I found that I needed to write a new chapter for the book to add more detail, so here it is. Please let me know what you think. Thanks, everybody for the love and support.
Orange, sparkling light
exploded across the crystal room like color through a prism. Logic materialized
in her throne. Her chest heaved and her head throbbed like thunder.
She
was still alive, but barely. The orb in her chest pulsed weakly, and her body
had withered to that of a centenarian. One thing was for certain—Her days as
Logic were numbered.
With
slow, wheezing breaths, she closed her eyes and rested her head against the
back of her throne. Her scepter slipped through her fingers and clanked on the
crystal floor, the gold substance in its bulb depleted. If she didn’t die in
the next few minutes, then Instinct would finish the job; If, that is, he was
still alive. There was no telling how many casualties she caused when she melted
Imagination’s tower. There was only speculation. And hope.
But
the one being she was certain survived the incident was Imagination himself. It
didn’t matter if his plans had gone to hell or that she had gotten the jump on
him. Imagination was too crafty and too selfish to perish with her scheme. He would
have found another way out of his crumpling tower, even if it meant leaving the
family and Instinct behind to die.
It
pained her to think that that bastard escaped, but he did. She knew he did. Destroying
him was her last valiant act to save the Landscape, and she couldn’t even do
that. She had lost. Sure, she didn’t see him escape after she disappeared from
his room like a wisp of smoke, but logically, Imagination would have gotten out
of there. No one knew that tower better than him, and he probably teleported
all the way to the bottom floor, using as much magic as necessary, even if it
meant wiping out his entire system. Like her, he must be totally depleted of
energy, too. But he wasn’t dead, that she was certain.
With effort, she tried to push herself up. She wanted the
solace of at least seeing that
eyesore of a tower disappear from the skyline, but she was too weak to sit up.
She sighed. It rattled her chest cavity.
Killing the baby really was the only way. Imagination had
gone power hungry. If he had taken the baby out of the Landscape…well, it
didn’t matter now. The baby was dead, right? Or at least, if the baby had
survived, then at least the mother was surely dead.
Right?
No,
it didn’t matter now. She did her best and didn’t have to think about it
anymore. She simply wouldn’t exist within an hour. She’d be nothingness, a
shadow without a body.
It didn’t bother her in the slightest that she wouldn’t
exist anymore and refused to believe that one could be “stuck” in eternal
darkness. She would simply lose consciousness and not be able to enjoy her
senses anymore. Thus was the fate of all people when the mind shut down. Why
Imagination felt, no, believed, that
there was anything after life, she didn’t know or care. But why he had to
spread that nonsense onto mankind about an afterlife is what made her feel
slightly happy that that bastard now had no place to call his own.
Even so, she might have not made the wisest decision in
taking down his tower since it wiped her out completely. But it was all she
could think to do. Besides, she wasn’t worried about Imagination right now. She
was worried about Instinct. Did HE survive was the question? And if he did, how
much of the Haunt family survived with him? She shifted in her crystal seat and
her whole body ached. She wished she could just die already. She never minded
waiting before, but now, it was torture.
When she closed her eyes again, the only thing she took
pleasure in was the slurping noise of Imagination’s sinking tower.
Her sandpaper lips smiled.
Melting
his tower with pure logic might not have been the wisest move, but it was the
only move she could come up with. If she could do it all again, she would.
She welcomed the darkness that encroached upon her line
of vision.
