Free All Things Eternal (Book 2) by Alex Villavasso Page B

go.”
    Beneath his mask, Omari’s eyes began to well up with tears as he caught a glimpse of the destroyed clock tower that lay in the background. The fires that sprung from the decimated structure served as a centerpiece for a morbid painting, splashed with agony and remorse, accented with the faint cries of those buried underneath.
    Damn it. I...
    Instantaneously, Omari warped to the base of the burning tombstone using the people’s screams as his guide. From underneath the rubble, Omari watched as the fire bled through the array of crushed limbs and burnt blood. “Don’t worry! I’ll get to you as fast as I can!”
    Skye kept her attention split between her brother and Emil as she watched from where Emil lay. It hurt to see her brother broken, but in her current state, she was powerless to do anything for him. Omari, it’s not your fault.
    “Can you hear me!? I’ll get to you!” Omari, yelled as he began to part the rubble that crushed the innocents who rested underneath. Piece by piece, Omari tapped into his remaining strength to free those that he heard beyond the burning flames. Inch by inch, he hastily made his way deeper and deeper into the heart of the destruction until the voice of those he heard resonated clearly with him. Almost there.
    From atop the burning building, a mound of debris shifted forward, sprinkling shards of fragmented metal and concrete on top of him, but Omari continued his mission, oblivious to the outside world. As the mound shifted overhead, a slab of concrete broke from the top of the building, but Omari wasn’t the wiser.
    “ Omari!” Through her eyes, Skye watched as the burning javelin descended above her brother’s head.
    Shaken by his sister’s shriek, Omari looked to the sky and bared witness to the pillar of fire that hurdled his way. Without a second to spare, Omari jumped back and fell to the ground as the slab of concrete plunged into the earth in front of him, splitting the ground and separating him further from the voices he heard within the flames. “Damn it!” Wasting no time, Omari stood, stepped to the smoldering stone, and gripped his hands to the right where the fire had not yet touched. There’s… still…time.   “Rah!” Omari grunted as he tried to move the massive structure, but the construct was slow to respond. Damn it, I’m spent. Omari pulled back against the fallen infrastructure with all of his might but the structure barely moved. “Rahhh!” As Omari screamed, he felt the fibers in his abdomen tear in tandem with his failing strength, slowly reversing the minor healing Skye had already done. I’ve got to save them.
    In the distance, amongst the bodies and rubble, a member of the Vanguard awoke in the midst of the aftermath. Rather than die a peaceful death, the solider instead reached for a crossbow dropped by his comrade in the heat of battle. With his sights set on Omari, the fallen warrior took aim as he covertly lined the shot that would leave one less threat to King Arius’s rule.
    At the pull of the trigger, the steel-tipped bolt cut through the air with unmatched velocity, zipping past Skye’s field of vision and towards her distracted brother.
    Sensing a change in his atmosphere, Omari dropped his shoulder but the arrow traveled faster than his body could respond. The head of the arrow penetrated through Omari’s armor and pierced through the top of his shoulder blade. The slab of stone he desperately clung to dropped as he rushed to cradle his wounded shoulder. In front of him, the arrow adhered itself to the stone exterior of the wall, coated with the fabric of his armor and his own blood. Omari turned and instantly locked-in on the armored assailant, separating him from the countless other bodies that littered the land. The solider fired another shot from his bow, but Omari was gone before the arrow could find its mark.
    A wisp of dust and debris kicked into the wounded soldier’s face as he found himself mere inches away