Late into the night, Sophie was woken up by a nasty nightmare. She dreamt of something gruesome. She dreamt of the jaws. Drenched in sweat, she opened her eyes and sat by her bed with a frown on her face. She felt like shouting. She repressed the urge to smash every last thing inside that room. She quickly realized this wasn’t a restless night like every other one. Her survival instincts were fully in action. Each part, each fiber of her being was screaming for her to do one thing, and one thing only — and that was to leave. So, just like all the other times she sneaked out, she crossed the manor’s hallways on her way to the main entrance’s gate and squished herself through the bars. But this time was different. This time, she wouldn't look back.
She jogged to the military training facility where Marion was stationed. Once she arrived there, she saw her friend and her troop standing next to the building. They were seemingly led by a captain that wasn’t a day older than her. They were forming a barricade, surrounding themselves with stacks of sandbags and barbed wire, and all carried muskets with bayonets attached to their tips.
“Marion!” Sophie yelled upon seeing her friend.
“Eye-twitch? Is that you?” Marion said as she ran toward Sophie.
“What’s this? What’s going on?”
“The rumors were true. Some scouts spotted a battalion marching from Lothyen. They’re headed this way.”
“What for?”
“Well, I highly doubt it’s for our world-renowned barnacle stew, so my guess is they’re coming for blood. Anyway, what are you doing here?”
“I came for you. Let’s go. We’re leaving.”
“Huh?”
“You heard me,” she insisted, as she grabbed Marion by the arm and tried to pull her in the opposite direction, though unable to move her an inch. “Remember how you’re always saying you wanted to leave this place? Well, now’s the time. Let’s go!”
“Sophie, stop,” Marion said, freeing herself. “Listen to me. You can’t be out on the streets right now. Things are about to get really, really ugly. Go back home. Stay safe.”
“I’m not going anywhere unless you come with me.”
“You know I can’t. My place is here. This is my last shot at doing something of worth with myself.”
“No! You’re throwing your life away over a stupid war that benefits no-one! You wanna be a part of something bigger? Let’s figure out what that is together. This? This isn’t it.”
“It’s too late. Even if I wanted to go, I’m part of the army now. If I leave, I’ll become a deserter. They’ll persecute me forever. Look, it’s okay. Nothing bad’s gonna happen to me. We have the best firearms in the entire world.”
Marion attempted to raise her rifle — it weighed so much in her arms that she was barely able to lift the cannon, causing the gunpowder and bullet inside it to drop on the floor.
“You don’t even know how to handle that thing!” Sophie said.
“They caught us off-guard,” Marion said. “Nobody was expecting an attack this soon. Us rookies didn’t have much time to prepare.”
“You enlisted three days ago! You had almost zero time to prepare!”
“Yeah, well, they don’t call me ‘Bad Luck Marion’ for nothing.”
Shortly after, the captain of Marion’s troop noticed her absence. “Soldier!” he yelled at Marion. “Get your ass back here!”
“I gotta go, Eye-twitch,” Marion said. “Get somewhere safe. Do it for me, okay? You don’t wanna be out in the open when their troops get here.”
“Marion, wait!” Sophie said, in a final attempt at convincing her friend.
“I’ll be fine. I’ll see you soon, promise!”
Unbeknownst to Marion, the enemy troops were readying a trebuchet in the distance. Sophie saw them put together what seemed to be a bundle of wicker or tinder on the payload, then set it alight. Right after that, the soldiers operating the mechanism launched the blazing, fiery projectile into the air — and it was directed toward the exact spot where Marion and her peers were stationed.
“Marion, look out!” Sophie yelled.
Sophie ran to her friend while watching the fireball approach its target. Upon landing on the ground, it immediately bursted into a wall of fire that engulfed the barricade in its entirety. Marion and the rest of the soldiers fell prey to the attack before any of them could get a chance to seek shelter. After that, absolute silence. No screaming. Not a single sound. At a moment's notice, their lives were gone.
Paralyzed by fear, Sophie remained motionless as hell started to break loose around her.
“Marion?” she whispered, receiving no answer. “Marion, you can come out now.”
And then, as if she just got hit by a freight train, it all suddenly sank in. Her sheltered life with her adoptive parents had taught Sophie to be a composed, mild-mannered lady. That night, tragedy taught her a much more valuable lesson. Marion was gone, and it wasn’t until realizing that, until this moment of overbearing sorrow and anguish, that Sophie finally allowed herself to be a little kid again. She let out a big, loud cry, audible even amidst the ensuing chaos. She cried for minutes on end, mourning the loss of her beloved friend while people ran past her in terror.
Once her tears ran dry, she gathered what little strength she had left and started walking toward the only place left in the world where she’d find some semblance of safety.
* * *
Inside Lulu’s house, Otis and her couldn’t help but to hear the commotion on the streets.
“Did you hear that?” Lulu asked.
“Sounds like fireworks.”
Lulu poked her head out the window. “I don’t see any pretty lights,” she said.
Their conversation was cut short by a sudden knock on her door. Lulu took a peek out the window, only to be surprised by the presence of a little blond girl in a fancy dress. Her eyes were red from crying. Her make-up was smeared all over her face. Her hair was loose and messy, and her clothes were littered with tiny holes caused by the sparks emanating from the fire.
“Is Mr. Otis home?” she asked with a weak, strained voice.
“Sophie?” Otis asked from the other side of the room.
Otis got up from his seat and rushed to her aid, opening the door for her. “Sophie!” he said. “What the devil happened to you?”
“They killed her, Mr. Otis,” Sophie said. “They killed Marion.”
“What? Who did?”
“The Lothyen army.”
“Just as I thought,” Ludmila said. “They’re invading us.”
Lulu started pacing frantically. While doing that, she grabbed a big bag and put several supplies from the cupboard inside it, including food rations, bedsheets, and candles.
“Is it true, Sophie? About your friend?”
“I saw it with my own two eyes.”
“Dear God,” he said, as he wrapped his arms around her. “I’m so, so sorry.”
“It won’t be long ‘til they reach this part of town,” Lulu said. “The docks aren’t far from here. If we leave now, we can get away on my boat.”
“Alright,” Otis said. “Sophie, you’ll have to come with us for now. We’ll find a way to get you back home once it’s safe.”
“Wait!” Lulu said.
“What is it?”
“She can’t be seen out there wearing that fancy dress. If the enemy army finds out she’s Rooster’s daughter, they’ll chop her head off.”
“My head?!” said Sophie, grabbing her own throat.
“Come, Sophie,” Lulu said. “I think I still have some old rags from when I was a kid for you to change into.”
“Okay, but hurry up,” Otis said. “We’re a little pressed for time.”
“I’m well aware!”
Sophie took off her dress and put on Lulu’s clothes behind her bedroom’s folding screen. Once she was done changing, they left the house and made their way to the docks.
As soon as they stepped one foot outside, they realized the chaos they were bearing witness to was nothing short of a feverish nightmare. Carriages on fire rolling down the steep streets, their horses running amok. Fireballs raining from the skies left and right. Sounds of distant and not-so-distant bursting flintlock guns and windows breaking into pieces. The danger felt so real, so close, it was as if they could breathe it. Taste it. Far off, people were starting to collapse on the floor, uniformed and otherwise. They knew they could very well be next.
The road ahead was either illuminated by the flames coming from the buildings or pitch black. The darkness was their only ally. They ventured into an unlit alley, which guided them straight to the canal. Suddenly, the three of them caught sight of a presence on the far end of the street. A single man, standing perfectly still. His silhouette contrasted with the orange-tinted smoke emanating from the burning buildings. They weren’t able to tell if he was a friend or a foe from a distance, but one thing was for certain: he was carrying a musket in his arms. And then, he raised it. They heard a loud gunshot immediately after. The bullet found its way into a paving stone, only a few meters away from them — their signal to run. As the soldier pulled out a ramrod to ready his next shot, they took a turn to the right and hopped over the balustrade on the boardwalk, then carefully slid through a mud slope that led them to the beach. They made their landing next to a drainage pipe overflowing with sludge, and took cover beneath the docks.
The freezing water splashed them as it hit the rocks on the shoreline. They held firmly to each other’s hands, so as to not get carried away by the tide. An enormous dark mass covered the stars in the sky. Its contour matched the shape of a boat, towering over them like a gigantic sea bast that had risen from the depths.
“Almost there!” Ludmila shouted.
After passing by a few ships, the Sea Urchin was in sight at last. They all spotted an iron ladder that allowed them to climb back to the upper side of the docks. They did so, then made a run for it.
In their hurry, Sophie tripped over a crooked wooden plank on the pier. “Ah!” she screamed, as she plummeted down. Otis stopped to tend to her. The laces on her sandal broke, and it seemed as if she had twisted her ankle.
“Stay with her,” Ludmila told Otis. “I’ll go ahead first so I can lower the gangway for you.”
Lulu ran toward the pier, took off her boots, then jumped on the water to reach the mast net on the side of her ship, which she hastily climbed. Then, with her one arm, she lifted a rudimentary set of wooden planks nailed together that served as a gangway and dropped it in the empty space between her boat and the pier. Suddenly, she let out a horrified gasp and pointed at the sky from aboard the ship.
“Look out!” she shouted.
At that moment, a fireball dropped from above and struck the gangway right before Otis and Sophie could cross it, shattering into a million burning chips of wood. The flames managed to make their way to the boat’s port and set the mast net alight, thus making it impossible for Otis and Sophie to board the ship.
Otis turned his head in all directions, trying to come up with a plan on the spot. Unable to think of anything else, he did the one thing that didn’t seem entirely suicidal at that moment. “Quick! Climb on my back and grab tightly!” Otis told her. Sophie heeded Otis’ command without hesitation. Once on his back, he got closer to the edge of the pier. “Hold your breath!” he said. Then, he took a leap and plunged into the freezing water with Sophie grabbed firmly to his back. He emerged back to the surface and swam toward the anchor line, which was suspended at a forty-five degree angle. He grabbed the rope with both hands and legs and started climbing, his body hanging upside down over the choppy waters.
Meanwhile, Lulu noticed the enemy soldiers were closing in on them. They were throwing lit torches at all the ships that were harbored in the docks. ‘C’mon, c’mon!” she said to Otis. A few loose bullets started to graze the various parts of the ship. Otis and Sophie heard the buzzing of bullets passing them by, as the strong wind rocked the rope they were dangling from. Just as the soldiers were starting to gather around the Sea Urchin, Otis managed to climb to the end of the rope with Sophie on his back and get inside the ship. Once aboard, they spinned the crank-wheel together to raise the anchor while Lulu hoisted the sails. Then, Lulu ran toward the helm and started steering it frantically to get the boat in a windward position.
After a few minutes, she successfully got the embarkation to a distance where they were safe from the gunfire. Reassured in knowing she could let the wind carry them into the open ocean, she then hurried back inside to check on Otis and Sophie. They were both sitting on a corner in a fetal position, shivering heavily due to the cold. Their clothes were soaking wet.
“I’ll go get you some blankets,” Lulu said.
As the ship started sailing away into the canal, the three of them could finally let out a sigh of relief.
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