This is an original story. Enjoy.
By Jessdaniels
I stared out my window at the blue-gray skies blanketed with ominous storm clouds. By the looks of the clouds the rain would be cruel and merciless. I watched the sky through the slots of the metal bird cage which bounded my every move.
The bird cage was tall and looming as it towered over my family's mansion. The cage was a dark gray that never shined under the sun's glow. It was dark and dreary like the inhabitants in the isolated mansion locked in the cage's grasp. There was only one way in and only one way out. A small gate monitored by guards 24/7 was my only hope of ever leaving the dreadful cage. The one who decided who came and went was none other than the king, my own father.
In my musing of the gate the clouds had begun their savage downpour of rain, drenching those who dared to walk the streets without the proper protection.
A knock resounded from my wooden door. I muttered a quiet come in and a guard walked into my room. He bowed first and then informed me my father had summoned me to have dinner with him and his guests. I quickly dismissed the guard with a wave of my hand and set upon finding something suitable to wear to the rare occasion. My father usually didn't acknowledge me and left me to eat alone in my room in peace. This was not the case today.
I decided on a black jacket with golden trimmed cuffs and buttons. Underneath the jacket was a matching pair of pants and white button-down shirt. I slipped a gold and gray striped bow around the collar of my jacket and shirt. I glanced at my appearance in my full-length mirror. I started at my thick pitch black hair which tickled the back of my neck. I twirled a strand of hair with my fingers deciding I needed to trim my hair soon. I released my hair and stared at my honey golden eyes in the mirror. My skin was a dull white, a large contrast to my black hair. My body was thin and small for the age of 14. I was short and not very bulky. While not on first glance one could tell, my body consisted of firmly packed muscles.
I turned away from my mirror shuffling towards my door. I opened my door and started my long trek down the extravagant hallways. Before I opened the door of the dining room I stopped and stared at the picture of my mother. Her likeness to me surely showed except for the gender factor. Our gold eyes were identical and our hair was nearly the same except my hair was short in comparison to my mother's. She sat in a velvet upholstered chair with her dainty hands folded and placed in her lap. You could clearly see the key which dangled on a chain around her neck. On the end of the key was a small birdcage not unlike the one outside.
My mother had died when I was very young and the only thing I could remember of her was the lullaby she had sung me to asleep with when I was a child. My mother was very close to me unlike my distant father. My father rarely showed himself around me even when he did it was for the reason to talk to my mother. If not for my mother my father would straight out ignore me. "Much like he does these days," I grimly thought to myself.
I reluctantly turned away from the picture and placed my hand on one of the door's handle. I pushed open the door to the sight of my father sitting at an empty table. I would have expected the guests to already be there but I guess I was proven incorrect. My father raised his head from its previous slumped state and glanced at me with dull eyes. He acknowledged me with a nod of his head. He bobbed his head to the chair on his right. I perceived this as him wanting me to sit in the chair. So I glided to the seat and sat down.
My father and I sat in silence for a couple of minutes until one of the butlers came in informing my father his guests had arrived. I stared at the door as people poured in the room taking up their respectful seats. None of the guests stood out to me as abnormal until a tall blonde man walked into the room with a shorter blonde scuffling behind him. The shorter blonde had caught my attention because people my age rarely showed up in the mansion, even I who barely left my room knew that.
The blonde had caught me staring and sent a wide grin my way. My face grew hot at being caught staring. I turned my head away from the blonde trying to regain my composure. It didn't help that the boy had sat a couple seats away from where I currently occupied.
Dinner went smoothly and I hadn't even stared once at the strange boy across from me. I stood up from my seat, ready to retire to my room, when my father waved for me to stand next to him at the front of the table. I reluctantly walked towards him. My father acknowledging me was a rare oddity, even more so in front of guests. At the front of the table I shuffled from foot to foot nervously. I couldn't help myself and I glanced at the boy again. My brain was brought to a halt when I saw the boy staring at me. The boy continued to stare at me, I stared back. The boy raised a hand and waved at me. Confused, I lifted a hand and waved back.
A hand was laid on my shoulder and I turned to glance at my father. My father's eyes were cold; a shiver ran down my back. I straightened up and took one final glance at the boy. The boy was still staring at me but his posture was tenser than it was. From the look on the man's face, next to the boy, I would take a guess that the boy was scolded much like me.
My father cleared his throat. I glanced at him, wondering what he was going to say. "Hello, I thank each and every one of you for making time to come here." My father's voice was raspy and empty of thankfulness, opposite to what he said. I glanced across the table. Goosebumps grew over my entire body. Everyone at the table was staring at me.
The blonde haired boy was staring especially hard. The boy had a small smile on his face. I just noticed the boy had a black smudge on his neck. As I stared closer I could tell it wasn't a smudge but a tattoo. It was a tattoo of a key, a key that looked exactly like the one around my neck.
I stared at the tattoo in a trance like state. I briefly acknowledged my hand which had snaked its way to my neck to fiddle with the earlier mentioned key. The world around me seemed to grow black. I could hear bits and pieces of the conversation but I didn't understand what they meant. They spoke of words like guardian and fate. The one word to actually resonate with me was demon.
Images flooded around me. I saw flashes of colors but that was it. The images were moving too fast for me to understand them. They were moving so fast my eyes started to tear trying to keep up with them. My eyes stung and my head pounded yet the images grew faster. I couldn't take it anymore, my emotions roared out of me like a flood. I yelled out stop and the images disappeared. I let out a sigh of relief but the world around me was still black. I grew worried that the images would come back. They did but only one. The one image unlike the others was slow and easy to determine but it wrapped around me until I was part of the image.
I was walking down a dark hallway, I tried to stop but I couldn't control my body. I stopped in front of two giant doors. Wrapped around the door were giant metal chains with a giant steel padlock. I reached to my neck and pulled off the chain that held my key. I pushed the key into the giant padlock. The chains fell with a heavy thud. I reached for the doorknob but just as I touched the doorknob the doors swung open. Shivering I cautiously stepped a foot into the room. I yelped when something grabbed my ankle. It was a black hand with long fingernails. I reached my hand down trying to untangle the hand from my ankle when another black hand grabbed my arm. I had no time to pull the arm off before several arms wrapped themselves around me and pulled me into the room. The doors slammed behind me.