I followed Sasha through enormous double doors into a castle-like building. It was also red. Something about this place was ominous. As if it was just not right. We went up some winding stairs. As we reached the top we passed some sort of creatures that were dressed like guards. They were standing in front of a room that had bricks scattered around it, as if someone had broken in. I caught a glimpse of a broken cage inside of the room and a black, ghostly figure floating in the middle of it. It all seemed strangely familiar. Not Sasha nor I had said a word since we came into the building. I decided to break the silence.
"How am I alive if I remember dying? It doesn't make sense."
Sasha kept walking with her eyes to the front as if she hadn't heard me. I ignored it and kept walking to. Maybe that's just what people did around here. As we kept walking we saw more rooms. All of the furniture was made of bricks. I wondered if my bed would be made of bricks to. The corridor looked as if it was getting longer and longer every step we took. Eventually we got to the end of it. There was a large room with tables and chairs and a bench where you got food for whatever meal it was. A cafeteria I think it was called. As always everything was red. It made me sort of unstable with all of this red around me. Sasha must have seen me like this because she looked at me with a cold, hard stare as if she were telling me to deal with it. It then struck me that everyone in the room looked as unstable as I felt.
Horrible. I thought. Just horrible.
Sasha had gone up to join a line of people next to the food bar. I followed. As I got closer to her I saw she was talking to someone. A tall, buff man. He saw me walking up to Sasha and stood in front of her as if to protect her.
"Hey." He said, his voice quiet as a mouse. "What do you think you're doing here little fella? You need help or somethin'? Heh heh heh heh!"
Sasha rolled her eyes and sighed.
"Gene. I know this guy. His name is Laurence. He's new around here. I thought he'd be hungry so I brought him here to eat. Ok?"
"Oh..." said Gene. "That's ok then."
I put out my hand to shake his.
"I'm Laurence." I said greeting him as politely as possible. "It's nice to meet you."
He stared at my hand almost unable to look away.
"Still doing human customs eh?" He said still looking at my hand. I put it down.
"We'd better get that stuff out of your brain if you want to be a proper shadow knight. Once we have dinner, we'll take you to our room. We have an extra bed so you can stay with us."