“We’re here,” murmur the people around you, a quiet game of telephone from the front, where M has raised a hand to signal everyone to a stop, all the way to the back. The crowded mass of soldiers flattens out into a long line to look down where M is staring.

         You’re on an elevated mesa overlooking a deep valley, separated by mountainous forms that hide your troops from view. There’s a gap in the rocky range, through which you imagine they’ll lead the charge when the time comes.

         On the far side of the valley lies a dark, dilapidated castle. Even from a distance, you have to crane your neck up as you sweep your eyes to see the tops of its blackened turrets. The terrible structure towers high over the sparse trees that flank it, looming menacingly. It throws a great shadow over its surroundings, coloring everything in a grim charcoal gloom. The huge iron doors gape like the maw of a hungry beast, rusted bloody teeth and all. Tattered black flags flutter at the tops of the castle towers. The sight makes you shudder.

         The worst part, however, is what you see in front of it.

         The large, flat clearing before the castle is swarming with Boars. They’re clearly milling about in preparation for their ritual feast—of human flesh—at sundown, grunting and lumbering about in their guttural native tongue. Just seeing them terrifies you. These are the things that destroyed your life. These are the things that destroyed your world.

         With their upright posture and humanoid features—articulated fingers clutching at weaponry, heavy feet clad in steel-toed footwear—a Boar could almost look like a man from behind, just with a comically large head. But then they turn, revealing a pig’s snout and dead, beady little eyes, two gruesome tusks protruding from their mottled, green, leather-tough skin, and it’s like staring into the face of evil itself; like staring into Hell.

         In the center of the preparatory frenzy, on a raised dais fitted with an ornate iron throne, sits the Boar King. On his gnarled, monstrous head rests an ivory crown, studded with blood-red rubies and stained with grime. When he settles back into his seat, watching his people scurry around the field, you catch the gleam of ivory jewelry on his grimy clawed fingers. The glinting of his appearance, the sheer decadence he clearly enjoys after shattering your world to pieces, enrages you. Hate boils in the pit of your stomach. You can’t wait to kill these fugly sons of bitches.

         “Alright, everyone,” M calls in a hushed voice, gathering her troops around her. Suddenly, the group seems worryingly small; you’re over a hundred and fifty strong, but there must be twice as many Boars, and they have the upper hand here: their turf, their terms, their impervious skin. How long can your people hold them off? Can you get the captives out in time? Or will they be massacred without their fire?

         “The small group and I are heading to Freedom Point now to make the rescue. Remember: attack when the first flare goes off. Circle the castle, let no Boar escape. You know the battle techniques we’ve planned. Do not use fire until you see the second flare. My group will most likely stay behind to protect the captives. In the meantime?” M pauses significantly, her eyes gleaming. “Burn those mothers down.”

         The gathered group, wary of cheering too loud, opts to lift their fists in solidarity instead. A ragtag army, angry and strong, with a hundred and fifty fists in the air. A hundred and fifty fingers to the Boars that took your family.

         You know what? Maybe you’ll win this, after all.

         “Coach,” M calls, “You’re calling the shots.” Coach nods firmly, patting her once on the shoulder. When M walks towards you, it’s with a questioning uptilt of her brows. “Ready to go?”

         “Just a sec.” M nods, turning away to go round up the rest of the small group. You turn, instead, to Ami.

         Your friend’s face is pinched and pale, her nails bitten down to the quick in anxiety. When she looks at you, she swallows and puts on a brave face. Her smile wobbles weakly, but stays.

         “Be safe, okay?” she starts, “Whatever happens, remember that the most important thing is that you get out of there alive. I mean, obviously it’s important to rescue all the captives too, but… just, don’t be a self-sacrificial idiot and die because you tried to save everyone else, okay? And take care of your sword—You still have your silver knife, right? You probably won’t need it, but just keep it on you in case it comes in handy. Come here, let me fix your collar—Can’t let you go into battle looking like you just rolled out of bed, what, were you raised in a barn? I swear—”

         Ami freezes when you pull her into your arms, cutting off her anxious rambling. When you hold her close, she fits perfectly into you, her face into the curve of your shoulder, your chin on the top of her head. Slowly, she wraps her arm around you too, squeezing tight. Her palms feel small against your shoulder blades.

         “It’s gonna be okay,” you say into her hair. “It’ll be okay.”

         “Just…come back to me, okay?” she whispers.

         You swallow around the lump in your throat. “I will,” you swear, “As long as you do, too.  Take care of yourself, Ami.”

         “You too.”

         Moving back, you hold your friend at arm’s length for a moment. There are tear tracks on her face and such a desperate look in her eyes that you wonder if you’ll ever see her again. I’m afraid, you want to say to her, I don’t want to die today. Not without you.

         “I gotta go,” you say instead, offering up your best attempt at a convincing smile. Behind you, M, Trina, Rhea, and Harman are waiting patiently for you to finish your goodbyes. Understanding, Ami nods.

         “Yeah. Yeah, get out of here. You heroic idiot.”

         “I love you.” Ami softens at that. When she pushes you towards the group, it’s gentler than you expect.

         “I love you too.”

* * *

         Freedom Point is a small, secluded clearing a mile away from the back side of the castle. Against the side of the loose rocky wall is a large, crater-like hole about the size you might be if you curled up into a tight ball. Clearly, this is the entrance to the tunnel. It kind of astounds you; the prisoners who had dug this must have had the strength and determination of warriors. You wonder if you’ll have the strength to come back out of it.

         “Is everyone ready?” M asks, looking amongst the little group. Trina nods, taking a deep breath. Rhea and Harman, already holding hands, exchange a kiss. When M meets your eyes, you nod.

         “Let’s get this party started.”

         “Alright. Brooke, set off your flare.”

         You grab the long, thin tube from your pack, fishing out a match. A flame starts with a snap when you drag it across a nearby rock.

         You take a deep breath. Touch the match to the end of the tube. Wait with bated breath.

         With a rush of sound, the flare goes up in a great puff of red smoke, whistling far above your head and disappearing with a nearly inaudible pop. For a moment, the world is still and silent, save for the slowly dissipating streak of bright red fog that still hangs in the air. For a moment, nothing.

         Then, in the distance, battle cries.

         “Let’s go,” M prompts, and you begin.

         The entrance to the tunnel is rocky and cumbersome, but as soon as you duck into the small opening, it widens up into a narrow passageway just tall enough for you to stand up straight. M lights a torch, holding it up above her head to illuminate the path as far as she can manage. Before you, the tunnel stretches into a long, rocky abyss, before vanishing into the darkness.

         “Sick,” you intone.

         “Come on,” M grits out, stepping briskly over a crumbling pile of rocks and starting off down the tunnel.

         The journey is cramped and uncomfortable. The tunnel is shoddily carved and littered with debris, and there are precarious bits where you have to carefully maneuver around outcroppings of rock, even slithering forward on your belly to make it past some particularly tight spots. The tunnel is a mile long, according to Ami’s research, but it feels like a dozen. By the time the floor of the pathway comes out into a smooth, subtle incline that's significantly less craggly and rough, you’re soaked in sweat, coated in dust, and panting with exertion.

         “Wait,” M hisses out in a hushed whisper, stopping abruptly. You nearly stumble right into her, but the protective arm she throws out stops you.

         “What is it?”

         “Shh. Listen.” She tilts her head upwards, craning to hear better. Stilling, you do as well. Somewhere in the distance is the muted, murmuring swell of noise. Human noise. “We’re nearly there.”

         “We just need to find the opening.”

         “You see it?” Slowly, you creep forward, M holding her torch up to the tunnel walls in search of the exit.

         “There!” you cry out. At the very end of the pathway, in the ceiling of the packed dirt tunnel, is a circular manhole cover, scraped stone with edges rusted into place. Bingo.

         “Alright.” M turns, stabbing her torch into the tunnel floor and securing it in the dirt for clearer sight. “Let’s break into this sucker.”

         The first few spirited pushes don’t seem to help. The cover hardly budges under M’s exertion. Harman offers to help, groaning resoundingly as he pushes on it, attempting to heave it open. No dice.

         “Try going around the edges,” you suggest, “Here.” You pull out your silver knife from an inner pocket, elbowing Harman out of the way. It takes a significant amount of effort to work the blade into the crack of the stone cover, but once you feel it give, it’s simple to slide it around the circular disk. “Now try,” you gesture to your teammate, and Harman steps forward to give it another go. This time, it springs open with a clang.

         “Excellent,” M murmurs, taking a deep breath. “Here goes nothing.” She pokes her head up through the hole then, surveying the other side. When she stretches up for a better view, you steady her with your hands at her hips.

         “Anything?” When M looks back down at you, her eyes are dark, her mouth set in a firmly pressed, grim line.

         “Yeah.”

         With a push, M claws herself out of the tunnel and into the dungeons, clambering into the Boar King’s castle. When she straightens up inside the darkened confines of the dungeons, she holds out a hand to heave you up beside her. What meets your eyes when they adjust to the dimness within the castle horrifies you to the core.

         The dungeon is a vast expanse of stone walls and rusted iron bars, lined with cell after dingy cell. What would be impenetrable darkness is broken up by flickering torches placed at intervals against the walls. The floor is wet and sticky under your feet, stone stained with blood or something else. An awful stench wafts from the clusters of cells. You nearly gag. From the darkness gleam dozens—no, hundreds—of pairs of eyes, frightened and wary.

         Hundreds of people, skeleton-thin and caked with grime and waste, rotting in these cells and waiting to be slaughtered. Some may have been born and died in these confines; may have never seen the light of day.

         Your stomach turns. Your children are in here, somewhere. You wonder if you would even recognise them.

         “Don’t be afraid,” M calls out, holding her palms up to the wide-eyed onlookers, “We’re here to rescue you. Do not be afraid.” No one responds.

         “We’ll take the right side,” Trina suggests, “The two of you go left.”

         “Got it. C’mon, Brooke.” Unsheathing her katana, M stalks down the long hall of cells to the left, approaching one packed with ghost-like captives with whisper-thin hair shrouding their gaunt, sunken cheeks. M inspects the locks for a moment. Peering over her shoulder, you see that they’re rusted and poorly made, ready to crumble into metal shards with one good swipe. Swinging her katana, M slices through it with one clean slash.

         The prisoners don’t even flinch. M heaves the cell door open, throwing it wide for the captives to escape. Terrified, they don’t move a muscle.

         “You’re free to go,” M insists, “Come on! We’re not going to hurt you. We’re freeing you.” She’s met with nothing but silence and wide eyes. “Um, can you understand me? Don’t you want to be free?”

         A croaking noise sounds from one of the captives’ mouths. The sound is so thin and raspy that you barely understand it, but it’s there. You just make out the words.

         “Free?”

         “Yes,” M says, “Free. You’re free.” There’s a long, weighted silence.

         “Free,” whispers the captive, and stumbles forward. As though flipping a switch, the motion inspires the surrounding prisoners to move as well, shuffling forwards hesitantly.

         “That’s it!” you encourage, “Come on out, you can get out of here!”

         “Go through that opening,” M points, “Follow the tunnel to the other side. I guarantee you freedom awaits.”

         Freeing the captives after that is easy. The dungeons are filled with the sounds of locks shattering and cell doors clanging open, a joyous symphony swelling with every footstep taken towards the exit. A few people even stop to clutch at your hand in thanks, their eyes teary and disbelieving. One man falls at your feet. You help him up, embarrassed, and send him on his way.

         When every cell is cleared out, you reunite with Trina and Rhea and Harman in the center of it all, surrounded by empty cells and smoldering torches. Everyone re-sheathes their weapons. All around you steams the remnants of every captive’s breath.

         “Is that everyone?” M asks. You exchange nods with your group.

         “Did you find—” you blurt out, “I mean—Did you happen to see…?”

         “Your family?” Trina asks kindly. You nod.

         “Eleven little kids. Dirty little rascals. And a woman…”

         “I’m not sure, Brooke. But I did see a chain of little kids holding hands going down into the tunnels. Could have been them.” You could sob. That could be them.

         “You’ll find them when we get to Freedom Point,” M consoles, “Now come. Let’s get you out of here.”

         Rhea and Harman slip down into the tunnel first, then Trina. You lower yourself gently into the hole after them, not fully finding your footing yet. You’re feeling around with a foot for the tunnel floor when suddenly, in the distance, a terrible monstrous bellow echoes through the dungeon, followed by the guttural metallic shriek of a rusted door hinge opening. Your eyes fly wide open and lock onto M’s.

         “What was that?!” you whisper frantically. M’s face looks grim.

         “Must be the Boar King’s guards. Hurry up, go, get out of here!”

         “Alright, come on!”

         “Brooke…”

         “Come, give me your hand, let’s go! Quickly.”

         “Brooke. I’m not coming with you.” Your heartbeat stills. The breath catches in your lungs. Above you, M is kneeling beside the entrance to the tunnel, her face marble-cold as she signs away her life.

         “What?! What are you talking about?!” You shake your head. Your breath comes too fast. “M, come on!” you insist, panicked, “Just hurry up and come before the guards catch you. There’s still time to run.” M just shakes her head sadly.

         “If I come with you now, there’ll be no one left to seal the opening to the tunnel. It can’t be closed from the other side.”

         “Who cares about the opening?!”

         “I do!” M cries, “I can’t let any monster follow my people! I can’t let them trap you down in the tunnel and massacre you all! I won’t let that happen!”

         “But M, if you don’t come with us, you’ll die!” To your confusion, a small, sad smile stretches across M’s face. Her eyes go soft and wet.

         “I know,” she breathes. She’s known this all along. It hits you like a punch: M never intended to survive this fight.

         “No,” you moan, doomed and desperate, “No, you can’t—You can’t.”

         “Brooke.”

         “No.”

         “Brooke, I need you to let me do this. Hey.” She cups your face with her hands, stops you from frantically shaking your head. “This is the only way.” You let out a sob; you know she’s right, but you can’t bear to see her go.

         “You promised you wouldn’t leave,” you cry, tears blurring your vision of her face, grimy and tear-streaked and sweet. “I wanted to grow up with you.”

         “I know.” In the distance, the grunting and clanging continues, getting louder and louder as the Boar King’s guards approach. “I’m sorry. You need to leave now.”

         “M—No, wait!” M shoves you down into the tunnel, leaning down to press her flare into your hands.

         “Go. Set this off once you’re all safe. Don’t worry about me.” She goes to move away, but you grab her by the collar, refusing to let her go.

         “I love you. M, I love you.” Tears well up in her eyes.

         Softly, she leans down to cup your face again, this time pressing her lips to yours. The kiss is so tender, so innocent, that it hurts. You want more. Damn it, you want more than this.

         When you kiss her back, you try to put everything into the action that you can’t say in words: the unspoken apologies, the unshattered trust, the heart-rending grief. A future, robbed. A love, cut short. When you part, it’s with such bone-deep sorrow, maple-sweet, that you think you might die then and there.

         “Go,” M whispers, and disappears back into the dungeons. The last thing you see is her face, haloed by torchlight, your warrior angel, your kamikaze songbird. Your M.

         Then she slides the manhole shut and seals it from the inside out.

         You’re not quite sure how you make it out of the tunnel after that, stumbling half-blind with tears through the darkness and emerging into the sungold glow on the other side. Trina, who’s waiting nervously by the exit, recoils at the sight of you. You don’t blame her; you probably look as grief-crazy and wounded as you feel.

         “Where’s M?” she asks, glancing behind you like she might stumble out of the tunnel herself, messy-haired and gleaming with success. When no one appears, however, she glances back at you. She seems to take in the agony on your face, the flare in your fist, and her face drops. “No...”

         “She’s gone,” you croak, “She’s... gone.” Ashes to ashes, dust to dust. Wyrms to worms. Beginning to end. Shaking your head, you sniff deeply as though to clear your senses, blinking rapidly to regain some notion of what you’re doing. “I need, um—A match.” Trina scrambles to provide you one.

         Striking it against the side of a rock again, you hesitate before lighting the flare. M could still be alive, inside the castle. She could be fighting the guards right now, katana flying, trailing flames and dropping bodies in her wake. The perfect hero.

         You believe in people. You believe in her. You believe that her sacrifice is necessary. You touch the match to the end of the flare and the red smoke leaps up to the clouds in a rush of air, disappearing past the trees. For a moment, the world stands still.

         Then, from the distance, a flaming arrow. One pinprick, smoking form that leaps high into the air, then hangs for a second, suspended between one moment and the next.

         When it plunges down and lands amongst the towers and turrets of the gnarled castle, something deep unspools in your throat. The Boars, meeting their end. M, meeting hers.

         Flames leap up from where the projectiles land like phoenixes unfurling their wings from the fire and taking to the sky. Another lit arrow soars through the air and lands on a castle turret. A flag lights up in reds and golds. A dry sob heaves from your throat. You can’t escape yourself. You can’t outrun a fire you started. Slowly, piece by piece, the castle goes up in flames.

* * *

         Rhea and Harman offer to stay behind with the rescues while you and Trina join the main group fighting the Boars in front of the castle. You leap at the opportunity to join your fellow warriors. One second, you’re standing beside your fellow group mates, staring unseeingly into the sea of foreign faces. The next, you’re racing around the side of the castle, legs pumping to eat up the distance between yourself and the thick of the fight.

         Your sword is out before it even occurs to you to draw your weapon, at your side like a third limb, like an instinct. As you approach the raging battle, you spot your friends—your fellow warriors—beating back the crush of monsters, forcing them with blades and fire into their own castle. You think you spot Cecily in the turmoil, her machete soaked with blood, her teeth bared like wolves. There, just beyond her, is Daveth, a deadly-looking contraption in his hands, blood-spattered. Somewhere in the sparse trees must be Ami, picking off monsters one by one with her flaming arrows, setting the castle alight.

         Taking your cue from the fighters around you, you hold your sword out to the side as you run past a burning Boar on the ground, dousing your blade in flames. When you launch into the fray of the battle, your weapon is flaming, your longsword a fiery beacon of destruction. Angelic. When you battle the Boars, you rain down holy fire.

         The fight is brutal. It could last hours; it could last minutes. You aren’t sure. You’re too consumed with the roiling rage, the thrill, the desperation of the fight, to keep track. Every iota of anger, every second of hurt and frustration you’ve harbored against these monsters your entire life, fuels you as you slice and stab, whirling around through the masses of tough greenish flesh and pigs’ maws as you massacre them all. Every move M taught you, every technique you coached yourself to use, everything—you pull out all the stops. Monsters go down in a blaze of righteous anger around you like a smiting.

         A Boar approaches, lunging at you with its clawed hands and sharpened tusks. It’s slow and lumbering, and attacking it is easier than breathing. Your fiery sword goes straight through theBoar’s mouth and comes out the other side, with the monster still alive, impaled and writhing on your weapon. When you pull it out, the fire is doused, but you batter the beast over and over again until it’s forced backwards into the gaping doors of the wretched castle.

         By this point, the fight has progressed from the center of the battlefield to right against the doorway. A few fighters are already trying to heave them shut, wrenching the great iron gates to trap the Boars inside once and for all.

         “Get back!” someone screams, “Back! BACK! Die, you stupid bastards!” It takes a few moments to realize the voice is yours.

         The doors are slowly creaking shut. You and a few more fighters are still stabbing at the last few monsters who are still clawing at the sliver of space between the two, trying to force them back into the castle before the doors can shut.

         Just then, a Boar lunges out towards you, slashing out at your sword with a powerful strike. With one great slash, the creature shatters your blade, snapping it cleanly in two, sending one of the useless halves flying through the air. You’re on the last line of defense, empty-handed but for a useless, destroyed weapon. The doors are a few mere feet away from closing, and your blade is gone. Fear, ice-hot, scalds your veins.

         Right before the doors can be slammed fully shut, a veiny, gnarled hand claws its way through the crack, holding onto the rusted iron for dear life. The back of a clawed, scale-rough hand appears right before your face, glittering with ivory rings. Ire bubbles hot in the pits of your stomach. The Boar King himself.

         With barely a second of thought, you pull out your long-trusted weapon, the blade that has always protected you: Lizzy’s handy silver knife. With a swift motion, you plunge the knife right through the back of his hand, the tip coming out the other side. You hear him bellow a guttural scream of pain in your ear. You know the beast can’t understand you, but it doesn’t stop you from leaning in as close as you can to the gap between the doors, and snarling: “That’s for M, you bitch.”

         You release the Boar King’s hand with a flourish of your knife. Howling, he pulls it back, relinquishing his hold on the one thing that could have saved him. His one shot of survival. When he reels backwards, you think you see fear in his beady, animal eyes. As he falls, the crown tumbles off his head, breaking on the bloody stone floor with a deliberate smash.

         For a split second then, just before the doors close, you catch a glimpse of the fiery ruins of the castle’s insides. Through the sheet of flames, you swear you see, for just a moment, the outline of a girl, her hair swirling around her head, her katana raised in glory. You can’t tell if it’s a miracle or a mirage. There she stands, glorious and divine, outlined in a righteous inferno, fighting back against evil itself: the haloed martyr; the incendiary warrior; the immolated girl.

         Then the doors slam shut. The locks click into place. The terrible roar of monstrous screams and raging fire are muted behind the wall of iron.

         And the fire carries on.

* * *

         When the doors to the castle have been slammed shut, the fight disperses into a slow slog of people milling about the battlefield, searching for loved ones, tending to the wounded and slain. From within the still-burning building, the sounds of the Boars’ terrible death-screams have died down. All that remains is the distant low crackling and spitting of the smoldering flames.

         You’re still a little overwhelmed by the events of the day. Emotionally blank, you’re sitting on a low hill somewhere in the middle of the war-torn field, your broken sword resting beside you in the grass. Weariness settles into your bones like lead.

         “Brooke!” a voice calls out then, “Brooke! Hey!” You turn almost robotically in the direction of the outcry. Something pangs in your chest when you see Ami, sweat-soaked but smiling, hobbling towards you as fast as she can, dropping her bow in the grass behind her.

         “Ami!” You’re on your feet and racing towards her in an instant.

         You meet your friend halfway, colliding into each other’s arms with all the ferocity of two inseparable halves reunited. You clutch at her with such desperation, press her so close into yourself, that for a moment you’re afraid you’ll tear her in two. Ami’s sobbing in your arms. Relief, sweet and warm, fills your lungs with every breath you heave out.

         “I knew you’d come back,” Ami cries into your ear, “I knew you’d come back to me.” After a moment, she leans back from your crushing hug, bracing her hands on your shoulders to look you in the eye. Her eyes are shining with tears and awe. “We did it,” she breathes, her joy your lifeline, “We did it. It’s over. Brooke. It’s over.”

         It takes you a minute to process that: it’s over. No more fear. No more fighting. No more Boars with death on their heels and loved ones in their ledger. The end of a nightmare. The end of an era.

         The end of one thing. The beginning of another.

         “Brooke?” Ami asks, her hand soft on your cheek. Your eyes, distant, take a minute to focus on her face. “What’s wrong?”

         “It really is the end of an era,” you whisper, “In every sense of the word.” Ashes float softly to the ground, like snow. For the first time in a long time, you smile so wide it hurts your cheeks.

         “What do you mean?” Ami asks. Sunset turns the whole world soft and rosy. When you reply, it’s like fresh leaves. Like Spring. Like beginnings.

         “Today is my birthday.”

 

         ...to be continued.

 

About the Author: Amritha Selvarajaguru

          My earliest memory of writing is being about five or six, scrawling one-page stories into my notebooks on the bus home from school. A child of few friends, I would press my notebook against the flat surface of the school bus window and write short stories about little girls who went on adventures in the playground or befriended ghosts or grew up to become everyone's favorite English teacher. As a result, writing feels like it's always been a part of my identity.

This piece is a section from my novel, "The Immolated Girl," which began as an eighteenth birthday gift for my best friend and spiraled into a huge, multifaceted tale of true friendship, young love, and a brutal coming-of-age in a dystopian world overrun by monsters. This section is the ultimate climax of the novel; the final battle; the moment we've all been waiting for. It deals head-on with themes of love and loss, quandaries over the idea of the "greater good," and the terrible knowledge that once the battle is over, another challenge presents itself: continuing to live after everything comes to an end. Literary devices such as extended metaphors, the recurring motifs of fire, silver knives, and the color red, and craft techniques of hypotaxis are also present in this section.

"The Immolated Girl" has undergone many changes over the progression of its writing. What began as a simple, humble homage to my best friend, chock-full of shenanigans and references to our own tomfoolery, became a poignant tale of love, loss, kindness, cruelty, and - perhaps most significant of all - growing up.