Requiem for an Aberrant Chapter 28: Chapter 28- I Love You So

Read chapter 28 of Requiem for an Aberrant by TheJestersGambit on NovelPedia.

Filoa didn’t understand the whispers about exile or ‘The Purging’. She didn’t know what her mother had done, or why the others avoided their gaze. But she remembered her mother’s hand wrapped around hers as they walked into the Lost Gorge. That was enough. They said no one who left the Kingdom returned. The Lost Gorge was death. But even then, most were grateful that it offered a way out at all. None of that mattered to Filoa, not really. What mattered was that her mother kept whispering soft words to her. What mattered was she kept singing songs with calming melodies and kept telling her promises filled with meaning. And Filoa would believe every single one, truth or lie. She was thirteen the first time her mother forgot her name. Perhaps it was six years ago now. The room carved into the valley wall was small, filled with the scent of overcooked meat and damp air whilst creatures shrieked outside. Filoa held a mismatched plate in both hands. The meat given from the village was rubbery. Apparently, it had been carved from a White Handra, hauled in by a scavenging party with hollow eyes and shaking hands. She set the plate down on the side-table. “Food’s ready,” Filoa said. “How are you feeling?” Faith smiled whilst she lay curled in the bed, her skin sallow underneath the candlelight. It was that same gentle smile that made you feel like the world was still worth something. “I really am sorry,” she whispered. “Don’t be silly,” Filoa replied. “It’s the least I could do.” They both ate in silence. The meat was awful that day, chewy and bitter and wrong in every way conceivable. Yet, what she truly remembered was Faith reaching for the photo frame beside her bed. It showed the two of them from their time in the Kingdom, before the Lost Gorge. She stared at it for a long time. Then pointed. “Is this your sister?” A strange feeling had passed through Filoa's body. At first, she thought it was a joke. A cruel one, maybe. Or fatigue, Faith had been getting weaker for weeks. But the look in her mother’s eyes was sincere and confused, even apologetic without knowing why. She never responded. Her hands clenched in her lap, and her thoughts refused to become audible. She remembered, even now, what had buried itself in her mind and never left. ‘Didn’t you say everything would be fine?’ Now that she thought about it, that was around the first time her Valour abilities had truly formed. “Don’t bother,” Cole said, his grip tightening around her arm. “There’s no time.” The Bloom sank beneath her skin, the instinct to crack the bridge they had crossed giving way to the bitter clarity that she might’ve been caught in the backlash, and maybe, deep down, she hadn’t cared. The bone-creature that wore her mother’s face was still behind them, along with those freakish doppelgangers. If it came down to it, she was more than willing to cut herself down if it meant her mother would survive, even if she couldn’t tell what part of her still believed in saving anything at all. At the end of the bridge, another corridor awaited. It was framed with tall windows leading to a spiral staircase far ahead. It rose through the tower’s throat and with how high up they were now, it could only be the final ascent. Aegis reached the corridor first and shattered one of the windows with the butt of his blade. Glass sprayed across the floor. Filoa glanced forward and saw what he had already seen. There were more of those twisted versions of herself sprinting toward them, their forms moving like they had never learned to truly be human. Aegis maneuvered around them one by one, each doppelganger thrown out the window becoming another second bought. Ariana joined him, her strikes sharp and fluid despite her lack of training. Suddenly, an instinctive chill ran through Filoa's body. She turned, dagger raised, just in time to see the wall behind her rupture. The creature smashed through it in a blur and flung her into the adjacent chamber. She crashed into the stone floor an