First Draft of a Chapter in Rise of Baal

I wanted to share this chapter. It's not dark so much as sad at first. Then becomes full of light. I touch on God's miracles in it, but I really hope I don't come across as writing a Lifetime movie. I thought about letting Graeme die, but I think this carries the story forward and I like Graeme.

The 3 characters are a 5 year old Orphan Centaur, Lydia, a 6 year old Orphan Sphinx, Graeme, and a several thousand year old Persephone who has been made human and is an orphan also. They just escaped from the Labyrinth, but with my spin on the famous maze, and Graeme was seriously injured escaping.

It's a first draft, so it's not perfect and has lots of errors. Been stuck on this chapter for a while actually.

Chapter 10

Lydia looked at the face of the filly. The filly wore a brave face, but her eyes were sad. She carried something in her heart and it weighed her eyes down. Lydia could see the filly had lived through something horrible, something which had damaged the girl.

Lydia struck her hand out at the filly and the pool of water flickered and moved, the filly vanishing. For six days, Penny and her had been tending to Graeme, trying to bring him back to life. He had been murmuring that entire time. None of his words made sense. It was like he was speaking a different language, but his tongue had been replaced by corded rope and his teeth were pitch.

Penny spent a lot of time cursing in other languages which Lydia didn't know, but sometimes the words were guttural, sometimes musical, and even sometimes like silk. Lydia might only be five, but she understood a bad word when she heard one. Penny seemed shaken by what she had seen in the mazes. The monster that had almost killed them had gotten out and that worried Penny a lot. But she also worried a lot about Graeme. The more Penny worried, the more she said bad words.

Lydia crawled out of the small room. They had been hiding here since the storm and it had been a dry spot, even if chilly. They hadn't seen signs of life in the cave, not even a small ant. Penny had told Lydia not to go outside so Lydia explored further and further into the cave. The pool of water she had found was the deepest she had been in the cavern so far. Penny had given her a small light that didn't burn and didn't go out. Penny called it a lantern, but she also warned that it wouldn't last forever.

She walked back to the small room Penny had set up for Graeme. He was laying still, not moving at all. He seemed so small laying there. He was older than her, but as a Centaur she was already taller than him. But he was so loud and talked so much, he was bigger than she was. They needed a Satyr to heal him, but Penny was too afraid to try to find anyone right now. Penny had been so shaken by the maze and . . . him.
Even days later, Lydia couldn't think about him without wanting to cry or flee. He had been so bad and evil. Being in the same maze as him had been so scary and he made her feel like she was going to die. And the stench. She still felt covered by the stench.

Lydia watched Penny tend to Graeme. It was boring. They hadn't eaten for two days now and she was getting really hungry, though at least there was water here, even if it tasted strange. Like licking a rock. Penny wouldn't leave Graeme's side to go look for food.

"I'm hungry," she said.

Penny said nothing. She just sat next to Graeme, stroking his head.

Lydia tapped her front foot, "I'm really hungry."

Penny looked up, her eyes unfocused and full of tears. "I'm sorry Lydia. Did you say something?"

"I'm hungry."

"Did you see the grasses I found for you?"

"They're all gone. I ate the last of them two days ago." The grasses were old and had been browning by the time she had chosen to eat them out of hunger.

"Oh. I'll go get some later," Penny said and turned back to look at Graeme. And then started stroking his head again.
Lydia waited, but Penny never stopped stroking his head and trying to get her attention didn't work. She grabbed the lantern and started walking to the front of the cave. It was a small entrance and she had to get on her side and scoot outside. She pushed the vines to the side and the light almost drowned her, but she stepped up and looked around the entrance. There weren't a lot of signs of life near her. It was like that night they had came here through the storm. Lots of rocks and not a lot of anything else. But over there, a couple miles away, was a small hill that stood out of the rocks and it had sweet looking grass. Lydia started to gallop towards it. She wanted to get back before Penny noticed she was gone.

She reached the hill and the grass was taller than her flank. She started picking the sweetest and longest blades and started eating. She was so hungry. She ate faster and faster and she could feel her stomach bloating, but she kept eating anyways. Grass had never tasted so sweet.

After eating almost three days of grass, she flopped down and fell asleep. Several hours passed. She hadn't slept well. When she woke up the sun was going down and she could tell that her torso was burnt and red. Pulling herself up carefully, she looked back at the cavern. But she couldn't tell where it was. She walked around the hill, wildly looking for the cavern, but she couldn't see it. It was gone. It had moved. No, it hadn't moved, she didn't know where it was.
The sun went down and the wind picked up on the hill. The grass bent down and moved back and forth, whipping against her. If she left the hill for the safety of the rocks, she would have no protection from the wind. So she stayed and the grasses kept hitting her. The grasses which had been so sweet were now bitter to her.

The night grew darker and darker and the wind picked up. Soon it was blowing so hard her hands and limbs hurt. The stars blinked at her from the sky, flashing brightly. But they didn't care about Lydia or that she was freezing or that she was in need of being given a hundred hugs right now.
She started to cry. The little filly in the pool was back and she couldn't make her go away. Her dad, the Emeritus, was gone. Her home, the Basilisk embassy, was gone. Her city was gone. She had been hunted relentlessly by a monster so evil, even at five, she knew he was the scariest thing she would ever see for the rest of her life. And Penny had stopped caring for her and now she was freezing and the grass was beating her, cutting her skin. And her torso was burning like she had a fever. She had never been so miserable in her entire life.

She cried for hours.

Penny looked around her, unfocused and not sure of what she wanted to find. She hesitantly grabbed water for Graeme and lifted up his small head. He had already lost so much weight. He was dying. She had mixed some minerals with the water, but she needed to get him some electrolytes. Penny poured some water, slowly, into his mouth. He swallowed, an instinctive behavior. But he wasn't healing. She put the water down and rubbed his forehead. She could feel the fever through his thick fur. She could feel this skull now under his skin. He was losing weight fast now. She needed to find him some food; for Graeme and for Lydia.
She hadn't checked on Lydia for hours.

No, for days. I haven't checked on her for days, Penny panicked. "Oh no."

"Lydia! Let's get you some food."

Lydia didn't respond and she couldn't hear Lydia nearby. She took a lantern and walked back. "Lydia!" No response. She walked further and further back, following the young filly's footprints. The hoof prints moved back and forth. She could see some of them were coming back from her little expeditions. She reached a pool that had been muddied and didn't see any hoof prints past the pool. She looked all around and kept calling out, "Lydia!" Penny was starting to grow anxious. Her heart was beating so fast and she couldn't swallow. Is this what a firstborn feels when they lose a child? This powerless? This useless?

She ran out of the tunnel now. She stopped to check on Graeme. His breathing was more shallow now and was coming rapidly. She wanted to stop, to wait with him, but instead she ran her hands over his head one more time and left him. She could do nothing for the young cub anymore. She raced to the front, and lowered herself down, scrambling through the vines covering the entrance. The sky was full of stars and the wind was blowing fiercely. Very few places on Kaenun were this windy, but this rocky plain was where two hemispheres met and the two different weather systems collided during the spring. "Lydia!"

She was screaming now, but the wind made it pointless. Lydia could be five feet away from her and not hear her. She saw the hill with the grass and she took off at a run. Well, she tried to run, but she was just leaning slowly towards the hill. The hill wasn't that far away, but right now it felt like a hundred miles. Little bits of grit and dirt started to smack her in the face from the surface of the rocks. She felt like the wind was going to tear the skin off her face. She raised her hands and arms to protect herself as she made her way over the rocks. She tried to make a gateway out of desperation, but she still couldn't do magic and was stuck; just a stupid firstborn. She had never hated their weaknesses as much as she did right now. It had been endearing to see them struggle with tasks while she could pick up a boulder and throw it for hundreds of feet. Or use magic. Or heal. Why couldn't she heal Graeme. She would give up all her power forever if she could just heal Graeme and accept being a weak firstborn for the rest of her mortal life.
"Adonai! Send me help."

There was no answer. Is this how Adonai and the firstborn interacted. They made desperate pleas for help and Adonai couldn't answer them directly without destroying them. So they felt alone in the universe and abandoned. It would make me resentful. I'm resentful now, she thought.
Hours passed, but she made it to the hill. Her body was spent. There was no way she was going to make it back to the cave's entrance tonight until the wind died down. A few times the wind had almost thrown her back. At least she was physically strong, For a firstborn.

She started screaming Lydia's name. Her voice disappeared quickly in the wind. She circled the base of the hill and then moved a few feet higher. She circled again and again. It wasn't until she was almost halfway up that she stumbled across Lydia. Somehow, the filly had fallen asleep and was laying there, whimpering. Her flank was scratched up by the grass and she was covering her face and neck with sunburnt arms and hands. Where her clothes didn't cover her skin, she was bright red.

Penny started to sob. A deep sob, the kind that goes deep into your soul and squeezes it until your body feels as if it has been crushed. She reached down and put her hand gently on Lydia's back.

Lydia stirred, saw her, and wrapped her arms around Penny not caring how badly it must hurt. The two of them sobbed for quite some time and told each other things they hadn't told anyone else. Penny even talked about her husband. She hadn't even told April about her husband. Lydia cried about how her mom and dad had left her to die because of her shriveled leg. And then how there had been no kids in the Embassy and Graeme was her very first friend.
Penny felt guilty about Graeme, but she couldn't go to him right now. She wasn't strong enough to carry Lydia and after fighting through the storm, she wasn't sure she could carry her own body. Three more hours passed and the wind started to die and the sun rose. They worked their way back to the cavern. "I couldn't find the cave. I was on the hill and I couldn't see it anymore."

"It's okay sweetie. It's easy to get lost out here. There are no landmarks."

"I was so scared. I thought you would never find me."

"So did I. I was really scared too."

Penny took a deep breath, feeling it shudder through her, making her feel weak. She almost stumbled.

"Lydia. Graeme was getting worse when I left. I don't know if he's okay. He may have passed away in the night."

"Oh," is all she said. Then she said it again, "Oh."

"Do you want to wait out here while I go check in on him?"

"No. I've seen dead people before. Most of the Basilisks at Thessaly were very old and sometimes they died." Lydia's mask had dropped back in place. Penny looked at the brave face and the sad eyes. Lydia was distancing herself from further trauma.

"Okay."

They didn't say anything for the last mile. They were both exhausted. Lydia had slept more than Penny had but she had been in pain. No one sleeps well in pain.

They both got down and slid into the cave. And they walked back to the room. They heard some talking though. Penny rushed forward, ready to fight, but when she turned the corner, there was no one there but Graeme. He was sitting on a large rock next to a stone pot of hot stew. He was sipping it slowly and smiled, his toothy smile seemed like it took up all his energy.

"Where have you two been?" He looked back and forth at them while they stood there in shock.

"Who were you talking to?"

"Talking? I wasn't. I just woke up a few minutes ago and found this stew. I crawled over to sit and scooped some up in a bowl. Been waiting for it to cool down to really eat. Want some?"

There were two bowls on the ground, next to the stew. The stew was steaming in a stone pot and it filled the room with such a rich smell. Penny didn't realize she hadn't eaten the last few days.

Lydia rushed forward to grab a bowel and when she didn't see a ladle or spoon, Graeme showed her how to dip the bowl so she didn't burn her fingers. Graeme's tail was moving back and forth as he talked to her.

"Adonai. Thank you," she whispered and then went to grab the third bowl to eat.