The First Day

  Darkness closed around me and I immediately felt suffocated and helpless. The earth pressed in on me mercilessly. I heard the snapping and squelching before the pain registered in what was once my arms. Crushing. Ripping. Muffled popping sounds churned my stomach as I realized they were coming from me, barely audible in the closed ground. The pain from all directions distracted me from my failed attempt to protect Harrison's neighbors. The fear I had been suppressing flowed with my blood until, after an eternal moment, I woke up gasping and sobbing in the inn.

  My entire body shook as if with a fever. I couldn't get out of bed at first. My body protested every movement with uncontrollable tremors and I couldn't push the overflowing fear back down. My breathing was so sharp it forced my body into unnaturally sharp movements, over and over again. I hadn't felt like this since I left home. Not this bad. Not this terrified. Even with Hadley's boot closing in on my broken skull I... I felt like I was failing to fight back properly. This was different. This was true powerlessness. I carried none of the blame for this death. Something of the darkness had stayed with me. I shuddered and jerked in the bed as if still fighting the stone, crushing my body from all directions.

  I wanted to freeze. I wanted to count my way out of bed. I was desperate to spend the morning in a hot bath, safe from the earth that had swallowed and hurt me. I wanted a stronger word for it, but somehow none fit. Agony, misery, torment... all of these should have described the creature the world had left me as, but the only word that really felt right was 'hurt'. But I couldn't do what I wanted to do. No matter how hurt I was. Every good thing I had done for this world had happened in a day that no longer existed, and I couldn't let it stand. I couldn't leave the girls alone. I couldn't leave anyone alone.

  I forced myself to sit up, my shaking legs resting loosely against the ground. I stood on them anyway. I took one step, then another, and my body spasmed. I fell to my knees, barely catching myself as I vomited onto the floorboards. Some small part of my mind wondered how many times I had puked the same stomach content in different places. My loose hair slid from my shoulders to the floor as I heaved. Some of it was painted to my face with sweat, while some mixed with the bile on the ground. My jaw quivered with an unreleased wail.

  Camilla wouldn't be collapsed on her floor. Camilla would already be out there, stopping whoever was doing this. However many people were doing it. I knew there was more than one, at this point. There had to be at least two mages involved. I had been killed... mutilated by an earth mage. The Quiet wasn't earth magic, so that meant two. I clenched my teeth and screamed through them, just to release the frustration and anxiety. Just to express the echo of the pain. It didn't really make me feel better, but as I clenched my fists, I was able to suppress the tremors. I couldn't indulge the shock of my death. I had to be Camilla. I needed to be her.

  It was slow and shaky, but I managed to climb back to my feet. I was vaguely aware of the stink of my hair as it fell against my shoulders, but I didn't care. At least, not for my own sake. But I didn't have time to explain it to the people I needed to help. So as I marched past Livia and out of the inn, I began to cast 'Undone'. It was all very mechanical. I couldn't stop to think. I couldn't stop to process. I certainly couldn't stop for long enough to feel... anything. Or the earth would close in on me. It would break my bones and tear my body. I would be Mars again, and it would suffocate me.

  'Undone' didn't make me clean, but it removed the mess from my hair. It was enough that I would be able to present myself to the girls and Harrison without drawing too much concern. I realized too late that I had forgotten my hair tie and would have to leave it loose. This was less than ideal considering the grease it held from days of travel and neglect. But it wouldn't matter to them. Again, I found the girls. Again, I found Harrison. I did exactly what I had done the day before. I sat with them. I told them about my sister. I danced to imaginary music with them. I knew it was a waste of time, but I needed it. Sharing Camilla with them was part of how I saved them.

  And it was part of how I kept my feet moving. I knew I would always fall short, but I needed a reminder of my goal. If I ever skipped this step, I worried I would return to the woman, frozen in fear outside an inn where a kind woman was dying. Sharing stories of Camilla was a kindness to them, to me, and to my sister. It was the only well I could draw energy from, and I needed that energy. Especially at this point, after seeing everyone from the last loop. I knew how many people I'd saved. I knew what would happen to them if I slowed down, even a little. So I told my friends about my big sister again. And again, I left.

  Tilia had barely escaped. She’d made it to safety by the skin of her teeth, and she’d barred the door behind her just in time. She couldn’t have waited. She couldn’t have. Another breath and she’d surely have died. She was certain of it.

  But it wouldn’t wash away the guilt. Because she was the only one who made it out. When their mother died, neither Tilia nor her older sister knew how to process it. They’d heard the rumors. The stories of the Quiet. But none of them believed it. So seeing their mother, completely still like an ivory statue… it froze all three of them in place. Neither of the girls could process it, and neither managed a single word in response. They just stood still, and stared.

  Until her mother came back.

  Tilia had understood it first. She’d always had a closer relationship with her mom than her older sister did. So while her sibling responded in relief, Tilia saw the hate. The danger. Tilia didn’t hesitate to run. She didn’t even pause before barring the door behind her. When the begging started, she plugged her ears. When the screaming started, she tried to sing to herself. When it stopped, she tried to convince herself it wasn’t her fault.

  It couldn’t be her fault. She didn’t have a choice. No one could have stopped it. She promised this to herself, over and over again. But the blood was pooling under the crack in the door. It was reaching for her and calling her a liar. She could have saved her sister. She could have. But she had been too afraid.

  “Aethon… I’m sorry. I just… I thought…” the smell was growing too powerful to ignore. She crept backward on the tired wood floor, ignoring a splinter as she fled the oncoming red. “Luna… I should have let Luna take me.”

  For the first time in her life, Tilia spoke to Luna instead of Aethon. For the first time in her life, her prayer was answered. A woman, proud and cloaked in light like stars on water, stepped into her home. She was whispering under her breath and sparks of blue burned from her mouth. Her light flooded Tilia’s home, and the blood began to recede on its own.

  This time I found the two women by the fountain before the attack and stopped the Quieted woman before she hurt her partner. But again, I left both women hollow, staring at each other with empty eyes. I didn't get as many teal sparks of aura this time, but I couldn't dwell on it. I went through the motions. I saved the same people, mostly. I made a few different choices, helping different groups. It all felt so pointless. It all felt so important. I returned to Harrisons' home to prepare. I sent the girls to safety, and I sent Harrison to protect them.

  I stood in front of the dead, weary tears in my eyes. I tried my spell again, this time with more power, earned from the teal aura I had been collecting. It was slightly larger this time, but it still failed to protect everyone. It still exhausted me. This time, however, I didn't stumble forward when I gasped for breath. Instead, I scanned the empty lot in front of me. I searched the buildings and alleys nearby. I saw footprints and ash. There was no one there. But I was alive. I hugged the wall of the home and circled around to examine the homes I hadn't saved.

  This book was originally published on Royal Road. Check it out there for the real experience.

  I sighed in relief and stepped out into the open. I reached for the teal aura dancing around the homes I had saved this time, but not the first. Before I could absorb them, however, the earth swallowed me. It chewed me up. It crushed me and I shook in the bed of Livia's inn. I tried again. I forced myself from the inn. I helped the girls. I skipped the couple and told stories of Camilla. I danced, and I rushed through the town to save everyone I could.

  Decius had lived a long life. A simple one. His parents had both been fishers. Their parents had been as well. He’d met a sweet girl at the market when he was only a boy, and she became a fisher too. It was a kind life. They worked hard together. They woke before dawn and they worked together into the day. They’d wanted children at first, but it wasn’t part of Aethon’s plans. The doctor wasn’t sure if Decius was the problem, or if it was his wife. But Decius hadn’t thought that way at all. To him, it didn’t matter. Whether it was him, his wife, or both of them. If they couldn’t have children, they couldn’t have children.

  That’s how their life always was. It was always the two of them. Together. And without children, it was only the two of them. They accepted that. They rested and they worked together for decades. They caught the fish together and they sold it at the market together. In the evenings, they had basic meals and quiet conversation, and neither ever got bored of the other. They had a lifetime of happiness, and they had it together.

  When the woman he loved died as they sat on their porch together, he decided it would only be appropriate that they died together. He was happy to simply wait for the end when the Quiet first took her. That was simply how his world worked. He didn’t understand the plague, but if it had taken her, it would take him shortly. He just had to wait, with his eyes closed and the sun on his face. If she had stayed quiet and still, sitting next to him, it would have been a good end. But, of course, she didn’t.

  She got up, and she wanted to take him early. He'd have been alright with that, too. Except he opened his eyes, and he saw her face.

  For the first time in nearly a century of life, his heart broke as he looked at his wife’s face.

  He could see the violence in her eyes. The violence and the pain. She was too kind for such pain. She didn’t want this. It hurt her. He could feel it. And if she killed him there, they wouldn’t be together. Not really. But it was too late. He couldn’t take her death back for her. He could release her from whatever had taken her. And he was too old to flee. His joints were too tired and she was too close. He’d wanted to die next to her. Quiet. Still. At peace on a peaceful day. This was not what either of them wanted. His face began to shake and salty water ran across the well worn smile wrinkles his wife had given him. It wasn’t right. It wasn’t right.

  He closed his eyes again and sniffed. He waited for the end, still knowing he couldn’t stop it. But he was afraid. Not of the oncoming violence, but of the continued pain his wife would feel when he was gone. And then, her hand touched him. But it didn’t hurt. She didn’t try to tear him apart. She didn’t try to hurt him at all.

  He opened his eyes again. His wife was still and the pain was gone. Instead of her, a much younger woman stood before him, blue light cascading from her soldiers like a waterfall over an ancient stone. Dirty blonde hair fell in exhausted eyes as she looked at him. And then, without a word, she turned and left.

  Again, I stood before the dead. I failed to stop them. I was eaten by the earth.

  I tried four times. Seven. Twenty. I realized I earned more aura the first time I helped someone than the second, and none after that, but I couldn't stop. I was numb. I was sick. And the pain just. wouldn't. stop. I started feeling it constantly. I hid from the earth. I cast my spell from inside and was spared. But whenever I left the home and the aura circled me, I was murdered again. By the earth mage. By the earth itself. I never had the aura left to fight it. I never had the energy. I couldn't escape it. I don't know how many times I lived that day. Trying to save everyone. Telling the same stories about my sister. Dancing the same dance with the little family I was growing attached to. Failing. Dying.

  I could feel the pain constantly. Resetting the loop couldn't erase the memory and the hurt wouldn't leave my mind. It was like a phantom tree, ancient and cruel. Wrapping its roots around me and strangling me with every step. I stopped eating. I would never grow too hungry. I couldn't eat the same porridge anymore. I could barely help the same people. I couldn't see that look of hopeless, sudden loss one more time. If Luna had given me her gift, I would have taken it. I would have done anything to end that day. Even the second miserable day in the loop would have been a relief.

  Well. Almost anything. Anything but ignore what I had to do. I had to be Camilla, and I had to keep those girls safe. I had to bring them to the second day with me. Instead of me, if I had to. But I wasn't Camilla. I couldn't be Camilla. I was Mars, and I was a failure. I started trying variations on 'Still World'. I tried letting the fires and the barricades start then choking the flames, as I had the first time. I tried a narrow wall between the dead and the homes instead of a wide bubble. I tried everything I could think of. All of it worked—in a way.

  I had gained more and more aura. Not just my blue aura but the warm teal aura. I had grown more powerful, and after dozens of tries, I had managed to save every single life in every single home. The aura burst from every window like it was fire itself! And when I left the home, too tired to defend myself, the aura started to surround me, and the earth mage murdered me. I couldn't take it anymore.

  On a night when I had forgotten to send Harrison to protect the girls. Or perhaps I knew I wouldn't need to. The day had become a blur; like distant land under a sweltering sun, and it was melting my mind away with it. "I can't be Camilla, I can't be Camilla, I can't be Camilla," I whispered to myself. I was hunched on the floor after stopping the attack, holding my knees to my chest and rocking. I didn't want to die again. I didn't want to hurt anymore. I didn't want to keep failing to live up to an impossible standard. Water ran down my cheeks and snot dripped from my lip into my mouth. It all hurt and I couldn't find the way to stop it.

  I didn't notice when Harrison crouched in front of me. I barely registered as he wrapped his arms around me. The world was so loud. The aura that promised a moment of relief flew past the windows and I feared it. I feared what would happen when I touched it. I was so tired. I was so empty. I was numb in all the wrong ways and ached in all the others. I couldn't count the red things in the room. I couldn't count my own pained gasps or short breaths that struggled their way out of a tightening throat. I was without hope. I wasn't Camilla. I was Mars.

  "You aren't Camilla," Harrison whispered in my ear. I froze. I had, as usual, told him all about my sister. The desperation with which I told him my childhood stories had only grown. It had only been a day for him, but he knew what being Camilla meant to me. I didn't understand why he would say that. "You are Mars. You saved Junia. You saved Millie. You saved my neighbors. The grumpy old lady who hates the plants I chose for my garden. The newlywed couple on the other side. You gave us all our lives, Mars. Not Camilla, you. I know you admire her. I know you love her. But we aren't alive because Camilla was here. We are alive because you were. Because of who you are. Mars, you were able to do what you did because you aren’t Camilla."

  It was like pulling my head out of the water. It was such a simple thing to say, but it was everything. I could breathe again. The world stopped shouting at me, and the phantom tree stopped strangling me with the pain of the earth. I wrapped my arms around him in a hug and sobbed, loudly, and without holding anything back. Junia emerged with a look of confusion and, with nothing more than a gasp of shocked concern, ran to hug us as well. I had to take deep, gasping breaths between sobs as I held them. I didn't have Camilla, but I felt like a child again. A child with a new brother and sister.

  I still didn't know how to leave that home alive. But it felt like a new dawn anyway. Because I wasn't Camilla. I was Mars.

  End of the First Day