Rise the Phoenix

by Ely Page

  The reception proved to be a real party for Oni’s new residents. Dylan volunteered to watch the crow’s nest so Sheila a sharpshooter from the Texas tribe could attend.

  The one bad thing that happened after the wedding was when Becca broke up with Andy. At first it seemed like they just weren’t right for each other, but it turned out that Becca had her eyes on someone else. Before she could do anything about that, she had to end things with Andy cleanly.

  People close to Andy thought he would cause problems with Becca’s new man, Liam, but Andy proved to be a bigger man than that. He even extended a hand of friendship to Liam once he found out about his relationship with Becca.

  Dylan spent a lot of time alone. Even though he shared a house with Andy, Ben, and Will, he mostly stayed in his room reading books on ancient warfare and biblical history. He was trying to mentally prepare himself for battle, and reading was as important as the combat training he was undergoing.

  The morning after Porter and Jenny’s wedding, Frank received a knock on his apartment door. He thought it was his neighbor, Margret, who was the same age as Frank and becoming a good friend, but when he opened the door, he was surprised to see Leah with Morgan.

  “Good morning, Frank. I hope it is not too early.” Leah seemed very excited, and judging the way Morgan was holding her shoulders, it had something to do with him. “Can we come in?” she asked before Frank could even say “good morning” in return.

  “Yes, of course.” Frank opened his apartment door wider so the couple could enter.

  Frank’s apartment was quite small. His living room was big enough for a loveseat and a rocking chair with a small end table and not much else.

  “Please have a seat,” Frank said, waving Leah and Morgan to the loveseat. “To what do I owe this visit?” Frank asked, sitting down in his rocking chair.

  “You know what happened between Morgan and me from when I told you and Alice about everything.” Leah was talking so quickly that it took Frank a moment to catch up to her. She paused to smile and hold Morgan’s hand tighter. “We want to get married, and we want you to perform the ceremony!”

  Inside his mind, Frank’s jaw dropped, but he managed to keep his composure. Frank didn’t know what was going on. He thought that Leah and Dylan were supposed to be together, but at the same time, Dylan hadn’t been the same since he’d rescued Hanna, and he had grown more distant from Leah. Frank could feel that Leah and Morgan truly did care for each other. He didn’t sense that they truly loved each other, though.

  “Frank?” Leah asked, snapping him out of his thoughts.

  “Oh, yes, sorry, I would be happy to perform the ceremony. When would you like to marry?”

  Leah looked at Morgan with a smile. “As soon as possible.” This time Frank’s jaw literally fell wide open.

  “Leah, can I have a moment with you alone, please?” Frank asked after she and Morgan were about to leave the apartment.

  “Sure.” She turned to Morgan. “Just wait downstairs for me.”

  Morgan left the apartment, and Frank shut the door behind him.

  “Please sit back down,” Frank said. Leah sat back down on the loveseat, but Frank remained standing. He walked behind his rocking chair and grabbed the top of it as if looking for support.

  “What’s this about?” Leah asked nervously.

  Frank finally moved around the chair and sat down in it. “Nobody is prefect. We are born with sin. We as humans have to fight ourselves every day to keep from making life-changing mistakes.” Frank rubbed his hands together. “I have some concerns about this wedding.”

  Leah grew upset at Frank’s statement. “Why?”

  Frank searched for the right words. “I don’t want you to get hurt, and with what you two have been through . . .” Frank paused for a moment. “I just don’t know if this is the right thing to do.”

  Leah was visibly shaking at that point. “What I am supposed to do, Frank? Wait for Dylan to sweep me off my feet?” She stood up and paced the floor in front of Frank. “You and I both know that is never going to happen. Then who else is there? Or should I just be an old maid?”

  Frank stood up, looking and feeling very concerned that he may have hurt Leah.

  “That’s not what I meant, and this has nothing to do with Dylan.” Frank tried to calm Leah down, but it didn’t seem to be working. She continued to pace the floor. Frank grabbed her by the shoulders and squared her body so they were face-to-face. “Look, he hurt you before, and believe me, people can change. Do you truly love Morgan enough to go through with this? That is all I am asking.”

  Leah walked out of Frank’s apartment without giving him an answer. She would return alone after she had time to cool off. She rubbed the tears from her eyes before walking down the stairs and joining back up with Morgan.

  “Hey, Dylan, what is going on?” Ben met Dylan on the sidewalk outside of the diner.

  “Not much, just ate,” Dylan said.

  They started walking toward the house they shared.

  “I got something to tell you,” Ben said.

  Dylan looked at him trying to gauge what kind of news it would be.

  “Hanna and I are getting married,” Ben said excitedly. Dylan stopped in his tracks.

  “Wow, that is fast. You guys have only been together for what, a month?”

  “Hey,” Ben said, shrugging his shoulders. “We figured we aren’t far from death, so why not do what feels right? I have grown to love her in that short period of time, and I believe I know everything about her, just like she knows everything about me. We both miss having families, so why not start one of our own.” Just then Ben saw Hanna walking out of a building across the square. “I got to go. See you later.”

  Dylan couldn’t believe what was going on. First Porter and Jenny, now Ben and Hanna. He wondered who would be next.

  Ben and Hanna had started a routine. When his shift building the wall was over, he would meet with Hanna, who was working in the clinic.

  “How was your day?” Ben asked, grabbing Hanna’s hand.

  “Good and slow. All I did was patch up some cuts. How was your day?” she asked, giving him a kiss on the cheek.

  “It was all right. I managed to put up a ten-foot section today, and we will probably have the wall done by the end of the week.”

  “That’s good. Have you told anybody yet?” she asked him excitedly.

  “All I told so far was Dylan.”

  Hanna shook her head. “Well, I guess we don’t have to worry about him telling anybody.”

  Just then, Leah and Morgan came around the corner looking like the mirror image of Hanna and Ben, holding hands and walking very close together.

  “Hey, guys. What’s up?” Hanna asked upon seeing the couple.

  “We,” Leah looked at Morgan before continuing, “just asked Frank to marry us!”

  Ben’s first reaction was to slug Morgan across the face, but he held back. His facial expression made it clear that he wasn’t happy, but he didn’t say a word. Hanna gripped his hand harder, letting him know not to make a scene. Then she and Leah hugged the way girls do when they want to share their joy.

  “Oh, congratulations! Ben and I are getting married too. We are on our way to ask Frank to marry us.”

  The two girls hugged again. “Oh, this is so exciting!” they both said.

  “She didn’t even give him a chance,” Ben said of Leah once he and Hanna were alone.

  “Ben, she gave him months to do something, anything, and all he did was push her away.” Hanna grabbed Ben’s arms and wrapped them around her waist. “Look, I owe my life to Dylan, but Leah can’t wait for him to decide what he wants. She needs to look out for herself. Dylan is a big boy. He can handle this.”

  Dylan had a growing feeling in the pit of his stomach. He knew it wasn’t danger of any sort, but somethin
g wasn’t sitting well with him. It was something in the air, or maybe it was something he ate. He took a break from his sword practice.

  He practiced on his own every day after dinner until the sun went down. He was determined to be the best fighter in all of Oni. He wanted to slay all the evil that might come. At first, he wasn’t thrilled about fighting with a sword, but he came around to the idea. It was a much cleaner kill than a gun. If you cut off the head of a creature, and they stopped fighting. If you shot them, they could still get at you. He knew that from personal experience.

  Bob was up on a roof watching Dylan. At first sight, Bob didn’t think Dylan had what it took to fight, but each passing day, Dylan was proving him wrong. Bob would never tell Dylan that he was impressed; he’d just keep pushing Dylan to point of breaking without letting him crack.

  “Hey.” Leah surprised Dylan as he left the training complex. He had worked up quite a sweat and was heading home so he could take a shower.

  “Hey,” Dylan said back. He felt uncomfortable around Leah; he had ever since Little Rock.

  “I need to tell you something, and I need to tell you before someone else does.” Leah’s eyes grew watery.

  The pit in Dylan’s stomach doubled in size; he had an idea of what she was going to say.

  “Morgan and I are getting married in two days.”

  Dylan did his best to put up a brave front. He remained silent, afraid that if he spoke, he would sound weak and cry.

  “Don’t you have anything to say?” Leah couldn’t believe how cold Dylan seemed.

  “No,” Dylan said, then walked away before he could break. His heart was falling apart with each step he took, and there was no way he could let anyone see him. He wanted to just hide in the night, leaving Leah to cry against the training center’s wall.

  Leah went to Frank’s after she saw Dylan. She knocked on his door; Frank answered and asked her to come in. She just stood still in the doorway.

  “I have decided that I want to go through with the wedding. I want to marry Morgan. I have no doubts.” She walked away, leaving Frank stunned.

  It was the morning of the double wedding. Frank would perform Ben and Hanna’s wedding, and then Leah and Morgan’s shortly after. After Frank woke in the morning, he went to have breakfast at the diner before returning to his apartment to practice for the ceremonies. His friend Margret joined him in his small living room to help critique what he was saying.

  Leah and Hanna were sharing a dressing room that used to be a small clothing store across the street from the church where the two weddings would be held. At first, they were going to be each other’s maid of honor, but they dumped that idea as it would be too stressful.

  “Who is going to be Ben’s best man?” Leah asked Hanna as Veronica from Tucson applied makeup to Hanna’s face and Helen Savannah did Leah’s hair.

  “He wanted Dylan.” As soon as Hanna said his name, Leah’s heart stopped. “But he said no, so Andy will be doing it, which will be a little weird since Becca is my maid of honor.”

  Leah remained silent while Helen turned on the hair dryer.

  “I think it’s nice that you and Morgan decided to not have anybody else stand with you. I wish I would have thought about that,” Hanna said after the hair dryer was turned off. “I just wanted to keep it as simple as possible.”

  Frank walked into the church to make sure everything was set up for the two ceremonies. On his way, he saw that the park was set up for the reception afterward. The weather was perfect for a party that the entire town would attend.

  There was a man sitting in a pew up toward the front. Frank knew who it was and sat in the row behind him.

  “What brings you to church on a Saturday morning?” Frank asked.

  Dylan briefly turned his head sideways before looking straight ahead again. “I was just looking for peace before all of this starts to happen,” he said. If Dylan was feeling emotional, he was doing a good job of keeping it from his voice.

  “Will you be attending both weddings?” Frank asked.

  “No, I volunteered to take a double shift in the crow’s nest.”

  “Oh, I see.” Frank sounded disappointed, but he fully understood.

  Dylan stood up. “In fact, I better go take a nap. It is going to be a long day.”

  Dylan walked out of church without ever looking directly at Frank. As Frank watched Dylan walk out, he wondered if Dylan was mad at him for performing Leah’s wedding. Frank thought about for a moment, but he didn’t have time to dwell on it.

  A few hours later, the first wedding started as Greg led Hanna down the aisle to the waiting Ben. Dylan was indeed the only one not at the wedding, even though it was his best friend getting married. He just wanted to do what he did best, and that was being a loner. He was good at it after all, he told himself often. Alone atop the grain elevator, Dylan could see for miles in every direction. Instead of focusing on what he couldn’t see inside the church, he looked out on the horizon and imagined what was going on in the wastelands. He wondered what was going to come to them and if anybody in Oni could really stand up to the evil that was to come.

  He tried hard not to look, but he couldn’t help himself. Dylan watched as Leah walked toward the church. He didn’t see her leave the church after Ben and Hanna’s wedding to go and put on her dress, but he couldn’t miss seeing her in the wedding dress that she’d found in town. She was beautiful, stunning even. Dylan didn’t blink, watching her walk across the street and wait outside until the music queued her to start walking down the aisle.

  As Leah stood outside the doors, she looked up at the top of the grain elevator. She couldn’t see Dylan well enough to know if he was looking at her or not. He was looking through binoculars. Her smile turned to a frown as she looked in his direction, and a shadow of sadness swept across her face. She turned to look straight ahead, and when the door opened for her, she went inside.

  As the ceremony went on, Dylan couldn’t stand himself anymore. He started the long climb down the ladder on the back side of the elevator. The sun was setting and the park in the town square was lit up for the reception. Dylan knew he could get out for a couple of hours and nobody would suspect a thing.

  Before he walked out of the town’s unmanned front gate, Dylan looked back toward the park. He could hear laughing and some music starting to play. In that moment, he didn’t think he could ever look at the woman he loved ever again.

  Chapter 8

  Jealousy, resentment, fear, and loneliness filled Dylan’s heart. He wanted to be alone and as far away from that celebration as possible.

  He walked until he was far enough away that he could not hear the party anymore. It was dark, but Dylan knew where he was. He sat down on the ground and leaned up against the rock that he took his lunch at when he had to work the fields for Ollie.

  Cold, black nothingness was all that Dylan saw around him. Nothing—that was all he felt he was on the inside. He thought that he was tough. He thought he could handle anything. But the tear that came from his right eye and slowly worked its way down his cheek until it fell to the ground told a different story.

  Time passed and Dylan didn’t move a muscle. He just sat there like a stump. Then the wind changed direction and grew colder. He looked around, trying to see if he could make out cloud formations, but it was pitch black. Not even a single star could be seen.

  “Dylan . . .” A faint voice came from behind him, almost like a soft breeze in his ear. He froze, unable and unwilling to move. He sensed a presence coming up to him from the same direction as the voice that had said his name.

  The next thing he knew, there was a man leaning up against the other side of the rock.

  “Hi there.” The man’s voice sounded menacing and playful at the same time.

  Dylan still did not move. He tried to turn his head, but it felt like it was locked in a vise. The man
came around the rock to the same side as Dylan. He sat in a spot where just enough moonlight shined down on him so Dylan could see him for the first time.

  “Don’t get up,” he said. He was a young-looking man; Dylan thought early twenties. His mid-length hair was curly and dirty blonde, and he had the brightest of blue eyes. “Why are you out here in the dark all by yourself?”

  Dylan could see breath coming from the man’s mouth as he spoke, like it was cold around him. The voice did not match the man it was coming from, and it seemed to Dylan like a bad movie voiceover.

  “Oh, you didn’t want to see the love of your life marry someone else? What a shame. Love can be so cruel sometimes.”

  Dylan didn’t like where the conversation was going. “What makes you think you know anything thing about me?” he said angrily.

  A sly smile rose on the stranger’s face. “I know everything about you, young Dylan.” When the stranger said Dylan’s name, it came out like a snake’s hiss. “Do you know who I am?”

  Dylan looked the stranger in the eyes; he was finally able to move his head that much. It felt like he was staring into a million years of Hell.

  “I know exactly who—who you are!” Dylan tried to put conviction in his voice, but there was an obvious stutter.

  “I bet you’re wrong. Close, but wrong. I am Dagon, one of the fallen. My master the morning star is a little busy right now, but he wants me to keep an eye on you. I can’t figure out why. It seems like a waste of time to me. There is someone inside those walls who is much more appealing, and I want them, but he has an interest in you.”

  In the blink of an eye, Dagon was gone and Dylan was alone again. Dylan thought about what happened and who Dagon was talking about in Oni.

  Dylan went back into the city gate and locked it up. He walked alone and unnoticed back to the crow’s nest atop the elevator. He did his best to ignore the sounds of the reception, but laughter kept slapping him across the face with the reality of the situation. Maybe there was somebody in Oni for him and he just hadn’t found out who yet.