TYRNEA

     It wasn’t supposed to end like this…

     By the time his mind had resurfaced into some semblance of consciousness, his body had gone all but numb. He struggled to draw breath into his rebellious lungs, wheezing feebly through the smoke. A thick, coppery taste filled his mouth as the stifling heat slowly baked the excess ichor into the fur on his muzzle. He forced one eye open as best he could as he tried to see past the crack in the glass of his goggles, dividing the licks of orange and yellow that danced in the reflection. Fire and chaos were all that surrounded him, the roaring a deafening cacophony intertwined with the occasional distant explosion or thud of debris falling around him. Unable to move his head to confirm, he vaguely felt the all too familiar wood of the wheel jammed underneath his slumped right arm, pressing into his neck and chest.

     Captain James Bennett was crushed at the helm of his ship, pinned between the enormous, dislodged wheel and the broken wall behind it.

     “Captain?”

     The sound was faint, drifting through the din like a thin breeze. He must be delirious. His body had to have been shutting down from shock, his ears playing tricks on him. He could have sworn he heard a voice through the screaming of wood and metal.

     “Captain Bennett!”

     Certainly he was imagining it; a desperate last grasp at the world before he’d slip away into the blackness permanently. He knew his time was short. In a matter of minutes, the flame of his life would snuff out, leaving only his battered body as the vapor trail.

     I failed...

     He had let them down. All of them. They put their trust in him as their captain, and he let everyone down. The world was burning, and he could do nothing to save them. His eye closed again, shutting out the grotesque writhing of shadows and destruction.

     I’m sorry…

     There were so many things he wished he had been able to do. So many things he had hoped to accomplish. He’d wanted to watch them grow. He’d wanted to build the best airship anyone had ever seen. He’d wanted to soar higher than he had any right to soar. He’d wanted to take them on amazing adventures. He’d wanted to tell her…

     “James!?”

He couldn’t feel the tears as they tried to etch miniature rivers down the side of his blood-stained face. He closed his eye and let the frantic song of panic and desperation lull him into the darkness, unknowing that the singers were well and truly real, and much nearer than he could have fathomed.

     “JAMES!!

 

“James.”

“After father…?”

“Yes, he was a good man. A strong man.”

“He’d like that…”

“A strong name, for a strong son.”