Hey! As it turns out, I already made a major mistake in the last chapter. I'll try to work my way around it. Meanwhile, here's another chapter for you!
Just like last time, I don't own this. The characters belong to Hiro Mashima, and the plot to locoanime.
Last Edit: 3/8/15
Thousands of years later...
I opened my eyes.
I didn't have a clue what was going on. I heard yelling, and people were frantically running around. My usually well managed hair was coming out of its tight bun, golden curls falling around my face. I was completely out of breath, and clutching an illustrated mythology book in my left hand.
Had I blacked out again? But I hadn't woken in my bed like I usual.
I looked down at my clothes. Instead of the nightgown I was accustomed to waking in, I was wearing a ankle-length, rose colored frock. There was a tear in the skirt, starting at the knee, and continuing down to the hem of my dress. I was wearing only my left glove, and my feet were barely covered by the thin, pink slippers. My eyes searched around me, trying to figure out what was going on.
The last thing I remembered was sitting on the edge of my bed, reading the myth of the resurrection of the world. I liked the story, where small group of people had cast the very first spell, and everything had become infused with magic. But after that...
I realized that I was in the corridor off the dining hall. It was small and narrow, and only lit by a few lamps. It was hardly ever used.
"Princess, we need to hurry."
I gasped in surprise, looking around to face the Captain of the Royal Guard, who had just sprinted to my side. Lahar was breathing heavily, and looked frantic. It was very different from the stoic man he usually was.
"What's going on?" I asked, "Where's Loke?"
There were guards all around me. An escort? But why?
Lahar took a deep breath, and said, "There isn't much time. We've been ordered to take you out through the escape tunnel." He turned around, and began to walk in the direction of the tunnel. The guards around me moved forward as well, forcing me along.
"Ordered? By whom?" I picked up my skirt, and ran to catch up, "What the hell is going on? Where's my brother?" I demanded, my voice cracking.
The captain glanced over his shoulder at me, making a noise as if he were explaining something very simple to a child. "We're under attack."
"What? The castle?" I cried, still holding the book.
Lahar shook his head, the light flashing off his glasses. "The kingdom. Your brother went out to fight. His last order to me was to get you to safety. Miss Lucy, please."
"No..." I breathed, falling silent.
We kept walking at a fast pace, and I struggled to keep up. My mind was reeling so much it was hard to put one foot in front of the other. Had a war started during my blackout? Or had I just forgotten? I didn't remember most of my life, so it was a plausible scenario. I just couldn't believe that Loke had actually gone out to fight. I was scared to know what would have forced him into battle. Who would attack us, anyway? We were a peaceful kingdom.
That's when it clicked. Monsters.
I clapped a hand over my mouth, suddenly feeling faint. I smelled blood. I saw it on the stone floor.
"Princess!" a guard, I'm not sure which one, put his hand on my shoulder to steady me.
I shook my head lightly. There was no blood. There would be none unless the monsters caught us. It had just been another memory relapse.
We continued on. The passageway descended low, beneath the dungeons. I looked longingly at what I knew to be the oil lamp in the tunnel. We passed it in a second, and the only light was a torch Lahar had grabbed from a small stack.
As the light faded out, I used the wall to keep going in the right direction. I could feel my hearing abilities slowly enhancing, making up for my near loss of sight. The drip-drop of water and the surprisingly light footsteps of the elvish guards grew increasingly louder in my pointed ears. I could hear the tiniest echo off the rough, cobblestone walls. I held the mythology book against my chest, fearing every moment.
An earsplitting noise, like a crack of thunder, reverberated across the walls of the narrow passage.
I shrieked, and the guards looked around wildly. A few even aimed their spears at the empty darkness or the damp ceiling.
I could see the outline of Lahar's face in his torch, the lenses of his spectacles reflecting most of the light. He paused, then murmured an order to continue. But the guards were shaken, and began to stumble in the darkness, unlike their previously coordinated steps. It wasn't long after that when another booming noise shook the corridor. Another followed, then another.
"Is that from outside the palace?" Lahar asked Richard.
"No." the burly, redheaded guard responded bluntly.
The captain cursed softly, and began walking again, increasing his pace. "We have to hurry."
The loud, drumming noises continued, becoming more and more frequent. I held my hands over my ears to relieve them from the pounding. As we jogged, the banging became more distinct; I heard clanging, like a stone against metal. It seemed like the faster we ran, the louder and clearer the noise became, to the point where it began to be painful.
With my eyes watering, I stopped to catch my breath. How far were we? From how fast we'd been going, I could tell that we were almost to the halfway-point of the escape route.
The banging stopped for a moment. We waited in apprehensive silence. A scraping, tearing noise reached my ears and I cried out, falling down to my knees. The new sound continued, earsplittingly shrill, then ceased.
"Captain!" Macbeth called in an agitated voice. "Sir!"
"What is it?" Lahar snapped.
"That sound - and the the sounds we've been hearing - d-do you understand?" the guard asked cautiously.
Lahar shook his head, a motion barely visible in the torchlight. "No, I don't. Explain."
"Well," Macbeth swallowed, "It was booming was probably a battering ram, trying to get into the passage. Then the other sound was them actually getting through the metal and coming into this passageway."
"What about it?"
"Sir, the door is made of wood."
I thought about that for a moment. I vaguely remember Macbeth swinging the door shut and locking it. The monsters couldn't have been pursuing us through the escape route, because we would have heard the wood crack. My mind wandered to the wrought iron gate at the end of the passage. Our destination.
"They're at the end of the tunnel!" I screamed, "We're running towards them!"
Lahar's mouth dropped open. "Turn around! Run! The other way!"
I began to hear it. Snarling, cackling, and footfalls coming closer. The guards yelled, turning around and bolting back up the corridor. I tossed my book at the floor, and followed them, running as fast as I could.
It didn't take long for the monsters to catch up with us. The soldiers created a barrier between me and the creatures. When Lahar gave the order, they unsheathed their weapons and brought up magic circles.
The passage was too narrow, and it was too dark to see how many there were. Of few of the monsters looked directly at me. My eyes couldn't catch sight the pitch black pupils and sclera, but I knew how they looked. The luminescent red irises were all I could see, rings of blood that terrified me.
"Run, Lucy!" Lahar yelled, just as the monsters attacked.
I ran. I ran as fast as I could, up the passage, back to the castle we'd escaped from. I tripped once, falling to the wet, stone floor. I got up, picked up my skirt, and kept sprinting. The light from the oil lamps made my eyes sting, but I raced until I crashed into the door to the tunnel, which was made of light oak.
I desperately pounded against it. I began to cry. I could still hear the fighting from the corridor, and someone screamed.
Taking a few deep breaths, I checked the skirt of my dress. In my hair, around my wrist, among my magic keys, and in my shoe. I always kept one on me, and I finally, victoriously pulled the skeleton key from a chain on my neck. I shoved it into the keyhole, and twisted. It stuck at first, and I shook it inside the lock. Those damn keys never work properly.
"Come on, please, come on." I muttered nervously, and the lock finally clicked.
I threw my weight against the door, and it swung open. I left the key where it was in the lock, and raced down the larger corridor. I knew the halls of the palace well, and I ran to get as far away as possible from the creatures beneath the dungeon.
So, my instinct led me up.
I climbed step after step, making myself dizzy in the spiral stairwells. I was running solely on the adrenaline racing through my veins.
I could hear a monster following me. How had he gotten past the guards? How many monsters had survived? I didn't want to think about it.
Run.
I stopped when I reached the top of the Astronomy Tower. Open windows stretched from floor to ceiling. Most of the walls of the circular room were emptied out, perfect for stargazing. But to me, their only purpose was displaying the terrifying drop that was exactly why I never came up here.
"Dammit, Lucy! You idiot!" I moaned to myself.
I pushed the double doors shut, shoving a telescope through the handles. Even so, seconds later, the monster burst through.
He looked just like all the others that I remembered. A slim, human-like body, with gaunt, chalk white skin against patches of black scales, like it had been splattered with tar. Obsidian bat wings sprouted from between the monster's shoulders, curving inward and flaring out. His mouth looked coated in coal dust, and his eyes were a terrifying mix of onyx and blood.
The monster's irises flashed, and I backed up against one of the narrow strips of wall. He raised his hand, showing off an small, ornamental dagger. I recognized the prized weapon that had belonged to Lahar, the one he had always kept on a rope at his waist.
I wiped my sweating palms on the thin fabric of my skirt. I twisted my head around to look outside, where my parents' kingdom was falling. Houses and trees were ablaze, and blood splattered the cobblestone pavement. I could hear screaming and the clash of weapons.
"Go on. Join your people." the monster rasped maliciously.
I slowly turned my head back to him, my eyes shining with new tears. He had the knife raised over his shoulder, ready to throw. But he had stopped, and a sneer curled onto his lips.
I looked out the window again, swallowing painfully. It was a long drop. But I was going to die, I would prefer to fall, rather than giving the monster the satisfaction of killing me.
I didn't hope to escape. I had seen what those monsters could do, and despite their usual scrawny frame, they were unbelievably strong. A hundred of them had pushed past most of our army, slain our soldiers, and assassinated the king and queen. Only one hundred of them, against nearly a thousand.
I stepped up onto the stone windowsill, which wasn't much higher than the floor. My heart sped up, as I stood with one foot in front of the other, balancing sideways on the edge. In my peripheral vision, I could see the monster on one side, the faraway ground on the other.
"Jump already!" he snarled, his arm tensing.
I didn't want to see the fall. I smelled blood again, and I couldn't tell if it was real or just my imagination. I started to turn away, facing into the room. Even so, I couldn't tear my eyes away from the grass below, as fire slowly spread across it.
"Time's up."
I snapped my head around to look at the monster, right as I felt an impact in my stomach. My eyes traveled to my midsection. The handle of the tiny dagger was sticking out of me.
I couldn't think straight. I slowly eased the blade out of my stomach, eyes widening at the bloodstained silver. It dropped from my shaking fist, and I lightly rested my hand on my abdomen. Had that really just happened?
The pain hit me suddenly, ripping through my whole body like lightning. I screamed, and crumpled, falling off the windowsill. The agony only faded as my vision went black.
That's chapter two. Like? Hate? Please review, and be sure to check out locoanime's The Phoenix.
