quietly.
He had been robbed of his chance to reunite with his precious Ava in the afterlife and that made him angry, but he swallowed his rage and forced his mind to focus on the present.
"So, you're finally awake," said the man upon the throne. His voice was deep and flanged and it made the hair on the back of Sebastian's neck stand on end.
"So, you're a Goa'uld," Sebastian retorted, throwing the man's words back at him in the same indifferent tone. He was disgusted to be standing in the presence of a Goa'uld, and he was angry that this man would dare to be so cavalier about life, but he kept his own expression as neutral as possible.
"I am Andros, servant of your god, Ra, and overlord of this planet, what's left of it. Kneel before me."
Sebastian shrugged. "I don't care who you are and I have no god named Ra. Nor do I plan on kneeling so why don't you just tell me what you want from me?"
Andros ignored Sebastian's insubordinate comments. "You are Sebastian Casaragi, King of the kingdom Pagos, and one of the seven kings of the planet Athelos which we have just conquered. We could not let you die without making a spectacle of your death for all of your subjects to see. Through your public execution we will forever silence this rebellion you started and our hold on this planet will be absolute."
Sebastian felt a surge of anger that threatened to consume him if he did not reign it in quickly.
"So you brought me back to life just to kill me again?"
The goa'uld stopped twirling the dagger and pointed it at Sebastian. "Yes, of course. You serve no other purpose."
It was a cruel twist of fate, but fate had always been a spiteful bitch as far as he was concerned so he was not surprised. Despite everything that had happened, despite the fact that his people were being slaughtered and his kingdom was in ruins, he refused to be brought to his knees. He refused to be broken because everything would have been in vain if he let them break him. "If you are telling me this to scare me, you need not bother. I am not afraid to die and, contrary to what you believe, if you execute me publicly you will not be ending a rebellion, you will be creating a martyr to which my people will rally around more than ever before. Unlike you and your false god, my people respect me."
"Our people worship us," Andros clarified sharply. "Respect is not necessary."
Sebastian scoffed. "You can beat a dog into submission but it obeys out of fear, not out of respect or because it worships you."
Andros glared at him but there was a hint of something in the air that Sebastian could not quite put his finger on. It vibrated across his skin like a palpable presence in the room. What was it? Was it...amusement?
"You are defiant, but we shall remedy that soon enough. You will kneel before your god before he takes your head. Until then you will be placed in a holding cell to await your execution. It will be your new home and you shall only leave it to amuse your god."
Sebastian straightened his back defiantly. "I will never kneel. Not to you, and definitely not to your false god. You will have to cut my knees out from under me first."
Andros motioned to his guards and Sebastian was led from the brightly lit chamber. He glanced over his shoulder and before the heavy stone doors closed and blocked his view of Andros, he could have swore he saw the man smile.
He was led through a labyrinth of corridors until he found himself in the bowels of the compound. It was dark and it reeked of death. The guards shoved him into a cell and locked the door behind him. He had tried to map the place in his head, but he had failed miserably. There were too many turns and too many doors. Even if he had memorized the route they had taken to the dungeons, he would only have know how to find his way back to the receiving chamber of the goa'uld overlord Andros, not how to get out of the infernal labyrinth.
Heartsick by the events of the past few days, he trudged over to a dirty corner and sat down, resting his head upon his knees. Everything that he had known was gone and everyone that he had loved was dead. His Ava, the love of his life, had died just beyond his reach, calling his name until the darkness claimed her. He could still hear the fear in her voice and it tore at his soul.
He forced himself to take a deep breath, to push the pain deep inside his heart and lock it away where it could not hurt him. He buried it beneath his anger and camouflaged it with vows of revenge. He swore to the cell that he would avenge Ava's death, but the cold stone was uncaring.
Closing his eyes, he allowed himself to slip into a restless sleep.
In the center of the stone courtyard, there was a large marble fountain carved in the visage of a rearing lion wearing a crown of thorns upon its head. Beneath its feet, a pool of crystal clear water was home to a school of neon spine fish whose brightly colored skeletons were visible through their translucent skin.
Ava was sitting on the side of the fountain, softly humming a lullaby and throwing breadcrumbs into the water. She was so beautiful, framed in the last rays of the dying sun, and Sebastian could not suppress a chuckle when he realized that she wore no shoes on her feet. Ava was a queen now but she had not always been so. She was the daughter of a wealthy merchant and she had always danced to the beat of a different drum. It was one of the things he loved about her. She was not tedious as most noble women were. She was not preoccupied with get her hands dirty or messing up her dress. She lived for adventure.
As he watched her feeding her fish, he was stuck by the urge to sneak up on her. He crept across the courtyard and tapped her on the shoulder with a mischievous grin spreading across his face.
She did not jump, but the humming stopped. "Sebastian?"
"Yes, my love. It is only I."
She turned around and stood up and the smile faded from his face. Her pristine white dress was suddenly covered in blood and mud and there was a gaping hole in her chest. The water in the fountain was no longer clear, but it ran red and the fish floated on the top, belly up.
The scene around them dissolved in a rush of horror and they were suddenly standing in a field of daisies on the edge of a small town. Bodies littered the ground around them, and the wails of the dying filled the air.
"Where were you?" Ava asked. "Why did you not come to me when I needed you the most?"
Sebastian took an involuntary step away from her. His jaw worked furiously but no words came out.
"I was so afraid," she said. "Where were you?"
"I, I, I'm so sorry."
The sky above them turned dark as black clouds rolled over the distant mountains and blocked out the sunlight. Rain began to fall from the heavens, but it was hot and sticky and smelled like copper. He looked down at his hands, now covered in blood, and he felt something sharp pierce his heart. Before he could look to see what it was, he fell backwards onto a mountain of bodies.
He opened his mouth to scream but the sound that tore itself loose from his chest was lost in the howling of the wind.
Ava stood before him, bloodied and broken. Two small tears trickled down her pale cheek. One was for her and the other, he knew, was for him.
Sebastian jerked violently awake. His heart was beating like a drum in his ears, there was an impossible knot in his throat, and he was drenched in a cold sweat.
He remembered that day by the fountain, it had been real. It was the day she told him that he was to be a father and it was not so long ago. It had only been a few weeks ago but it felt like an eternity now.
Tears trailed down his cheeks but he did not bother to stop them or raise a hand to wipe them away.
"Ava," he whispered brokenly to the darkness, but there was no answer and there never would be.
Chapter Two
Epilogue
Fandom: Stargate SG-1
Characters: Malek, OC
Pairings: None
Category: Angst, Drama
Warnings: Death and torture.
Summary: Malek had several hosts through the years, but it was always a traumatic experience when one of his hosts was taken from him in a violent way. His newest host was somewhat different than most of his previous hots, but they came together under extraordinary circumstances so it was no wonder they would make an extraordinary team.
Rating: M
Prompt: 064. SG-1, Malek, I want to hear his backstory.
Chapter One: The Death of Hope
Someone had scattered the stars that night. They lightly dusted the heavens but they were oblivious to the plight of the man staring up at them as he lay dying in the grass below.
Pain. It was everywhere, flooding his veins like a fast-acting poison. Every fiber of his being screamed in agony from the wound in his side. He tried to lift his head, to see whether or not his legs were still there because he could no longer feel them, but it was an impossible task.
He closed his eyes and wished for death to come and claim him, but he was denied even that mercy. Every breath he took felt like fire in his chest. Every time he tried to move, even so much as an inch, he was overcome with a blistering pain that rocked him like a lightening strike.
As he lay there, waiting to die, he could see her. She was just beyond his reach, laying in a pool of blood, her red hair fanned out like a halo around her head in the pale moonlight, her head resting on a pillow of crushed, blood stained daisies. Her dress was torn and dirty and she was missing a shoe. He tried to stretch out his hand, tried to reach out and touch her, to brush the hair away from her face so that he could see her lovely mismatched blue and green eyes, but he could not reach her anymore. She was gone where he would soon follow if the Gods were merciful.
Ava. He said her name over and over in his mind until it became a litany and the only thing that could take his mind away from the pain.
The pain in his side began to subside, and he was not sure if that was a good thing or a bad thing, but he was grateful nonetheless. It never completely vanished, instead it became a dull ache, like a bad tooth or the pulsing blood behind a blackened bruise.
The night stretched on for what felt like an eternity. The moaning around him slowly died away and he was left with only the sounds of the night to keep him company: the melody of crickets and frogs as life continued around him regardless of the death in their midst.
When the stars began to fade in the gentle light of the dawn, he heard voices approaching the field and the ruins of the town upon which it lay. They were gruff, emotionless. Orders were issued in a language he did not understand and the acrid smell of smoke soon filled the air. He choked on it and emitted a strangled cough.
One of the faceless voices came to investigate the noise. He closed his eyes as a shadow fell over him.
"What is this?" said the voice. "A survivor?"
"No," said a second voice. "He is dead."
"I thought I saw him breathing a second ago."
Something hard was slammed into his side, a boot covered foot, and his eyes flew open. He howled in pain as the wound on his side flared back to life with a vengeance. White lights popped in his vision and tears blurred out the faces standing above him.
"I told you I saw him breathing," said the voice triumphantly. "Take him and put him in the ship with the others."
His vision cleared enough for him to see the matching marks on the two men's foreheads.
Damn it all, he thought. Why did it have to be the Jaffa who found me?
He was carried, none too gently, to a waiting ship and dumped into a cage with other survivors.
Most were in better shape than him, but some of them looked half dead. He imagined that he resembled the latter. At any rate, he felt like the latter. Bloodied and broken beyond the measure of grief, he was just as wretched as the rest.
A small girl cowered behind a man with blank eyes, a man wearing a military uniform was slumped against the back of the cage, a woman sat weeping in the corner, and each new face he saw was more pitiful than the last.
The ship was small, a tel'tak perhaps, and the cage that had been placed in the rear was nearly filled to capacity. It was hot, despite the mild temperature outside, and the air was stale and reeked of death. The floor felt mercifully cool under his hands and he turned his head to rest his feverish cheek on floor and take advantage of the small, fleeting respite.
"Are you alright, friend?" asked an older man with a bandage wrapped around his head, covering one eye and part of his face.
"No," he managed to say weakly. "I'm dying."
The old man frowned at him and pity shone in his one good eye. "No, my friend, if you was dying you should have gone and done it out there with the rest of 'em. Where we're going, you'll only die when the masters tell you to."
"I'm dying," he repeated.
The old man just shook his head. "It don't matter no how. They have ways of bringing you back...and, don't mind my saying so, but you're dressed awful fancy like. They won't likely let you die quietly. By the by, my name is Mylos Tohno. What's your name?"
"Sebastian," he said weakly. "My name is Sebastian."
"Sebastian? If I didn't know no better I would think you was him that started this rebellion, you have the same face and the same name, but someone like him would never set foot on the battlefield. Well, Sebastian, it would seem that you and I and all of these other poor, pitiful souls who did not have the decency to die out there with our families are up the proverbial creek without a paddle."
Sebastian tried to laugh at the man's bad joke, but he could no longer draw in breath. His vision had begun to dim, but the pain in his body was gone. It was such a sweet relief not to feel fire running through his veins.
He could hear the old man named Mylos calling his name, but he could no longer see him. The world had faded to black and he was finally free.
Except that he wasn't.
When next he opened his eyes, he was lying on the polished stone floor of a receiving chamber.
Daylight streamed through the floor to ceiling windows and dust swirled in the air above him. His head felt heavy, as if it were filled with cotton, but it was merely the last vestiges of a deep sleep.
The hole in his side was gone, and only the torn fabric of his shirt remained as a reminder that it had ever been there at all. His skin felt sticky from the grit and grime that was dried on it and he wanted nothing more than to wash it off.
He picked up his head without pain and looked around the room. He did not recognize the place but he assumed that he had been brought to the stone pyramid across the ocean. It was said to be the home of the old gods of Athelos,false prophets whom his people had rejected long ago. The chamber was rich with brightly colored accents and floor to ceiling windows, absent glass, that displayed the picturesque, rolling countryside like a mural painted by a master. A gentle breeze stirred outside and swept through the windows. The scent of wildflowers danced on the wind and he inhaled deeply. His heart sank as a vision of Ava lying in that field of daisies assaulted him and he blinked back angry tears.
He moved his gaze from the window to survey the rest of the room. A few feet away from him, sitting on a chair that reminded Sebastian of a throne, was a man dressed in an opulent robe of purple and gold with jewels adorning each of his fingers. He was tall with sharply sculpted features and blonde hair that fell to his shoulders. He twirled an unsheathed dagger on his knee while he watched Sebastian with a mild expression of disinterest on his face.
Sebastian took stock of his body, cataloguing his injuries, or lack thereof, before he attempted to stand up. The old man on the ship had been right after all: he had not been allowed to die quietly.
He had been robbed of his chance to reunite with his precious Ava in the afterlife and that made him angry, but he swallowed his rage and forced his mind to focus on the present.
"So, you're finally awake," said the man upon the throne. His voice was deep and flanged and it made the hair on the back of Sebastian's neck stand on end.
"So, you're a Goa'uld," Sebastian retorted, throwing the man's words back at him in the same indifferent tone. He was disgusted to be standing in the presence of a Goa'uld, and he was angry that this man would dare to be so cavalier about life, but he kept his own expression as neutral as possible.
"I am Andros, servant of your god, Ra, and overlord of this planet, what's left of it. Kneel before me."
Sebastian shrugged. "I don't care who you are and I have no god named Ra. Nor do I plan on kneeling so why don't you just tell me what you want from me?"
Andros ignored Sebastian's insubordinate comments. "You are Sebastian Casaragi, King of the kingdom Pagos, and one of the seven kings of the planet Athelos which we have just conquered. We could not let you die without making a spectacle of your death for all of your subjects to see. Through your public execution we will forever silence this rebellion you started and our hold on this planet will be absolute."
Sebastian felt a surge of anger that threatened to consume him if he did not reign it in quickly.
"So you brought me back to life just to kill me again?"
The goa'uld stopped twirling the dagger and pointed it at Sebastian. "Yes, of course. You serve no other purpose."
It was a cruel twist of fate, but fate had always been a spiteful bitch as far as he was concerned so he was not surprised. Despite everything that had happened, despite the fact that his people were being slaughtered and his kingdom was in ruins, he refused to be brought to his knees. He refused to be broken because everything would have been in vain if he let them break him. "If you are telling me this to scare me, you need not bother. I am not afraid to die and, contrary to what you believe, if you execute me publicly you will not be ending a rebellion, you will be creating a martyr to which my people will rally around more than ever before. Unlike you and your false god, my people respect me."
"Our people worship us," Andros clarified sharply. "Respect is not necessary."
Sebastian scoffed. "You can beat a dog into submission but it obeys out of fear, not out of respect or because it worships you."
Andros glared at him but there was a hint of something in the air that Sebastian could not quite put his finger on. It vibrated across his skin like a palpable presence in the room. What was it? Was it...amusement?
"You are defiant, but we shall remedy that soon enough. You will kneel before your god before he takes your head. Until then you will be placed in a holding cell to await your execution. It will be your new home and you shall only leave it to amuse your god."
Sebastian straightened his back defiantly. "I will never kneel. Not to you, and definitely not to your false god. You will have to cut my knees out from under me first."
Andros motioned to his guards and Sebastian was led from the brightly lit chamber. He glanced over his shoulder and before the heavy stone doors closed and blocked his view of Andros, he could have swore he saw the man smile.
He was led through a labyrinth of corridors until he found himself in the bowels of the compound. It was dark and it reeked of death. The guards shoved him into a cell and locked the door behind him. He had tried to map the place in his head, but he had failed miserably. There were too many turns and too many doors. Even if he had memorized the route they had taken to the dungeons, he would only have know how to find his way back to the receiving chamber of the goa'uld overlord Andros, not how to get out of the infernal labyrinth.
Heartsick by the events of the past few days, he trudged over to a dirty corner and sat down, resting his head upon his knees. Everything that he had known was gone and everyone that he had loved was dead. His Ava, the love of his life, had died just beyond his reach, calling his name until the darkness claimed her. He could still hear the fear in her voice and it tore at his soul.
He forced himself to take a deep breath, to push the pain deep inside his heart and lock it away where it could not hurt him. He buried it beneath his anger and camouflaged it with vows of revenge. He swore to the cell that he would avenge Ava's death, but the cold stone was uncaring.
Closing his eyes, he allowed himself to slip into a restless sleep.
In the center of the stone courtyard, there was a large marble fountain carved in the visage of a rearing lion wearing a crown of thorns upon its head. Beneath its feet, a pool of crystal clear water was home to a school of neon spine fish whose brightly colored skeletons were visible through their translucent skin.
Ava was sitting on the side of the fountain, softly humming a lullaby and throwing breadcrumbs into the water. She was so beautiful, framed in the last rays of the dying sun, and Sebastian could not suppress a chuckle when he realized that she wore no shoes on her feet. Ava was a queen now but she had not always been so. She was the daughter of a wealthy merchant and she had always danced to the beat of a different drum. It was one of the things he loved about her. She was not tedious as most noble women were. She was not preoccupied with get her hands dirty or messing up her dress. She lived for adventure.
As he watched her feeding her fish, he was stuck by the urge to sneak up on her. He crept across the courtyard and tapped her on the shoulder with a mischievous grin spreading across his face.
She did not jump, but the humming stopped. "Sebastian?"
"Yes, my love. It is only I."
She turned around and stood up and the smile faded from his face. Her pristine white dress was suddenly covered in blood and mud and there was a gaping hole in her chest. The water in the fountain was no longer clear, but it ran red and the fish floated on the top, belly up.
The scene around them dissolved in a rush of horror and they were suddenly standing in a field of daisies on the edge of a small town. Bodies littered the ground around them, and the wails of the dying filled the air.
"Where were you?" Ava asked. "Why did you not come to me when I needed you the most?"
Sebastian took an involuntary step away from her. His jaw worked furiously but no words came out.
"I was so afraid," she said. "Where were you?"
"I, I, I'm so sorry."
The sky above them turned dark as black clouds rolled over the distant mountains and blocked out the sunlight. Rain began to fall from the heavens, but it was hot and sticky and smelled like copper. He looked down at his hands, now covered in blood, and he felt something sharp pierce his heart. Before he could look to see what it was, he fell backwards onto a mountain of bodies.
He opened his mouth to scream but the sound that tore itself loose from his chest was lost in the howling of the wind.
Ava stood before him, bloodied and broken. Two small tears trickled down her pale cheek. One was for her and the other, he knew, was for him.
Sebastian jerked violently awake. His heart was beating like a drum in his ears, there was an impossible knot in his throat, and he was drenched in a cold sweat.
He remembered that day by the fountain, it had been real. It was the day she told him that he was to be a father and it was not so long ago. It had only been a few weeks ago but it felt like an eternity now.
Tears trailed down his cheeks but he did not bother to stop them or raise a hand to wipe them away.
"Ava," he whispered brokenly to the darkness, but there was no answer and there never would be.
Chapter Two
Epilogue