Yes, it's been about two months, I realize that. It just took me forever to figure out how to start this chapter. I still don't think it's all that good, but meh. And I also went back and re-read all of the reviews you guys have left me, that made me very happy ^^ *hugglez* Anyways… Enjoy! :D
I know, I know… excuses... excuses…
"What was that about?" Ashley finally asked, breaking the almost-unbearable, everlasting silence.
"I have no idea." Leon replied.
"Yeah, well…" I said. "I just can't wait until he gets back with that drug. I want to get this thing out of me as soon as I can."
They both nodded. "Don't we all."
I turned around and once again noticed the orange-ish, rust-stained door. "Leon, what's back there?"
He turned around and began walking to it. When he slowly pushed it open, you could see a cloaked man standing in the center of the room. Just then, the thing turned his head and noticed the very handsome man standing in his doorway, and went to go tell his friends about it.
"Wait here." Leon said to Ashley and I. We nodded and stood there, awkwardly, trying to think of something to say.
"So…" I said first. "Do you think you've gotten the hang of shooting your gun?"
The blonde pulled out her gun and began examining it carefully. "I don't know. I think Leon might have to show me how to work it. If we ever get the time, that is."
Suddenly, the image of Leon with his tight, muscular arms wrapped around hers, and holding the gun in her hands flashed in my mind. "Wha- Uh, n-no you don't. Er.. he doesn't. Um… I could show you!" I failed miserably at forming my sentence. Ashley didn't really seem to notice though.
"Really?" Her face lit up in a smile.
"Sure! Look, all you have to do is-"
"Hey, I got the key to this door." Leon interrupted, holding a silver key in his hand.
"Leon!" Ashley exclaimed, running up to him. "Do you think you could show me how to work this gun properly?"
Said man chuckled. "Yeah, sure. So you hold it like this…" Just then he wrapped his arms around her and my vision came true. I was filled with an enraging envy, so strong, that I was almost positive my face was turning green. All I could do was stare at the two as Ashley pretended to be clueless, while really, she just wanted to spend more time wrapped in Leon's embrace. I knew what she was up to. (I was probably just over-thinking the situation at the time, but could you blame me?)
I rushed up to the two and snatched the key from Leon's hand and put it in the lock. "After you…" I said sarcastically, looking at the tall blonde man. He seemed rather confused at my actions, but Ashley had this obvious blush on her face, because she knew I caught on to what she was doing.
When we stepped through the doors, I was literally awestruck. I had never seen anything so beautiful in my life. The walls were stone, but not the dirty stone like the other parts of the castle- no, this stone was diamond white, like the kind statues are made from. The floors were a shiny marble that you could practically see your reflection in, and there was a red carpet going through the center of the room, leading to doors on the other side at least 50 feet long. About half way through the room there was an archway and a balcony facing us on it. We continued walking forward, completely speechless, until Ashley finally spoke up.
"This is… amazing!"
"Tell me about it." Leon replied.
"Who knew there could be something so beautiful in a place so-" Just then I was interrupted by the laughter of what sounded like a child doped up of caffeine. "Um… what was that?"
We all eyed the room cautiously before continuing forward after a few moments of silence. But just when we were halfway to the balcony, we heard it again, but louder. I looked up at the balcony to see a little boy in a blue Victorian-age suit, laughing maniacally. There were two cloaked figures beside him; one was in a black cloak, the other in red. They both had glowing red eyes, and were twice as tall as the boy.
"Ehehahahahah!" Suddenly, he didn't look much like a boy, as he stepped fully out to the railing of the balcony. He actually looked pretty aged. "…I was starting to wonder when you might notice us." He said.
"Who are you?" Leon demanded, taking a slight step forward.
Without hesitation, the boy/man (I still wasn't quite sure) answered. "Me amo Ramon Salazar, the eighth castellan of this magnificent architecture." He seemed quite proud with this last statement. "I have been honored with the prodigious power from the great Lord Saddler… I've been expecting you my brethren's…"
Brethren's? I thought.
"No thanks, bro!" Our rescuer said, in quite a sarcastic tone, making Ashley giggle beside me.
"My, my, we've got a feisty one." He continued. "If you care for your own well-being, I suggest you surrender yourself and simply… become our hostage." My eyes grew wide, along with Ashley's, while Leon's took on a look of confusion. "Or Mr. Scott, you can give us the girls because you're not worth a penny I'm afraid… You can die." He then turned around and vanished behind the blue curtains. It was one of those What the f*ck just happened? moments.
"I'm never turning into one of them, never!" Ashley spoke up.
"Got that right," Leon turned to her. "We'll find a cure."
"But how can you be so sure?" I pondered aloud. I knew it was probably a bad idea to say it, but someone had to ask. "What if there isn't a cure, Leon?"
He thought about this for a moment, before saying, "There has to be. Whatever Luis went looking for, that must be it. He said it would stop growth of this thing."
"Yeah." Ashley said, placing a comforting hand on my shoulder. "We got ourselves into this, we can get ourselves out."
I smiled and nodded and we kept walking across the room. Suddenly, when we got to the archway in the middle, a wall rose up from the floor blocking our path. There was a blue rectangle with carvings of an animal and a big hole that looked as though something had to be placed in it.
"I wonder what this is for…" I said, inspecting the oddly shaped hole.
"I don't know," Leon said. "But we obviously can't go this way now. Come on."
We spotted a door to our right and decided to go through it.
This room wasn't as big as the one we were just in, I guess you could call that a lobby. No, it was about half the size of it. Everything was the ugly stone color again, and there were two pillars in the right side of the room, and on the left wall there were large round holes cut out, serving as windows to a lower area that I couldn't see too well. There was hallway at the end of the room, and a roaring noise was coming from it.
We all began walking forward, to the entryway, but I slowly stopped and took a look at my surroundings. "This place could use some cleaning." I stated.
Leon scoffed and said "With a place this big, I can't really blame that guy for not wanting to clean everything."
"But wouldn't he have a butler or a maid or something?" I asked.
"Yeah, maybe… but whoever it is, they need to be fired."
I laughed briefly before placing my hands on my hips, and standing in a sort of I'm totally awesome pose. "I'm gonna have a castle like this one day. Except, you know… without all the freaky dudes."
"Don't you have to be royalty to have a castle?" Leon questioned, obviously not taking me seriously.
"Exactly!" I exclaimed excitedly. "One day I'm going to be a queen!"
The blonde man half laughed, half snorted. "Queen? Isn't that an inherited title?"
"Well... yeah, but…" I trailed off.
He laughed. "Didn't think that one out too much, did you?" I shook my head. "Well, unless your parents were King and Queen then-" He stopped mid-sentence, realizing what he had just said. "I-I'm sorry… I didn't mean-"
"No, it's fine." I sighed. "I guess it's time I tell you what happened, huh?" Suddenly, the wrinkles in my shirt became oh-so interesting.
"You don't have to-"
"No, I do… I keep bringing it up, and making excuses for it… you can't tell me you don't want to know what happened." I took his silence as a yes.
Just then, Ashley appeared from around the corner of the entryway. I hadn't even noticed she was gone.
"That way is blocked of by fire-breathing horses, but I found this key on a really big painting. I think it goes to that door." She held up a silver key. "Hey… what's wrong?" She approached the middle of the room with caution where Leon and I were standing.
"Nothing." Leon said quickly.
"It's not nothing." I argued, and when Ashley gave me a confused look I continued. "I was about to tell him what happened with my parents."
"O-oh… well, I can go if you want…"
"No. You need to hear this too."
[Flashback]
It was cold. That was the only thing going through my mind as my parents and I hiked through the woods on our once-a-year vacation to Europe. It was my turn to pick where we went, so I chose Spain. But boy, was that a mistake; it was about forty-fifty degrees every day. The only reason I had chosen Spain was because I spoke fluently in Spanish, even though my parents didn't.
I grunted as I tripped over a rock in the grass and face planted into the hard dirt. "Can we just go home?" I begged desperately.
My father chuckled as he helped me up. "Hey, it was your idea to come here."
I dusted off my shirt. "I know, but did we have to go hiking? It's socold."
"Well, then you should have worn pants." Scolded my mother, so I rolled my eyes.
Don't get me wrong, I loved my mom. She was one of the funniest people I knew, she just had this habit of picking out all the little things I did wrong. Take me wearing shorts on a hiking trip for example.
"We've been out here for hours!" I complained again.
My mom sighed and turned to my dad. "James, maybe she's right. It is getting pretty cold… maybe we should turn back."
"Alright…" He agreed, and we turned around and began walking back the way we came… or so we thought.
…
"I thought you said you knew where to go?" My mother asked my father.
"Me? You're the one who said the hotel was east!"
"No, I said we've been walking east, the hotel was west!"
"S-so we're lost?" I panicked.
"No." "Yes." They answered at the same time.
My mother grunted in frustration. "Perfect, this is just perfect. We're over four-thousand miles away from home, and we're lost!"
"Stay calm, Mary. We're going to get home. If we just keep walking straight, we're bound to find a road somewhere."
"But that could be miles from here, dad!"
He didn't really answer me, just grabbed the two extra bottles of water and gave them to my mother and I. Then he turned around and continued walking.
About thirty-minutes later, more than half of my water was gone. I was suddenly reminded of that movie The Blair Witch Project and immediately shook it out of my mind. That movie was proven fake; nothing like that could ever happen. Just then, we spotted four men standing on top of a slight hill.
My father sighed in relief. "Finally… Hey!" He shouted. "Hey, down here!"
All of the men turned to look at us, and then one of them raised their arm, pointing, and yelling the words "Un forastero!" Which I translated to "An outsider!"
"Uh… dad…" I tried to warn him, but he didn't listen to me.
"Hey, fellas. We're kinda lost, so could you point us the way to the nearest town?" My oblivious father walked up to the men, as they were running down the hill towards us.
When the men we're almost at the bottom, I stepped forward a tiny bit. "Eh… Lo siento…Mi padrenohablaba nada de españo-…"
Just then, one of the men pulled out an axe and swung it, slashing my father across the face. Blood was dripping form the blade and my eyes grew wide. Did that really just happen?
I blinked hard and rubbed my eyes for a split second. When I opened them again, I saw my mother being thrown onto the ground, my father desperately trying to help her, while fending off more of the men.
"Mom!" I shouted, alerting the men.
Now one of them was coming at me with a pitchfork, while the other three were kicking and stabbing my parents. My brain didn't have time to fully process what was going on. I was scared. The two people in the world that I loved the most were getting the life beaten out of them, and I was next. When the man lunged at me, I quickly jumped out of the way. Then while he was distracted, I ran up behind him and kicked him in the back of the knees, knocking him down.
Next thing I knew, I had the pitchfork in my hands, and blood was everywhere. I began stabbing the life out of the men who had hurt my parents.
When all was done, I slowly walked up to where their bodies lay.
"M-mom… Dad…?"
It was silent, and I was almost positive they were both dead, until I heard a short gasp coming from my mother. I ran up to her quickly. Her orange shirt was almost completely drenched in blood, and there were multiple holes in it, indicating she was stabbed several times.
"M-Mom…"
I heard you were supposed to apply pressure to wounds, but which one should I choose? I found the biggest one I could, and quickly pressed my hands desperately over the hole, but blood kept seeping out, through my fingers. I didn't know what to do. She was always the one to tend my cuts and scrapes; I never imagined I would be in any sort of situation like this.
"Mom… please…" But it was too late. Her body lay cold and stiff.
[End flashback]
Everyone was quiet. I guess they didn't know what to say to something so horrible like that. Breaking the silence, a small sniffle came from Ashley. Was she crying? If she was, I couldn't blame her. My eyes had begun to water as well, but tried my best to hold back my tears. I had cried enough that day, I didn't want to seem like any more of a wimp than I already was.
Suddenly, I felt someone's body wrap its self around mine: it was Leon. "It's okay…" he whispered while softly caressing the back of my head.
That pretty much did it. I was bawling into his chest, and most likely getting tear stains all over his shirt.
"H-how could they have been so defenseless…?" I sobbed. Leon didn't answer; he just made soothing noises, and kept comforting me.
Then, I felt Ashley join the hug too, as she wrapped her arms around the two of us. We stayed like that for a while.
…
"You found this key where exactly…?" I asked Ashley. We were standing in front of a blue door that was shut securely. Leon guessed that it was probably a prison, and who was I to argue with him? If it was a prison, though, it was rather small. It probably only held a few people.
"I already told you, in that room back there. It was hanging on some painting."
"That's a little odd." Leon stated and the blonde shrugged her shoulders. "You girls wait here."
"Again?" I complained.
"I have a bad feeling about this…" I knew better than to argue with him. His intuitions about things like that were usually right.
He put the key in the hole and the door quickly rose up, startling all three of us. Then, Leon began slowly descending down the stairs. To get a better view of the area, Ashley and I ran over to the windows/holes and peered over the side. The area was small, and there was a cage on the right wall. Looking further in, I saw what looked like a big man with-
"Are those claws?" Ashley gasped.
"Y-yeah… I think so…"
Leon slowly approached the bars of the cage holding the clawed man, when he turned to us and held a finger to his lips as a warning: DO NOT MAKE A SOUND. Ashley and I nodded in fear as he continued to timidly walk towards the cage door.
Suddenly the man burst out of his chains with a grunt, and I had to quickly cover my mouth to stifle a scream. As the prisoner walked slowly towards our rescuer, I noticed two things. One: There was this freakishly large parasite looking thing on its back, and two: it looked as though he was sniffing the air. He kept laughing manically, walking slowly across the room, and I couldn't help but wonder: Why doesn't he just kill him? I leaned in through the window once again and gasped when I got a good look at his face; his eyes were sewn shut. I whispered my discovery to the blonde beside me and her eyes grew wide with excitement.
"Maybe we can help him!" Ashley whispered.
"How?"
"Well did you see how Leon shot that thing on its back when he was turned away?"
I nodded.
"Well maybe we can distract him long enough for Leon to shoot him again."
My face matched hers and I said "Ashley, you are a genius!"
Before she had time to say anything I was already shouting out the window. "HEY JACKASS!"
The thing turned in my direction, and Leon looked at me with shock and confusion written all over his face.
"Not you, that ugly thing!"
I don't know if it understood English, or was just looking for something to attack, but it automatically started running for the stairs. Leon took aim and fired around a hundred TMP bullets into the parasite, and with a grunt, the thing fell to the floor.
When Leon returned, you could tell he didn't know whether to be proud, angry, or annoyed. Finally, he just laughed.
"That was a stupid thing you did there."
"It worked didn't it?"
Before he had time to answer, there was a shout coming from behind us. We quickly pulled out our guns and began shooting the three men who emerged from the hallway. One of them turned around and began running the other way.
"What's his deal?" I asked rhetorically and then followed him.
As soon as I rounded the corner, I saw the two horses Ashley mentioned, although they weren't 'breathing fire'. There were three more men: two of them stood behind each horse head with a crossbow, and the other stood in the middle throwing—
"Look out!" Leon quickly grabbed my arm and yanked me out of the way. I have to admit, it did hurt a little. But not as much as it would have if he didn't; the man was throwing dynamite, and it exploded right where I was standing.
"Jesus Christ… What the hell is his problem?" I said as Leon let go of me.
"You need to be more careful." He said sternly.
"Yeah, yeah…" I brushed him off and walked back to the room. As soon as he lighted the stick, I shot it, sending him and the other two monks flying. "YES!"
Ashley laughed and gave me a high-five, which I gladly returned.
"I swear there was fire here before!" Ashley insisted.
"Yeah… There was a lever back there, I guess it turned it off."
"Well let's go!" I began marching forward towards the door in the back, and they followed.
The first words that escaped my mouth were "Oh shit…" There were people everywhere.
"Matelo!" There was a group of about eight or ten standing in the middle, heading straight towards us, while others were coming at us from out sides.
"Leon…" The panic in my voice was clear as I began slowly walking backwards, closer to him. Ashley did the same. Our puny handguns were no match for all these guys.
"You girls stand back." He said as he pulled out a Rocket Launcher…. Wait WHAT?
There was an explosion, and about three fourths of the people in the room were gone now.
"I… wha… WHERE DID YOU GET THAT?" My voice had become unnaturally high pitched.
The man chuckled as he replaced it with his shotgun. "Back in that shack when you asked for that Blacktail thing. You weren't even paying attention. I was actually surprised you jumped up for that and not the Rocket Launcher." He said as he was shot-gunning away.
Okay, I was officially confused now.
One by one (as sometimes two or three), the freaks slowly began dying and the room was finally empty. We had nowhere to go except down a little ramp, and once we did we found a small room. In the two corners in the back were big yellow stepping plates.
"What are those for?" Ashley asked, before I could.
"I don't know… You guys take this one and I'll stand on that one."
We did as we were told and at first nothing happened, but as we listened closer, we could hear the sounds of gears turning.
"… What did we just do?" I asked, only half expecting an answer, which I didn't get.
Ashley and I followed Leon out of the room and, to our surprise, sitting in the middle of the room was a lever. We all looked at each other, dumbstruck.
"… Well who's going to turn it?" They looked at me. "Seriously? I have possibly the worst upper body strength in the history of mankind!"
"That's not necessarily true." Ashley said.
"Whatever, I vote Leon. He has the biggest muscles I've ever seen."
Ashley blushed and looked down at her feet. I didn't realize what I had said until Leon smirked at me and said "Really?"
"I… uh… Well, yeah… I- I guess…" My cheeks flared red and Leon took hold of the handle and began turning it.
Not even a second later, we realized what it did; as soon as he started turning it, what we thought was a wall, slowly began descending down, and revealed itself as stairs to a higher floor.
Ashley and I quickly ran up said stairs and she pointed to something on a high platform, that I didn't see, I was focused on the door in the back of the room, and all the water in front of it.
"Look there's a crank over there!"
Then I looked over and saw a crank on the other side, too. "Maybe we can turn them…?" I suggested to Leon.
"Alright." He said. We walked over to one side of the room and he lifted Ashley up, then me on the other side. Oh God, it was the jumping thing all over again.
Once we were up on the platforms, we immediately began turning the cranks. About two seconds after I started turning, I looked up to see a cloaked freak right in front of my face. As soon as I screamed, his head exploded and my shirt was covered in even more blood. I looked down and saw Leon reloading his gun.
"Thanks!" I shouted, as I began turning the handle again.
"No problem!" He shouted back.
About two minutes later, the turning was over with, and we looked over to see that two platforms had risen up out of the water, big enough to jump across to reach the door. I ran up to the edge of the platform I was standing on and before I could, Ashley shouted "Leon!", who was currently fending off two guys with shields.
Once he killed them, he walked over to Ashley's side and she jumped down, into his arms, and he gently set her down. My eyes grew wide when he walked over to me and held his arms out.
"You-… you mean…?" My face was obviously red, which I was going to have to learn to control one of these days, and he just laughed.
"It's fine, Emily."
I took a deep breath, squeezed my eyes shut, and jumped. It felt like forever until I was in his arms, and once I opened my eyes, he was already setting me down.
I stood there, blinking, trying to remember what just happened. Great, I blanked out the spilt second I was in the hottest guy on the planet's arms. That's something you should cherish, not not-remember.
"Did he hold you longer? I'm pretty sure he held you longer." Ashley whispered, thinking Leon couldn't hear her.
After a chuckle escaped his lips, I whispered way softer, "I don't even remember what happened, to be honest."
She laughed and then Leon turned to us. "Well are you two going to keep standing there whispering about me, or can we keep going?"
Oops.
The blonde and I acted innocently as we rushed past him. We came up to the platforms and after Leon jumped across he held his arms out for me with a- and maybe I was over thinking this- an annoyed, look on his face, as if to say Here we go again.
"U-um… I think I can do it by myself, Leon…"
He nodded and stood back. I took a deep breath, and a few steps back before taking a giant leap over to where he was standing. I landed safely, but he caught me by the arms just in case I fell. I looked up at him; it was like his piercing blue eyes were staring right into my soul or something. "Um… t-thanks." I attempted.
"No problem." He said, as he smiled and let go of me. I swear, this man had no idea what he could do with just one look.
We walked through the two big doors and were, yet again, mesmerized by what we saw. This room was just about as beautiful as the first, but there were two giant, upside down statues hanging from the ceiling. I didn't really get the point of that. There was another long red carpet leading down to something I couldn't really see well from where we were standing.
We continued walking until we saw the merchant standing beside the entryway to a hallway. There wasn't a door at the end of it; the door was on the wall. Instead, there were six suspicious looked holes in the wall. I tried not to pay too much attention to them, and turned back to the masked man.
"So how much was that Blacktail, again?" I asked, completely interrupting his and Leon's bargain.
He chuckled. "Twenty-four thousand, Stranga."
I emptied my pockets; six Spinels, and about thirteen thousand pesetas. "YES!" I exclaimed. I had enough for the gun, plus a thousand left over. I threw everything I had at the man, including the extra thousand, and held out my hands pleading "Gimmie gimmie gimmie gimmie gimmie gimmie…"
My two companions watched me with curiosity. "Here ya go, Stranga…" He gently placed them in my hands, and I gaped at it in awe… for about a second.
"OH MY GOD I FINALLY HAVE IT!" I was literally jumping up and down in place. Without thinking, I threw my arms around the first person I saw, which was Ashley. They both laughed.
"Is that gun really that great?" Leon asked.
I quickly let go and turned to face him. "That great? It's amazing! When fully upgraded, it has a reload speed of point-twenty-seven seconds!"
"Damn. That is a nice gun." He stated.
"I know right?"
After we sold my old gun, we continued walking down the hallway, and just as we were about to enter the door, I started coughing. There was this pain in my chest, it was completely unbearable. It was like coughing soothed it just a bit, but every cough made it burn even worse.
"Hey… you okay?" Leon asked me considerately.
I wasn't focusing on him; I was too distracted by the amount of blood in my hands. I never knew a person could cough up that much… my hands were drenched. Luis said the first sign of the parasite eggs was coughing up blood… Oh god.
My eyes grew wide. "Emily…?"
"No!" I don't know what came over me. I shoved Leon away and began sprinting forward. I don't know what I was running to or from, I was just running and it hurt.
"Emily, wait!" He shouted, but I kept running. Then all of the sudden spikes shot out of the floor and I stepped back just in time. I turned around and kept running, as more spikes shot up.
Finally, I reached the wall. My chest was aching and I just needed to breathe—
Then before I knew it, bars shot out from the holes in the wall, pinning me against it.
"Emily!"
"Oh my god, what's happening?" I shouted, just before the wall spun around, placing me in a new room.
"Don't worry; I'll get there as soon as I can!" I heard Leon shout from the other side.
"I-I'm sorry!" I shouted back, but I wasn't sure if he could hear me.
Huzzah! I'm finally done! :D Now, I swear I'll start the next one tomorrow! And yeah, I know.. we've heard that before… just bear with me on this one. Now, I have school tomorrow so I don't really have time to edit, but I'll do it tomorrow! So please review and tell me what you think! :D
