It all happened so fast.
One moment father had my sword tightly in his hand, and the next I was catching mother's motionless body. Father hit the floor with a sickening thump, and I was breathing all by myself in a puddle of blood.
Tears pricked my eyes, and I thought I had a moment to cry, but I heard something call me, distorting my name with its haggard tongue. I hesitated at first, but a bizarre scream sent jolts down my spine, and it pained me to turn around.
I saw it then… a monstrous creature hovering there. It was bathed in the shadows, and its two protruding blades were around my shoulders, ready to cleave me in half.
"G-Get away from me!" I screamed, scrambling back. "Leave me alone! Don't kill me too!"
It let out an unearthly howl. My mouth was dry. My lungs hurt my ribs. Its blade was red. My armored arm covered my bare chest. Futile.
I don't want to die.
It loomed over me.
I don't want to die!
It clashed its blades together and vanished.
My heart pounded in my cold chest. I looked to my parents on the floor. Father's eyes still bulged, drooling into the cracked stone. His mouth would never yell insults at me again. Mother's back gleamed ruby red, dirtying her pretty white dress. She would never hand me books from the archive to study ever again.
The patter of guards rushing in from the hall. They shouted words, but I couldn't understand what they were saying.
I was still alive. There were corpses around me, but I was still alive.
My parents' funeral had been a few weeks back, and I'd gone and prayed to all the Gods I needed to; the Gorgonics to support me in my reign, even the nameless God of Judgment whose name we've been careless enough to forget over the centuries. I thought I was ready to take the throne and wear the crown easily, but what a joke that was.
Sometimes, I'd rot in the dark cloud of my memory. I'd given up hoping it all was just some sort of vision I had in my sleep, because when I woke up, delirious and screaming and asked after my parents, the servants would just give me these pitying looks. Those gazes were more sobering than anything else, for they told me I was miserable. With that hideous scene burned into my eyelids and the image of that unearthly monster ready to kill me, how could I not tremble in my own skin?
"My lord, it's not good to be afraid of the dark."
"I-I'm not!" I protested, but I knew better than to believe my own words.
I caught one of the generals casting me a sad look behind his purple veil. I could hear the howl of the wind beating on the stones outside, and I tried to keep down my frown. They told me that a routine check of the hallways would be done every hour if I was feeling ill, but they didn't understand. They couldn't.
It's dark.
It's quiet.
It's just me with the shadows on the walls and the corpses on the floor.
It's just in my head, I kept telling myself as I walked through the halls back to my room. It's just in my head, there isn't blood on my clothes. Nothing's dripping into my shoes. It's just the wind and the stones and the murals. Nothing else. Nothing else.
I turned down the bend to my room, and had taken just a few steps before I noticed something strange. It's true that sometimes the large castle walls and hidden passages let me slip away from people when I want to, but this sort of emptiness was on a completely different level. It was as if someone had turned off the howling wind, and the slow jangle of father's metal furnishings knocking against each other. I could still hear the blood rushing through my ears as my heart thudded against my ribcage. A knock against one of the stones brought out that low familiar thump, so I definitely wasn't going deaf. I could still hear my cautious footsteps, but I was the only thing allowed to make sounds.
Then I heard the familiar clink of armor at the end of the hallway.
I whirled around, trying to catch sight of the guard that surely made that sound, but I couldn't see through the thick shadows where the moonlight didn't dare touch. No, there were no guards allowed this far in. Only my room was down this hall, there were no other passages or gaps before the dead end. The guards weren't allowed that far in unless they were called over. No guard, no person should be down this hall ahead of me.
Something was there. Something, no, someone was watching me. I couldn't make them out, but there was definitely someone peering at me from the end of that hall!
The clink of armor sounded again, only it was closer this time. When I squinted, I could see something lurking in the shadows along the walls, something with gleaming ruby eyes. My breath caught in my throat, and I took a wary step back, clutching the beads at on my chest. There were no guards around, so I couldn't yell for help- it was just me, and those red eyes, staring right at me. Whatever it was, after gazing at me for some time, slithered across the stone until the red eyes floated eerily in the dark. It was as if that something had taken form and was standing right outside my sight.
Did it expect me to follow it? No, I wasn't going to risk my life going down there, to where I couldn't see!
I turned around, but a vicious snarl hissed from the darkness at the end of the hall, freezing me in place. It felt like the walls themselves were shaking with nausea, and I could feel the floor stirring below me as if I was standing on living flesh instead of stone. Whatever it wanted, the owner of those red eyes wasn't going to let me go, were they?
Cautiously, I turned back towards the enigma and took a step towards it. Still it hovered, watching me, but the mad sounds ceased the moment our gazes met.
I walked into the amorphous shadows, and the eyes floated just beyond a large, gaping entryway into a corridor. That definitely wasn't here before, but when I turned around, the thing in the shadows howled angrily at me again. The red eyes were glaring at me from the darkness of the corridor, and I was shaking so hard the metal on my body was jangling like rattling teeth. My legs were trembling with each step forward, and my hands groped the narrow walls so I wouldn't lose my way. The corridor was a straight path forward, but it was so dark, I couldn't even see my own fingertips on the walls. The only light here was that pair of glowing red eyes, forever hovering outside my reach. How long did this stretch on for?
A white glimmer, no stronger than the light reflecting off a jewel, caught my eye. If I strained my eyes, I could spot the faint outline of the exit, as the red eyes blended into the darkness and hopped out of sight before I could catch sight of its body. My strides grew longer; I couldn't wait to get out of this cramped hall and into visible light, no matter how weak it was.
I stumbled out of the corridor, but I'd never seen this large room before, and I was sure I'd explored every last hidden passageway in the castle. I recognized the particular array of piled stones that made up the walls quickly- this was some sort of temple. An opening at the top of the structure let the moonlight illuminate the room, so I was able to spot broken urns, jewels half smothered with overripe vegetation, and in some cases, the curved skulls of human beings. No doubt the result of long forgotten sacrifices, I thought. This wasn't one of the tidy temples of the Gorgonics that the priests doted on so often, but had been eaten away by moss and curling vines that groaned under my cautious steps. I walked towards the beam of moonlight to see just how far below the ground I was. I had visited a few of the temples before, but none of them were so hollow and vast like this one was, and deep enough that its walls stretched up towards the stars. I could hear the wind howling above me, and the drip-drip of water rolling off the crevices in the ceiling. To think that I complained about the terrors of noise when I was young! The merciless winds were now a comfort.
The red eyes and their owner seemed to have vanished, leaving me all alone in this strange place. The passage that had brought me here still lay gaping, so it didn't intend to trap me here, whatever that monster was. Still, there didn't seem to be anything important here, just some old pottery, some shriveled up flowers, a few pieces of scattered jewelry-
A silver necklace hanging off the edge of the platform caught my eye and I quickly snatched it up. I.. I knew this piece. My mother's necklace, something I had left on the unknown god's alter altar her funeral. How did that get here, how….
I was so focused on my thoughts that the clink of armor made me nearly drop the necklace in surprise. The sound was close, closer than it ever was before-
While before there was nothing behind me, now there loomed a silent, colossal creature, eerily blue skinned with red rubies embedded in its body. The gold encircled its limbs gave it a horrible glow in the moonlight, and from its masked mouth jutted out a series of bladed prongs that would surely slice any flesh that came close to it. Where there were supposed to be hands were instead curved knives so red I thought blood would drip off it at any moment, knives poised right by my sides, ready to gut me at any moment!
The hairs on the back of my neck stood on end, and I fell to the floor in a panic, just barely missing the metal barring me in place. My screams lay strangled in my throat as I looked upon the creature so familiar to me, from that terrible night I could never forget!
I had no idea where I was- if I had no idea where I was, how would anyone find my body? Would I be nothing but a worm eaten husk the time human eyes found me? Would I even be human, or just a pile of guts?
No, no, no, no, no, I couldn't die here, I wanted to live, I couldn't let this monster kill me!
The dark entryway I came in still loomed open, so if I could somehow break free and run faster than this creature, I could make it back to the palace. It was coming closer, and raised its blade, surely ready to cleave off my head, but before it could cut through my neck, I ran. I dashed to the doorway, past the crumbling urns and trampling the carpet of plants, but somehow I made it to the dark passageway!
It cried out, how it cried out behind me, and its voice was gruff and remote but right behind me and I couldn't even stop to cover my ears unless I wanted those blades to cut through my flesh! I ran through the dark corridors, and there were tears beating down my cheeks as I tried to block out the inhuman wails pounding on my eardrums. The horrible cries were shaking some of the ceiling tiles onto my head, but I ran and ran until the air was burning in my lungs and I could see the exit. I tore out of there as fast as I could and sprinted to my room, screaming for the guards the entire time.
There wasn't much protection between the hall and my room, but I still dove into a corner, grabbing the handle of the sword at my belt tightly. I tried drawing it, but all I managed to do is wiggle it in its sheath. There was a monster after me, it would be here any second, and I couldn't draw my sword!
I heard the clank of armor in the hall and shrank back against the stone wall. The clamor of footsteps grew louder and louder, until the ornate armor of the royal guards flew into sight. The tension in my body didn't lessen, but I was finally able to drop my fingers from my sword.
"What happened? Was it an intruder? Are you all right?" They were all talking to me at once, but I couldn't do much but spout incomprehensible gibberish.
"A monster— there's a monster, a temple, an old temple— a passageway to it- it's in the hall, is it still there? Is that thing still there?"
"I beg your pardon, but what passageway are you talking about?"
I looked at the guard like he had just turned to stone. I wish I could have come up with a more clever retort, but all I could shriek was a pained "What?"
"There's nothing in the hall, my lord, but your father's furnishings."
I hadn't shut it- there didn't seem to be any way to conceal a gaping door like that! That was impossible! "No, there must have been some way to unlock it! Something at the end of the hall- the stone! Check the middle stone on the righthand wall, about six stones from the entrance!" The guards stared dumbly at me, and the more they stared, the more my frustration swelled up inside me. "Well?" I screamed, "Why are you just standing there like idiots? Go check the stones! Hurry up!"
A few darted out of the room, and in strode one of my father's generals, who quickly barked at one of the servants to fetch me a drink to calm my nerves. Seeing him made me relax a little, but I didn't budge from my corner. Not even one of the top generals could possibly fight a monster like that, but maybe he could hold it off for a few seconds—
"Lord Vector," he said, and I snapped to attention. "Were you having a nightmare?"
"I- I wasn't dreaming! There's no way that was a simple dream, how could you say that—" They didn't believe me, how could they if they couldn't find the passageway?
"I have- I have proof! I wasn't dreaming, I have mother's necklace, it's just-" I frantically searched the band at my hip, patting my sheets and throwing my pillows off the bed. "I had it! I know I brought it with me-!" The words died on my lips as I recalled my frantic dash back to the palace, where I probably dropped it. I sank onto the bed, devoid of energy. "I'm not lying, I swear I'm not lying…"
"Of course you aren't, my lord, but dreams are very vivid."
"How many times do I have to say it wasn't a dream before it gets through your thick skull?" I yelled. I must look crazy, screaming like this, but I'm not lying, I couldn't possibly lie about something like that. They didn't believe me, none of them believed me…I had to bite back my tears of frustration.
The servant arrived with a pitcher of kava juice, and the general poured me a cup. "Perhaps you should take a trip, my lord. Your diplomatic visit to the Poseidon Lands has been delayed for quite some time."
"A trip- A trip…" I parroted, still trembling. Yeah, maybe that was a good idea. That…That monster couldn't follow me all the way there! And even if it did, the Poseidon Lands had a really strong Waterfall God protecting them, didn't they? Gods get really mad when other Gods try to sneak into their territory, right?
I took a swig of the drink until the burning in my stomach was stronger than the chills in my spine. "Yeah, you're probably right. Start the preparations as soon as you can. I'd like to leave in a few days, if that's possible."
"Give us four days, my lord."
That could work. It had to work. It just had to, I don't want to live jumping at shadows anymore!
Four days, just four more days… I hope I lived that long.
