Am I dead? My chest crumpled in agony as I thought it over. I am dead. There was no other answer. I couldn't hear my heart anymore, and the fire had disappeared completely. Why must I die so young? My life barely even started. Oh well. It must be my destiny. I waited in the dark for death to come and take me.
Nothing happened.
I opened my eyes to stare at the walls. Why was I still here? I should be dead…..or am I condemned to a life of a ghost? I gingerly got up from the bed. My mind thought over what had happened in the tunnels. I remembered that I had dropped my slippers in there, and my nightgown ripped in several places. My legs were about to flinch when my bare feet touched the floor. But it didn't feel cold anymore. In fact, the whole room felt unexpectedly warm. Looking around the chamber for the first time, I got a much clearer picture of the room. My eyes wandered across the chamber in amazement. The room wasn't as small as I thought, and it was quite beautifully built. The stone walls had a unique pattern carved into them. Small black etched diamonds and circles repeated themselves in the rough stone design. It reminded me of the beautiful stone walkways in the orchard. The ceiling stretched so high, looking as if it was two stories. The bed was in the middle of the room. Though quite big, its wooden legs were black as ash. It looked so ancient and out of place. The dim light that came out of the entrance to the room, shined on the ragged sheets that covered it. Though barely, I could see that the room was a long rectangular shape. I also noticed something else. Everything did seem very different. It looked…..clear. Crystal clear. Even though there was only a dim speck of light, I could see the details of every little diamond and circle in the wall, and all the scratches on the dark wooden legs of the bed.
It was also worse. The salty smell that was in the air was even stronger now. It gagged me. I coughed, and tried to hold my breath. After a few moments, I started breathing again in ragged breaths. What is this…. Although it seems that my sight is now better, my sense of smell became worse. The smell was too strong.
I paced the room, looking at everything. My feet scraped the black polished floor, making a strange scratching noise. Where am I? Curiosity got the best of me. As I came up to the wall, I put my hand on the stones, and pressed on it, feeling the texture. It felt rough and smooth at the same time. What happened next was not what I expected. There was a loud, crumbling sound. Gasping, I pulled my hand away, shocked. The wall left a faint imprint of my hand.
It seemed so unreal, though the evidence is right in front of my eyes. Did I just do that? My eyes focused on that small place where the shape of my hand was. Lifting up my hand, I compared it to the imprint in the wall. I felt my eyes widen; it was the exact same.
My hands automatically went up to my mouth. Impossible.
I have to get out of here. None of this even seems real anymore. There was no way I had just done that. This is a dream. How could Aro have come back, and kidnap me from home? He disappeared fifteen years ago. I was sure he was dead. And for him to actually take me away and….bite me?! Of course, Mother and Father didn't care about the disappearance, but he is my brother. I didn't care that he wasn't the perfect heir. He is family. But, this person didn't even look like my brother. When we were little, we both had sun kissed skin, tanned with the slightest touch; and this man's was…pale snow white. Of course he acted just like my brother…..but was that part of the act? Could my kidnapper just be a master of disguise?
Involuntarily, my body started shaking. I was hyperventilating.
Calm down, I told myself, just calm down. I was over thinking it again. Of course that was my brother. My brother is always the same as always, and he's just changed after these fifteen years. It was nothing to be worried about, it is? I still wanted one thing, and one thing only. Escape.
I have to get out of here.
My eyes swiftly analyzed the room. The only way out is the doorway, just a few meters away from me. My mind immediately thought over the possibilities of my escape; would someone catch me? And what if I get lost; I don't know my way around here. When Aro had carried me through the tunnels, I was in too much pain to observe them, and to take in which way I had come from.
Walking to the doorway, and poked my head out of the chamber to get a better perspective of my surroundings. I gulped. It was a hallway, and from what I can see, this room was at the very end of it. There was a torch hanging on the right side of the black ugly stone wall, only a few meters away from me. Light touched the entrance of the chamber, but it couldn't go any farther into the hall. From what I could see, the hallway had no end. The light of the torch was very dim, and the flame looked as if it was going to blow out at any moment. My arms crossed, and I rubbed my elbows nervously. How am I going to find my way out of this?
But I have to, if I was ever going to find a way out of here. I just had to go home. But then what? What would I tell Mother and Father? That Aro kidnapped me? No, they would find him and kill him, even if he was my brother. My body shivered at the thought; I never ever seen someone die before, and thinking about it, especially if it was my brother being executed, made me shake in fright. Mother and Father are one the richest families in town, and they are known for their merciless tactics. Years ago, when Father and I took a stroll in the streets, I remembered one time a street rat threw a rotten apple at Father. Father was very angry, and I've never seen him this way before; he called the guards to seize up the street rat, and they took him away. Of course, I was only five, and Mother and Father never told me what happened to him. It was only a few nights later, that Aro told me in secret that the street rat was dead.
I continued to stare into the endless hallway. The darkness of it irked me. Be brave Didyme, be brave. I chanted to myself again, and again.
Quietly, I stepped out of the room. Closing my eyes, I listened for anyone who might be in the hallway. There was only the sound of my breathing. Taking deep breath, I started walking.
My footsteps made absolutely no sound. When I walked far enough until I was under the light, I paused and plucked the torch from the wall. My hand tightened on its metal hold. Surprisingly, the metal bent and twisted within my grasp. I looked down at it with a quiet surprise. This is quite fragile.
Some instinct took over. My foot moved forward automatically and started running. The ugly walls passed me in a blur as I sped through the hallway. The speed was exhilarating, I never ran this fast before. But the thrill took the fear away. The only light source is the flame that I now held in my hand. Using my other free one, I put it on the wall, letting it slide against it as I ran. Small stones crumbled under my touch. I giggled. This feels like a dream…maybe a nightmare.
Then my run came to a halt. I reached an intersection in the hallway. Pausing, I observed my choices. Using the torch, I pointed it into the right hallway so I could see if there was anything there, and then pointed it in the front hall ahead of me, and to the left one. All of them looked the same. Which way should I go? Straight, left, or right? Be brave. Something was telling me to go left. I turned cautiously, looking for a sign if someone was there. Nothing. I started running again. Soon after, I reached another intersection; I went straight. Suddenly, another appeared; I turned left. Not even bothering to run again, I reached another intersection, this time only right or left; I chose right. My feet were instinctively telling me which way to go, even though I had no idea where I was going.
This dragged on for a long time. I was getting nowhere. I was repeatedly reaching intersections, and I obeyed my consciousness. Maybe it was wrong. I felt hopelessly lost.
It was then, that I heard someone's quiet cough. In less than a second, I crouched down to the ground. The torch fell out of my hands. Without my intention, it landed beside me with a loud clang. The sound of it echoed through the hallway, for a long, dragging second. Then the flames went out. The hallway turned pitch black.
I was frozen in shock.
Oh no, what if someone heard me? I was so frightened. Being surrounded in darkness didn't help. If it weren't for the loud clang the torch made, maybe I could have slowly slipped away, unnoticed. But there was no way no one would have heard that.
In the pitch black darkness, I desperately listened closer for any other sounds. Then I heard them. From faraway, there were faint sounds of footsteps, becoming louder, and faster with each second. The slow pace became a fast walk, and then a run.
And I wasn't stupid.
I took off. It was hard to see in the dark. And the only thing that guided me was the sound of whoever's footsteps it was. I knew I had to get further away from them. As the sound became louder, I ran from it. Turning left, right, I didn't stop running. That was all I could do in the dark.
The fear made me unaware of my surroundings. In half a second, I slammed into the wall; the wall crumbled a little from the impact of my body. Small stones cracked, and chipped from under me. Cringing, I thought my body had also broken some bones. But it didn't. A chill went down my spine when I realized where I had gone. Murmuring to myself, I cried out desperately, "No, no, no….."
It was a dead end.
The footsteps from grew louder. I was trapped. My hands clawed the walls, and ceiling in hopes that a miracle would appear. As the footsteps grew louder, I heard them turn, and then a sigh, as they slowed to a walk. Each distinct step echoed through the hall, coming closer and closer. I gasped; they were only a few walks away from me.
I jumped even higher and clawed the air above me. There was a quiet clanging; my hands hit something metal. Jumping again, my hands caught a metal handle. Driven with fear, I pulled. A loud metal noise erupted from the small space. I pulled even harder. The ceiling started to open. Seconds later, I realized what I was pulling on. It was a door. A trap door in the ceiling.
From the other side of the door, the scents of flower and the sound of a small stream reached my nose and ears. It was a door that led outside.
Moonlight shined into the small dark space where I was once trapped. The light spread into the hallway, until at last reached my pursuer. My face turned toward them, trying to get a glimpse of who it was. My body froze. For a second, I stared at them. It was a man, a man wearing a black cloak just like my brother. His black raven hair glistened in the moonlight. The man looked like he was about thirty years of age. He was very tall, and the face of an angel was on his face, like a stone statue. The one thing that really made me awe was that this man was extremely beautiful.
The posture he had, suggested that he was about to prance at me. But he had stopped walking, and he stood there staring at me as well, frozen like I am in this moment.
I was faster. Breaking the trance, I pulled even harder until the opening was big enough for me to go through. The man returned to his pursuit. He ran with breathtaking speed. But it was too late. Letting go of the handle, I jumped up into the air, through the opening. Landing onto the grass, I stared into the hole of where I came from, as the metal door closed.
The man shouted, "NO!" And then the trapdoor slammed shut. Silence followed. I waited a minute to see if he was still coming after me. The door didn't open again.
When I felt sure I was safe, I sighed heavily. My body flopped down onto the earth, and spread out with ease. I escaped.
I looked around me, in wonder.
