XV — Hollow

Ellen had been falling down in a chaotic and painful mix of remembrance and stillness. Initially she had thought she passed away, but the polaroids of remembrance were too vivid and too bright for it to be not done by a reaction from her mind. It was possible, and she took into account, that she was hexed and trapped into this never ending spiral, falling through memories she should have not thought of ever since that day in the—

Ellen gasped.

…ever since the harbor.

Her locked self cried in terror when she re-lived the experience she had thought she only ever told two others. She saw her younger self sleeping as a shadowy figure slit the throat of her parents. She clasped her hands towards her mouth and closed it as she heard the muffled screams of her younger self desperately using wind spirits to bring them back, but to no avail. The polaroid made her follow the shadowy figure towards a figure that he was talking to, and walked past, and she could not believe what she saw.

And then everything went black.

Silence.

She fluttered her eyes open. It was possibly around midday. Sam was sitting where Roger once sat, and Ellen stared on the side Kat had once stood. However, when she looked towards the side where Sam was sitting, she became averse to seeing the confused Sam who had seen her awake, looking concerned.

It felt strange. She would have hugged him already, and Sam knew it would happen.

But she hesitated.

Sam would realize quickly why she did.

She sat up on her own, herself not so much struggling but more painstakingly trying to be alert. Not much has happened outside it seemed from her periphery, but she couldn’t stop thinking about what she had experienced for a while. If she had awoken in the tent where she had nursed Sam and Roger back to health, then something wrong must have happened as she recovered. The nightmarish falling might’ve had a hand in there, and her head was still throbbing in a frenzy.

“Ellen…” Sam started. He looked at her, slowly staring at him, and he knew exactly why she was looking at him with an unreadable expression, not the romantic or affectionate one that he thought would come through.

“Sam,” she said in a way that didn’t seem like someone who loved him. Sam paused, sat back down, and knowing how the events would play out, he averted his gaze away from Ellen. Ellen herself stared down, hoping she didn’t see who she saw in the polaroids of her memories.

“I saw it, Sam.”

Sam’s jaw clenched. His hands are clasped as if he had just prayed to the Great Mother. Perhaps, he was praying for something else. Or maybe, he wasn’t praying at all.

“I know.”

“I saw you,” Ellen choked on the sentence. She didn’t want to believe it. “In the house.”

“I know.”

“You were standing outside,” Ellen tightened her grip towards herself. “They’d killed them while they were asleep.”

Sam didn’t say anything. What else would he have said?

Ellen turned to him, his face still lowered down to his clasped hands, tightening as if on cue, to Ellen who carried an expression that she was angry or mad or disdainful…

She wanted to know why.

“Why didn’t you tell me?”

Sam shook his head. “I couldn’t. Especially when you’ve given me the lanterns and your story…”

Sam breathed, not out of relief, but out of despair. He was not steady. He had lost focus.

And now his one confidant in the town found out about his role in the attack.

“I need some time,” Ellen said softly, as she looked back, turning her back towards Sam.

He nodded back.

“I understand.”

Ellen’s eyes remained closed, her hands still clasped and positioned near her heart as Sam left.

————————————

Night had fallen and the moon rose. The winter wind blew towards the town attempting to go through several tent homes. The breeze blew and each tent had rejected it all but one single lantern alighted one.

It was Sam.

The bow he slung over himself. The quivers he packed how he would when he wanted to hunt.

It was cold.

It was dark.

It felt just as it did within Sam’s heart.

He couldn’t meditate; he couldn’t feel the breeze. He couldn’t even tell if he even deserved to be in peace. He’d been staring at the quiver still wondering if he had made the right choices. From having to kill someone who he’d forsaken by not trying hard enough, to breaking a mage’s heart and sending her spiraling down into nothingness. He realized as he stroked the quiver.

He thought of Diana’s words.

“You better promise me,” she once said to him. “That you won’t shoot unless it is to protect. Strike only when it’s the last thing left to do.”

He had failed her.

Not because he didn’t heed her promise, but because he didn’t do anything.

He couldn’t do anything.

Sam had been young himself, about as young as Roger was right now. But as he came of age, and how the Lantern Children kept him up from falling down, he felt that he should’ve said something towards Ellen.

Especially since he knew Ellen's parents were killed.

And he just stood there.

He didn’t say anything.

He couldn’t do anything.

And even now, he didn’t say and couldn’t do anything to keep Ellen from sinking and to keep himself from sinking.

They sank.

And Sam couldn’t reach out to save her.

He was a fraud. After all, how could he pretend and act to save everyone if he himself couldn’t be saved?

How could he pretend to be someone he is not?

How dare he pretend to be a savior…

The lantern flickered around his tent. Sam requipped the quiver.

A quiver that used to take him towards what he must do.

A quiver that used to deliver things that he could do for them.

A quiver that now hung loose and missing a few arrows.

A quiver that felt hollow.

With a bow that he felt was undeserving, especially for someone like him. He thought he could bring light to the town as much as the Lantern Children had given him, but he had been too complacent, too scared even, to face what he had done.

Steady.

He had failed to become steady.

Breathe.

He was erratic.

And now his otherwise calm heart ran ragged with despair, with uncertainty if he had made the right choices.

The last light of the lantern that lit his tent had faded, and he felt his color had faded like the frost that had befallen him when he stepped out into the blizzard for target practice.

As he packed his belongings, he thought of the Lantern Children, each carrying a light unto themselves.

He thought of Kat. He thought of how she had helped him find Ellen and save him. He thought of how this young girl would still stick by him despite what he had done to people she loved. He admired her courage, and he was regretful that he wouldn’t be able to see her blossom into a courageous person; he’d known she would be the one to give the rest of them strength.

He thought of Roger. This hot-headed fiery teenager who he saw had moments of silence and stillness within himself. He remembered how willing he was to sacrifice himself and save everyone from the wrath of the alpha wolf, even going as far as to use a technique that would have killed him had he not concentrated his mana. The guy with the most haphazardness among them, yet was gentle next to Kat and the younger kids, even if he didn’t admit it.

He thought of Ellen.

The woman he thought he had cared about. The young lass who was instrumental in bringing about good lives to the kids. The same Ellen who used to be very concerned at how Sam was willing to sacrifice himself for their sake. The same one who had opened her heart to him, allowing him to partake in the burden so that they would feel less lonely in this world that had forsaken them.

The same one who wanted some time alone to think. The same Ellen he had failed.

He wasn’t worthy of her.

He wasn’t worthy of Roger.

He wasn’t even worthy of Kat.

He had become too jolly and too merry to be a genuine friend. A genuine person, more so.

He couldn’t handle it anymore.

In the dead of night as leaves died around, falling off from branches up above the sky and descending fast due to the weight of colliding and collapsing frost particles, the flicker of light that had been illuminating Sam’s tent slowly dissolved, the mana that had accumulated inside finally ran out as Sam headed out on his way.

He didn’t wave towards the guards, didn’t trace himself through his footsteps, and sure as hell didn’t let anyone see him through the dead of winter—he was just gone like the fleeting snow as the snow of dusk slowly receded to the snow of dawn, both indistinguishable as Sam carried the burden heavier than when he was in the scorched village and nearly died. 

He had hesitated back then, hesitated even when he saw Byleck, hesitated in letting anyone in unless they had already found out, and even hesitated in admitting his own guilt to the survivor of the result.

He felt his light had already faded away.

Unlike the lighters that lit up traders in Melusina, the children he had left back home in the slums of what was once Hertina, or even the hopes and dreams of the Lantern Children themselves, his own light was crushed by the weight of his failures, his hesitations, his fears… and his goals.

He didn’t know where to go anymore.

And so he wandered up in the trees, not even being careful anymore if he ever fell. He wandered down the wilderness forest, his own heart’s desire lost as the lantern of his own resolve faded away.

His figure disappeared into the snowy forest.

Without a light, he remained unseen. A husk. 

Hollow, like his quiver.