Author's Note:
WARNING: The faint of heart should skip this chapter.
Chapter 14:
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"Our guests are in need of a bit of fresh air. Why don't you take them to the Red Room so that they may have a change of scenery?" Colin grew what Alice could only call a vindictive smirk and she felt a cold shiver run down her spine. She didn't like the way the gorilla-man was smiling. Not one bit.
"Be me pleasure, Mistress!"
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As fate would have it, Alice was right.
She wishes she didn't know what the Red Room is.
The Gorilla-Man had dragged both her and her father out of their cell by the chains fastened to the cuffs on their arms, laughing to himself as they were forced through the dirt on the floor behind him. They had travelled to the very end of the Dungeon Hall to a rusty iron door with spiked bars where the window should have been.
Before the door was a woman who was dressed like an executioner with ferocious scars running down the left side of her face and a stump for a right arm. The scowl she gave them seemed to have been permanently burnt onto her face, but there was a twisted glee in her eyes that left Alice breathless with fear.
The bald woman pushed open the door and the Gorilla dragged them inside. There were no windows, only a small, barred, circular hole that would allow for a bit of sunshine and a bit of rain to seep through, on the centre of the roof. Other than that, the walls were lined with torches and the shadows they cast seemed to constantly grow and shrink in size.
The room itself was damp and Alice was certain it would have still been, even without the floor being covered in a layer of filthy water.
It smelled of rot and metal.
To the sides were rusted iron tables with all manners of tools spread across them. And Alice had jumped after hearing something crack only to realize with a shiver that an old bone had broken beneath her feet – and that the floor was covered in them. But worst of all were the people chained by their wrists as they hung from the ceiling at the far end of the room.
Blood flowed down their arms and legs in tiny streams, pooling on the ground below their feet. It was then that Alice realized with a start that the water layering the floor wasn't just filthy because of dirt – she was standing in a giant pool of thinning blood.
"Ransack the archives if you must, I must have that girl's information!" "But Mistress, we've searched everywhere-" "Then search again!" Elena lashed out at the quivering guard, pinning him to the table by driving her dagger through his hand. "Ahhhh!" "I don't care how long it takes. Find that scroll!"
He nodded vehemently and the moment she released him he ran out of the dungeon entrance as though the Jabberwocky itself were chasing him. The Sorceress let out a shrill scream and knocked everything off the table before leaning over it, panting in suppressed frustration.
She dragged her hands down from the top of the table, her nails tearing through the wood in a merciless attack, but when the sound of ripping paper reached her ears, she stopped and opened her eyes. Glued to the tabletop was a map of the castle – or at least of what it had been.
Once, in a time before she'd laid siege to it and assassinated the keeper in his sleep.
The edges of the map were now torn, the script that had once been visible, now both faded and illegible. But she knows what it says. The words haunt even her sweetest nightmares.
When evil thinks to have won; the child of two worlds shall bring hope anew.
Elena's green eyes bore into the old map, her eyes fiery with her anger as she tore it from the table surface, ripping it apart. "None can stop the darkness." She hissed, and fire suddenly sprung from her hands, the flames licking at the remains of the map, slowly burning it away...
"Milady?"
She turned with a scowl on her face, prepared to barbeque whoever it was that had dared interrupt her. She stopped short upon seeing her son, Shane, and his idiotically befuddled expression. "What is it?" She demanded, voice sharp. He stood up straighter, looking over her shoulder.
"I believe you should pay a visit to the throne room, Mistress." "Whatever for? Has Mirana and her lackeys come to give themselves up?" "The blade is gone." "What?" She thought she'd heard incorrectly, but then it started to sink in – and Shane wouldn't lie to her; he values his life too much to do that.
"What!" She was out the door before he could get so much as a word out. A million thoughts rushed through her mind – thousands of possibilities clashing together one after the other, un-endlessly overturning each other and starting new another. She flung open the throne room doors and marched inside only to come to a stop.
Where the Vorpal Blade had been imbedded into the floor after Elena's command for Alice to be seized – unable to be moved by her or any of her soldiers – now remained only the scar on the ground where the blade had effortlessly cut through the stone and thereby having entombed itself.
Shane was right. The Vorpal Blade is gone.
Elena could do nothing more than stand there, frozen in place as all her carefully constructed plans came crashing down around her; her years of scheming burning down and becoming little more than worthless ash. This girl was ruining everything. This Alice. Alice...
"Check the dungeons! The cells, the Red Room, everything!" Her guards jumped to attention, rushing off to do as told, having been frightened by her sudden outburst. She turned back to look at the floor and anger flooded her. "None can stop the darkness."
I know it's short... Please don't kill me for it! I need to decide how to ruin Elena's plan next...
– L.L.