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The Prophesy Tower. Chapter 62. Write a Novel Challenge.

Write a Novel Challenge image of the death of Archie

by Kinda AbouchakraJune 26, 2020

“Who cares about Janus, anyway! Risky or not, we are heading to Mors World tomorrow, with the Turquoise Stone in our hand,” Neina said firmly, with an assertive tone no one would argue with and frowning eyes, dismissing any remaining room for discussion.

“Neina, I understand that Isla made you go through so much pain, but do not get blinded by vengeance. Isla and Janus have a plan. They know what they are doing, even though we don’t. You have to believe that …,” Archie shot back with his usual calm authority and collected demeanour.

“Of course I believe that, why wouldn’t I?” Neina replied sarcastically, challenging an already exhausted Archie. “You guys don’t want to help me? That’s’ fine, I’ll figure out on my own. I think I know where the stone is, and tomorrow, at dawn, I will head to Mors World. Thank you for your help, guys.”

And with that, she bitterly stormed out of the room, making sure that her heels thumped on the floor as loudly as possible. Charlotte and Archie, who had never experienced Neina having a childish tantrum before, put it down to the stress and risks that now faced all of them. Neina, they knew, naturally took on board a responsibility to protect all of them.

Charlotte briskly turned to Archie. “But…. what if the stone is in her engagement ring? What if it’s a trap? Maybe Isla is testing Neina, to see whether she would kill her if she had the chance.”

The alarmed look on Charlotte’s face as she spoke shocked Archie as it dawned on him that each of them, in different ways, was buckling under the pressure of what lay ahead. People only show their true selves in times of crisis he thought, but sensitively kept this to himself.

“Charlotte, I understand how crazy everything is, and I know Neina is risking her life, but… I am so tired. My journey to Mors World drained the energy out of me, and I can barely stand without collapsing. I am so sorry. Everything is happening so quickly…” Fighting the urge to sleep, Archie’s face looked visibility older, his face drawn with tiredness. As he spoke, he felt his eyes twitching from exhaustion, his body contorting in an uncontrollable loop of clenching and releasing itself and his hands shaking frantically.

“Don’t worry, Archie. Go to your house and sleep. I will go try to find Neina and, if by tomorrow morning you still haven’t heard from me, it means I’m in danger, so you have to come and find me. Goodbye Archie!” With that, Charlotte vanished so as to leave no room for argument, much like the winter breeze during the first days of spring.

“Danger? What? Charlotte!”. Even as the words tumbled from his lips, Archie found he could no longer think clearly, his words and ideas jumbling and meshing themselves together into incoherency. Trapped in the chaos of floating, unanswered questions and a storm of exhaustion, Archie forced himself to leave the library and head back to his apartment, the only feeling left the biting rain of fatigue washing over him like a lead weight. Twenty minutes later, after a journey through what seemed only just less than eternity, he crashed through his front door, searched out the the faint silhouette of his bed and collapsed into the comfort of fuzzy cushions and equally blurring dreams.

Hours, which felt like days, later, the first rays of sunshine lit up Archie’s room, entering without permission to tickle his weary face. As the light washed over him, Archie blinked, his eyelids pressing against each other as though they were lovers that didn’t want to part. Finally he garnered the strength to open his eyes, revealing two golden pupils bursting with enough light to make the sunrise in the background seem mediocre. Sitting at the far edge of his bed between that unfathomable time between sleep and being awake, he tried to collect his thoughts and shake his still failing ability to concentrate.

What happened yesterday? Did I have a nightmare? I can’t even remember what I dreamt about…

Suddenly, an intense feeling of pain spread through his body, as if there were thousands of tiny ants laboriously carrying breadcrumbs across his skeleton. His chest sparked from tiny electric pin pricks and a gnawing feeling of nausea through him off kilter as if he was driving a car on the type of unclassified, pothole-ridden road that sends even the toughest spine into paroxysm. Cold sweat trickled down his wrinkled skin, as his breathing started to become irregular. Gasping to inhale like a goldfish out of water, he felt his breaths getting shorter and shorter until there was no more air left for his lungs to catch. His head felt surprisingly light, but not in a pleasant way – and everything around him started to blur as though he was living within an impressionist painting. Eventually he buckled as he doubled up, no longer even able to stand. His felt body swirling around itself, waltzing forward and backwards in an inconsistent rhythm as his face paled to match the colour of the spotless off-white tablecloth near his bed.

Archie, finally, collapsed to the ground like a wilting flower, but without any of its gracefulness, his mind and body knowing, and feeling, only the base blackness of nothing.

As morning broke, Neina changed her plans. She decided to go and see Archie one last time before heading to the Mors World. She had to. It might be the last time she would see him.

The stone, after all, would be easy enough to find, she told herself. She had always known that there was something mysterious about her wedding ring.

As she climbed the stairs to his front door, Neina told herself that she was only going to give her lover a brisk kiss whilst he still slept. She could not depart this world without a gentle, potentially last whisper of ‘I love you’ to her One, before travelling to Mors. She would never forgive herself if she did not say good bye.

She opened the door quietly to avoid waking him, a tragic and sorrow-filled expression of yearning and loss painted across her face.

The scene waiting for her in Archie’s room was of her dead husband laying on the floor, his face tipped unnaturally to the side and his open death- filled eyes staring through her.

Anguish and pain seared through her as she felt her insides ripping themselves apart and her heart breaking. Neina’s voice exploded into a pitiful wail and her eyes flooded with tears. Sobbing she screamed in utter despair at whatever god would listen, wishing that every star would fall from its place in the once beautiful sky. Everything that once held purpose, everything that mattered, every single thing was over. The most innocent and beautiful sapphire sky now counted for nothing as her lover’s death obliterated all meaning, time and reason.

Days later, Archie’s parents hosted the memorial service for their son at home. They wanted to remember him as they last saw him – in their living room. A relatively large room lit with the blues, golds and reds of the stained glass window above their fireplace, the crowded clump of framed pictures on the shelf, including a special one in which Archie was grinning, his bright smile radiating joy and his mysterious gaze oozing charm, struck Neina with the force of absolute and irreversible loss as the tears tumbled down her face.

The picture was surrounded by weeping rose petals and flickering candle flames dancing artlessly. At the far end of the living room, leaning on the cream-coloured wall, stood Neina and Charlotte.

“I would like to thank all of you for coming to Archie’s memorial. No parent should live long enough to experience their child’s death, and no Mom should accept that her child is sleeping in a grave and not in her loving arms.”

The trembling words of Archie’s Mom echoed and ricocheted through the small house, as though Archie’s ghost was repeating them.

Neina had promised herself to be strong for them. We cry for ourselves, not the ones we lose she told herself. And his parents too had lost a lifetime of meaning and everything that grounded them. Don’t cry Neina she whispered to herself, do not cry…

But it was all too late.

The tears flowing from her eyes were unstoppable, answering to another power beyond the control of human fallibility. Her cheeks stung with the memories of the farewell kiss that never happened. Poets often speak of eyes as ‘endless reservoirs of tears’ she thought but Neina knew that her tears came straight from her heart, one being emptied of its lifeblood drop by breaking drop.

Neina caught her reflection in the stained-glass window but, instead of seeing herself, she saw only a shadow. A shadow of a person, a shadow of what she could have been – and a shadow of what she and Archie could have lived. All her life she had been told that she was a candle, dazzling with passion and the one that they had said lit up rooms when she entered. Now she understood cruelly that she had only ever really been a match. She lit up only for others when they needed the warmth of her flame, dimming as soon as she was no longer wanted, or needed…

Her reflection startled her. Dark circles hung under her eyes as if captured by the injustice of an innocent man’s hangman’s noose. Her tears left sooty traces down her now hollowed-out cheeks and her faded dimples. She had bitten her lips so much that they now bled, her pearly tears escorting vermilion droplets of blood on their way down her face.

The warm sunlight penetrated through the window, distorting into a beautiful spectrum of colours. They formed a rainbow on Neina’s face.

She felt like stained glass.

Memories flooded back filled with moments she had spent with Archie, each a glimpse of sunlight that penetrated her body to form a rainbow in her heart. Slowly, gently, she felt a smile spread timidly on her face as memories took her far, far away.

Suddenly, everyone turned around. Neina found herself lost in a sea of eyes, disoriented by the intensity of expectant looks. What is happening?

“Neina, would you mind giving your eulogy?” Archie’s Mom looked incapable of saying any more, those few words costing her every protection left from simply collapsing under the weight of loss.

This is a relay race of sorrow. It is now my turn to be passed the baton of dread, and run.

Neina stands, but it feels as if she is in a trance. Am I even here? She makes her way through the small crowd awkwardly, before reaching Archie’s Mom. She holds her shivering outstretched hand tenderly for dear life. She attempts to clear her throat and throws herself into an improvised speech.

“I’ve been to another world. I have fought monsters and a devious queen. I bled, suffered and starved. I endured so much pain that misfortune and tragedy became my best friends. But nothing comes close to losing Archie. He survived many obstacles, only to die from a heart attack. Life is too deceitful sometimes. Other times though, it is really beautiful, and I think this compensates. It took me the death of my soulmate to realise the miracle of love, and the gift of life, and I am so grateful to be alive. Do not take for granted the preciousness of your emotions, they are all you have. I have been to many places, travelled to a different world, only to realise that the real journey happens within us. Yes. The purest form of reality occurs when we close our eyes. Your purest love is also within you, in your memories. When you love someone, you give them a piece of your soul, and it will stay within them forever. Mortality is not limited by death, but rather by the disappearance of ideas, memories and words that remind you of that person. So, let us reminisce. Let us revive Archie on this afternoon with our songs, poems and prayers. Let him flow through our souls – and let him float in the air so that we can inhale sorrow and exhale nostalgia. Let us grab the bits of him that he left behind and use them as colours to brighten the fading painting we have of him in our minds.”

Suddenly, the doorbell rang. It takes a moment for Archie’s Mom to come back to reality; it seems to Neina that she had been perched on a little cloud of happiness as Neina spoke. At least, she would like to believe that. To Believe that her words had managed to make their way through to someone g=for whom they would matter and bring hope.

Archie’s Mom opened the door.

“Neina, there is this weird-looking lady that calls herself the Queen. She wants to talk to you.“

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The Prophesy Tower – A Novel.

To read Chapter 1, click here.

To read Chapter 2, click here.

To read Chapter 3, click here.

To read Chapter 4, click here.

To read Chapter 5, click here.

To read Chapter 6, click here.