Whispers
Even in the Golden Empire, war takes its toll
Later, in the relative privacy of her small bedroom, Sadie cried. She curled up on the top bunk where she normally slept, shrinking into a ball in the corner. She shriveled deeper into the narrow crevice, and sobbed, screaming into the fluff of her pillow as she gripped the sides of her bed, fingertips and knuckles bone white.
Her father was leaving again. Sadie was old enough to remember the last time he’d left home on behalf of the Shah. When her father had served as one of the six Aspbad Paladins during the Long War, it had been normal for him to be gone for months, even years at a time. Her mother had spent many long nights gazing out the window, awaiting Hashem’s return. Sadie had caught her mother crying on more than one occasion.
“Sadie?” It was Aria’s voice. Sadie had been crying so hard that she hadn’t noticed her sister come in and lay under her on the bottom bunk. “Sadie, are you awake?”
Sadie felt her heart twist at the delicate anxiety in Aria’s voice, like seeing the first cracks appear in fragile glass. She steeled her voice, speaking low so as to sound like she hadn’t just been crying. “I’m awake.” She rubbed her eyes dry and tried to inject some levity into her voice. “What’s up?”
“Is dad going to die?” Aria spoke at a high pitch. Sadie could hear the grief welling in her younger sister’s throat.
Of course not! Sadie wanted to say. But she didn’t. She couldn’t bring herself to lie to her sister. Not Aria. Never Aria. Instead she remained quiet, her inner conflict raging in complete silence.
“Sadie?” Aria repeated.
“I don’t know,” she admitted.
Aria began to whimper. Wiping the last of her own tears, Sadie clambered down the ladder of her bunk bed and crawled into the sheets with Aria. Her sister’s face was buried in her pillow, much as Sadie had done. The young girl didn’t immediately notice Sadie’s descent, not until Sadie wrapped her arms around Aria and pressed her sister’s head to her breast. Aria began to sob aggressively into Sadie’s bosom, hot tears and snot staining Sadie’s shirt. Despite the snot, Sadie didn’t push Aria away.
“Shhh..” Sadie whispered to Aria. “Let it out. It’s okay. I’m here.”
It was an odd feeling. Sadie had always been the older sister, but in the last two years it had been Aria who often seemed older. She was better at helping their parents in the marketplace than Sadie was. Her beauty had matured in a way Sadie’s never had, and it showed. Now, however, as Sadie clutched Aria tightly against her chest, she was reminded just how young her sister was.
Holding Aria tightly, Sadie began to hum a song her mother had taught her.
Sometimes I look at him and I look into his eyes,
I notice the way he speaks of wind with a smile,
Curved lips he just can't disguise.
He tells me he loves me, but it's the desert that’s made his life worthwhile.
Why is it so hard for him to decide?
There was a slight knock at the door. Sadie looked up. Beg and Abed stood in the doorway. Sadie cocked her head to one side quizzically.
“What’s up?” she asked.
The twins looked hesitant. Abed seemed especially reluctant to be there.
“Father is in the basement right now gathering supplies,” Beg said flatly.
“Oh.”
The twins sauntered into the room, taking seats next to each other at the foot of Aria’s bunk. They sat there quietly for a moment, then pulled up closer to snuggle with the girls.
“I’m going to challenge Father to a duel!” Abed declared. “I’ll beat him and prove that I should be the one to go.”
“I’m the one who will beat him and go!” Beg retorted.
“No,” Sadie said. “Neither of you is going.” The twins turned to her. “Even if the Shah allows you to join the warrior caste, you’re not even old enough to cross the sand,” she reminded them.
“I’ve heard of exceptions,” Abed said.
“Dad would never even accept your challenge,” Sadie retorted.
“But if he goes, he could die!” Abed hissed, barely keeping himself from shouting. They didn’t want to draw their parents’ attention right now.
“If you go, you will die.”
“You don’t know that.”
“I do know that,” Sadie admonished. “You can use a spear, sure, but you’ve never even crossed the sand before. You wouldn’t even know how to navigate out there.”
“That doesn’t mean-”
“You’ve heard the same stories I have,” Sadie continued, not letting Abed finish. “What will you do when you run into demons, or worse? You haven’t even sworn any oaths.”
“But-” Beg protested.
“Listen,” Sadie cut him off. “Aria, you too. If war breaks out it could last for years. We really could get drafted, or soldiers could invade our home. Dad is going because he wants to protect us from that. That’s what being a parent means.”
She sounded more knowledgeable and self assured than she felt. I’m not the best older sister, am I? She thought. How could she be? She’d been crying just minutes earlier. She wasn’t handling this much better than any of her three siblings. If only she could have been stronger for them.
“Doesn’t matter, anyway... Father is already getting ready to leave,” Beg muttered.
Sadie didn't reply. What was there to even say? Instead, she resumed her song, singing softly to her three siblings. They lay in bed like that for some time, cuddled together for comfort. Before long Aria fell asleep, followed promptly by Beg, and then Abed. Sadie continued to sing to them until her eyes began to grow heavy, too. Finally, she surrendered, letting blissful sleep take her.
Sadie’s nightmare began with overlooking a scarlet horizon. Bloody light stained wispy clouds that hung before the sun in gradients from maroon to vermillion. Beneath the crimson glow a million swelling cadavers lay scattered in collections of broken limbs and eviscerated intestines, piles of death emanating the pervasive stench of bile and blood.
Their faces had been nightmarishly corrupted by desert heat as their bodies disintegrated into rot, eyes engorged to twice their normal size bulging through their apertures and sweaty hair matted to their foreheads by cracking blood. Perhaps most offensive was the smell that hung over the battlefield, a foul miasma that reeked like rotting eggs. The stench slapped Sadie like a teacher’s stick on her hands.
The thing that stood out to her most, however, was the silence. It was eerily quiet, not a sound to be heard. The bugs did not chirp and the birds did not sing, and it seemed that whatever horrible place this was, there was no life to be found anywhere. She was enveloped by the unnatural and grim tranquility, totally alone except for the wind carrying acrid scents to her nostrils, and the whispers that seemed to speak to her from deep inside her heart, like there was someone both next to her and inside of her own mind. You could have stopped this, the whispers said accusingly. You could have saved them. You could have spared your father his fate... If not for your own cowardice.
“Shut up,” Sadie said.
But her rejection only seemed to embolden the voices, which grew louder in her ear and in her mind. Hashem is dead because of you. Sadie blinked, and suddenly there was her mother, ragged with eyes that were dry and bloodshot.
“This is all your fault,” Jaleh said. She took a step toward Sadie, leveling an accusing finger. “You could have stopped him from going.”
“No...” Sadie whispered, instinctively retreating a step as her mother approached. “I... I didn’t... I couldn’t...”
She bumped into someone standing behind her. Sadie gasped and turned to face them. Abed stood behind her, but it wasn’t the Abed she knew. It was the Abed of a few years ago, from before his growth spurt - the child with a gap toothed smile and a bit of baby fat still hugging his cheeks.
“Why, Sadie?” Abed asked her. “Why did you let him die?”
“It wasn’t my fault! What could I have-?!”
She blinked, but Abed no longer stood before her. Instead it was Beg, younger like his twin. “You could have saved him!” Beg exclaimed. “You could have saved us all.”
And then it was Aria; beautiful, sweet Aria, with tears saturating her eyelids and streaming down her cheeks. “You were supposed to be the oldest sister,” Aria whimpered, tears turning blood red as they continued to fall. “You were supposed to protect us all. Now we’re all dead...”
Sadie’s entire family seemed to loom over her, glaring at her as she shrank beneath a cold shadow.
“You could have prevented this,” they said together, the harmonic unison of their tones giving way to a haunting echo. “You failed us, Sadie. You failed everyone.”
And those whispers. Those horrible, toxic whispers. You let it happen. You let them be destroyed.
Sadie continued to back away, swatting at the air. “GO AWAY! None of this is real! It... It can’t be real...!”
But when had she ever been to a battlefield? How could she ever know what such a thing smelled like? No, it didn’t make sense. How would she have gotten here? Surely, this was a nightmare, and yet it was so lucid, her senses so vivid. That she could even think about dreams made everything feel all the more palpable.
“Sadie...” each family member began to groan, almost zombie-like in their slurred condemnations of her. “Saaadie... How dare you, Sadie... You always were the worst of us, Sadie.”
“I’m... I’m not... I’m sorry...”
Sadie stumbled over something and fell. She gasped in terror as she realized she had tripped over a corpse - a corpse bearing Hashem’s face, ruined and melted from heat and blood, disintegrating into rot. Sadie screamed. Suddenly, with a crack of his broken neck, Hashem looked up and stared at her, met her gaze with his dead, vacant eyes.
“You could have saved me, Sadie. You should have protected the rest of the family. I trusted you and you failed me.”
“I...” she whimpered, biting her lower lip. “I...”
The shadowy voice continued to mock her. It kept hissing in the back of her mind, egging on her nightmares. It’s not too late, the voice said. It’s not too late to save them. Not yet.
Sadie awoke with a start, gasping for breath. She was hyperventilating, and she realized that she was soaked in sweat, drenched as if she’d just come out of the bath. Her clothing was matted to her body by her own cold sweat. Even then, Sadie didn’t immediately move, shaken as she was by her nightmares.
Most of all she was haunted by the last words that voice had whispered into her ear. It’s not too late. Sadie shuddered, half from the terror of her dream and half from the feeling of soggy cloth hugging her skin.
It’s not too late to save them. Those words hung over Sadie like a veil, heavy when worn in the oppressive heat of the desert.
She turned to look at her sleeping siblings, wrapped up together in the sheets. Her eyes fell upon Aria. Despite how tranquil the young girl looked now, Aria had cried herself to sleep even after Sadie had tried to comfort her. It was only in unconsciousness that Aria at last found a measure of quietude, and Sadie didn’t want to disturb that. When was the next time the young girl would sleep so peacefully?
Sadie slid out of bed, doing her best not to wake anyone. She hurriedly threw off her wet clothes and dressed herself in nondescript trousers, a long sleeved robe top, closed, and a dark shawl with a hood which she threw over her head. Sadie gazed at her siblings for a long moment, watching Aria’s chest rise and fall for a few seconds before leaning in to gently kiss her sister’s forehead.
“I love you,” Sadie whispered. “I love you so much, Aria... And I’m sorry.” She took one last look at her sweet sister. “I promise I’ll come back.” She shed one last tear, resplendent with the golden glow of the promise she had just made, then turned away. She knew what she had to do.
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