It's easy to lose myself in thought. It always has been.
Usually I'm losing myself in thought while I lay in bed and stare up at the ceiling. Usually I try to move around as little as possible, and that frees up my mind to be racing if it wants to be.
Though, I admit, a lot of the time I didn't, even then. I could dream. I could drift off. I could become a cloud floating in the sky from the safety of the darkness of my room.
...The idea that my room isn't safe. That quiet darkness that felt comforting then and feels suffocating now. The idea that I'll never see it again. I'll never be laying in that bed, staring at the ceiling, listening to the others in the Order who belonged there wandering around and talk...
It's hard to process.
I don't want to think about it. And I'd think that combination would mean that I wouldn't think about it at all.
But instead it just keeps intruding. It keeps breaking through and forcing me to think about it again. To remember. The quiet. The hours that felt like they'd be endless, but are now all so incredibly short. The voices of people that I didn't make any attempt to memorize or identify but felt familiar and comforting anyway.
...No.
That's not true.
None of that is true.
I didn't feel at home. I didn't feel comfortable. I certainly didn't take comfort from those voices. Because I'm Tainted Blood. Because everyone has always known I don't belong in the Order, and no one ever wanted to let me forget it.
All I thought about was dropping out. Leaving. Putting that place behind me and walking away without ever thinking back on it again. Even though I was trapped there just so they could continue my line one day, that's what I thought about.
Melting into the ground and finding a place I belonged.
...Now...
I think I'm terrified.
I swallow nothing as I walk. The forest around is quiet and calm, showing no sign of the Gloom Dwellers hiding somewhere within. If the humanoid one isn't around and these are just the most basic form of the Gloom Dwellers we'll probably be safe so long as the group of us sticks together, especially with the Classmaster with us, and in the daylight.
Yet my ears keep straining.
I keep listening for scraping in the trees and in the grass. Maybe because I'm afraid they'll jump out at us, ambush us like they did the Order and wipe out the remnant they left behind. It's not like they intended to let us live in the first place, after all - we'd barely survived and repelled them on the island.
But I'm even more afraid. Of the alternative.
That they're whispering to me. That I'll hear them calling out to me. That I'm a part of their plan - a monster like that humanoid one that has never been seen before. That I'm at fault. Either for the destruction of the Order or....
Or maybe for the destruction of its remnant.
Normally, I'm a fan of being left alone. I enjoy being left to my own devices and my own thoughts. I'm a creative person, and more importantly I'm a person who enjoys any excuse to be left alone and not have to put any kind of effort into anything.
But there's something in me that's...
Shivering.
This loneliness is making my bones vibrate and my teeth clench and I don't know if it's good or bad.
I don't even know which feeling would be good or bad in this context. I sigh and shake my head, running my fingers through my hair. For once, it isn't the time to get lost in my own thoughts. For once, what's hiding in those thoughts are things I don't want to hear about anyway.
My eyes scan the edges of the forest as we walk. Not just for brave - or dangerously smart - Gloom Dwellers, but for any more signs that they were here at all. cobwebs of Gloom. More strips on the ground. Claw marks on the trees. The sent of steel, iron, blood and sulfur.
Anything like that.
I should be relieved that I can't find any sign of any of it.
But I just can't be.
I can't help but think that this luck isn't luck, and we're just walking into a trap again. I guess that's normal, under the circumstances, but it's cold comfort to my frayed nerves.
And speaking of cold comfort....
It's not like we have any choice in the matter.
We can't stay in the Order. Its defenses are ruined, the buildings are scorched and structurally ruined. Worst of all, even if Thomson could get the wards back up, they'd be that much weaker because it would be basically just him making and maintaining them.
We'd be sitting ducks, just waiting for a second wave of Gloom Dwellers to come and finish the job they started.
As it is, time itself might just finish us off. Another coordinated attack, with the force they must have had to do that kind of damage to the Order, even without us present?
It's....
Staying there means accepting death. The worst kind of death.
Not even I'm the type to just go and lay down and wait for death like that. Not in the building that's become a silent tomb for all the voices I once heard passing by the doorway. Not when the pure light has been crushed under foot and a tainted blood with even more tainted abilities is among the few left.
So...
That's all I have.
Walking forward. Following the Classmaster. Hoping to catch if we are also being followed before it's too late and the hiding place is revealed to them.
And maybe....
I can find a way to lay down there, too.
But there's a part of me that wonders if I'll ever be able to peacefully lie down again.
I think that most of me....
Doubts it.