It's the cries that dragged her harshly from her slumber. Desert sands and gray skies were replaced with frozen darkness and sobs of sorrow that poured from her lungs every time she tried to breathe and rise to the surface. The dream explodes around her as the cries pour into the window like snow-- heavy, wet and hungry.
So Isra shakes free from her blankets and runs from the castle as quickly as she can. The stones are slick under her hooves but she's heedless of the danger, oblivious to anything other than those screams and the way her bones tremble with heart-breaking sound. On and on she runs, following only the song of suffering and ignoring all those that call out to her that the night isn't safe (that no where is safe anymore).
When the buildings become both further apart and fewer in number the screams are louder. Here she's the only one among the ghosts of fortunes and families and dreams. She's another shadow, another speck of darkness that seems black enough to swallow up any trace of light and make it dark.
Here are the ghosts of the tidal wave and when Isra turns her head she sobs when it's only a bone glinting in the moonlight that caught her eye. Some part of her screams to turn back, to flee back to her silken, cob-web bed and forget how the night wails and wails and wails.
But ahead she can see the moon rays lingering over a pile of wooden planks and thatch and when she draws closer the wails seem younger and weaker as if whatever is trapped has already devoured all the energy left in the world. Isra moves closer, cautious and light on her unicorn hooves, and touches her horn to the wood like a knock.
Help me. The thing beneath the rubble says and Isra sobs wildly as she puts the name of 'horse' to the trapped creature.
Her knees tremble as she pushes out whatever weak magic lives in her towards the pile of wood.
“Just a little longer,” She pleads as she prays to her goddess, to any gods, to anything beyond space and time that might hear her. The horn upon her head feels weak as she pries at the wood with it, trying to pick apart any loose pieces of this death trap.
And when she hears the sound of hooves at her back on the end of another prayer, another plea, she turns with wild, wet eyes and begs (more than she has ever begged in her life)
“Help me.” For the wailing night is almost silent enough to be a grave when all the cries turn to the bleating gasps of the dying.
Whoever is trapped beneath the rubble doesn't have very long and Isra can feel only urgency and panic in her heart.
ISRA OF THE PRAYER ;
"But the silence was unbroken, and the stillness gave no token,"
