Awakening Chapter Twenty One

For Disclaimer see Chapter One

Colour blinds

How can you see the bright light, without becoming snow-blind?

So, you don't, don't see the light.

Cause your lost in the night.

Do you fear the wolf?

Would you offer him your throat?

But what if you found yourself to be him?

The big bad wolf and not the lamb you expected to be?

Say, would you growl or cry?

Have you ever thought that little red riding hood might not be so innocent after all?

No? So keep be blinds closed and never find out the truth.

Oh, but denial doesn't change a thing….

Thirty seconds to midnight

"You're sure this is it?" Christine asked, feeling unsure about the place in front of her. The house looked kind of weird.

"Yeah, I am. " Heather said, slightly annoyed. "Come on, don't be such a chicken!" She ushered her forward, towards the entrance.

Christine took a hesitating step forward, into the house.

She blinked.

It was not what she had expected.

She was caught, caught into a kaleidoscope, a never-never land. It, this house it felt like she was Alice and had just passed the mirror.

But if she was Alice, where was her white rabbit? No, she had none - and Heather was already gone.

She was alone; Heather had left her alone. Christine could see her talking and flirting with one of the guys here. He looked handsome but not at all appealing to her. Christine shivered; that was a guy she definitely didn't want to meet on a dark street - alone. His smile, it was creepy; there were too many teeth in it. Just like a sharks smile it was.

Thankfully, he ignored her. "Why does Heather like this guy?" she wondered idle.

Christine sighed in relief, for she could see others also feeling as uncomfortable and shy as she did. But the others, they just looked cool - and sleek.

Heather had said this place would be cool - it was awesome; but it was frightening, too.

Yes, the music was good. She smiled and started dancing happily to it.

"Dance…" she thought to herself. "… but I dance alone."

Dancing, she did that was until her gaze met his.

Then she forgot dancing, forgot music forgot even the people around her, all but him. He was beautiful; there was no other word for him. Dark hair and pale moonlit skin; he was like ebony and ivory all in one person.

Christine believed not in fairytales, hadn't since a long time, but he seemed to be right out of one.

She stared at him - and wondered if some of them were true after all. He looked like one of those fairytale characters almost like an angel, um, maybe a fallen angel.

And this fallen angel he was walking right towards her. He was graceful, graceful like a dancer, an angelical dancer.

Then he began talking to her and everything blurred out. What could matter when this beautiful angel was talking to her?

He asked her her name -and she almost didn't get it past her lips.

Then there was a tiny moment Christine saw disappointment in his eyes but it vanished as fast as it appeared. "Didn't he like my name?" There wasn't anything wrong with Christine, was there?

"Nikolas, his name is Nikolas," she thought and repeated in her mind, almost like a mantra.

"May I have this dance?" He asked her, very politely.

All she could do was nodding, cause she was stunned, that he wanted to dance with her.

How old-fashioned of him, but Christine couldn't help but thinking it being very charming of him. She hardly heard herself saying yes. Where was her voice?

She couldn't find it so she simply nodded instead.

He was tall, dark and handsome; and he was dancing with her. She almost died from excitement, died in his arms.

She never knew how true that might have come.

Five minutes after midnight

"What are you doing?" Erinna asked in a slightly insecure voice. She tried to ignore the mess around her but was only partly successful.

"What do you think this looks like?" Ivory replied dryly. She continued searching the bodies. "There has to be something. Something that will tell us why they came here."

"I hope this is worth this." She ushered closer to the Triste while trying to stay away from these bodies as far as possible at the same time. "These," she added, pointing at the body, the Triste was searching. "Stink, they stink Ivory."

"They're corpses, Erinna. Do you expect them to smell like flowers?" Ivory snorted in return. Erinna was kind but sometimes really childish.

"I know that. And I hope you get what you're looking for." Erinna nodded.

"I hope. Well, at least I might find something about their identity." The Triste shrugged then stopped. She had found something. "Well, if this isn't something." She grinned.

"Here, take this Erinna." The Triste held a cell phone in her hand. "You never knew what these are good for."

Erinna took the phone and nodded. "It's on." Erinna grinned. "You think we can trace some of the numbers in these?" She asked hopefully.

"Yes, that is if there are any in this." Ivory replied with some doubt in her voice.

"Come, help me to get these outside." She added dryly. "We can't leave them here."

"N-no, of course not." Erinna agreed. "What are we going to do with them?"

"Burn them, what else?" Ivory snorted.

"Wouldn't that even smell worse than this?"

"Oh, yes it will." The Triste agreed but shook her head. "But there is no alternative to it. The soil is too hard to bury them."

"We could simply hide them in the snow, couldn't we?" Erinna queried. She definitely didn't like the idea of burning them.

"Then we would have to burn them later. It doesn't resolves anything. What if they are being searched?" She pointed at the bodies in front her. "I doubt very much that there aren't more where these have come from. They look like hired hitmen, assassins."

"Um, yes, I guess you're right." Erinna agreed hesitatingly. "What about this?" She fiddled with the cell phone in her hands. "Shouldn't I put this away safely?"

"Of course. I think it's best we look now if there are any numbers saved in this thing." Ivory gave the younger witch a knowing gaze, having noticed her unease at the situation. "And while you're at it, can you try to look if there are any numbers in its contacts?" She added.

"Okay, I can do that." Erinna replied and swallowed another uneasy breath. "'Won't you need me here?"

"Ah, no, I'll okay with this." Ivory smirked at the squirming younger witch. Oh, yes, Erinna wasn't fond of dead bodies at all. "Not that I'm all that happy about this, but it has to be done." She added silently.

Pale Dawn

Caryn had been running, running for most of the night. Her surroundings were still dark; dawn wasn't there yet. A thing she was glad about, for she feared the first rays of the rising sun. Because with the dawn things became real and she didn't wanted this to be real.

But of course, sooner or later the sun was bound to rise. Nobody could stop the sun from rising

She tried to close her eyes, trying to shut it out, the light. But she could feel them, just behind the horizon. It was there, just behind these tall trees, behind the next mountain, the light of it, of the dawn. It was seeping through the threes around her, painting a strange picture made up of white, black and haunting shadows. The shadows danced from the light to the dark and back, always moving, never standing still. Some were slow and some were swift, just an idea of reality, of something that might be.

The light, it held the promise of a wonderful day; so why did the light held no warmth to her?

Why did she feel like someone had stolen her dawn, her light?

Like some evil deity had cursed her?

Why had she been so weak?

She dimly noticed the approaching dawn; it was becoming brighter now, taking away the subtle shades of grey and creating an image of black and white. Just like her world had been.

But now all she could see was only an endless mass of grey nothing- but no colours, no life.

There was no colour here, just emptiness, so very like the vast endless cold white ice around her.

It was cold, so very cold, bright but without warmth.

Just like her heart felt right now: cold and empty. Her world was a white, endless blazing white thing, an ocean of ice and snow shining brightly under a sun, which held no warmth to her.

It was blinding her, burning her with its blazing glory.

Glory, which didn't do anything to calm that pain inside.

She wished it to go away, wished that this never had happened.

"Foolish Caryn. You could wish for the stars fall down to earth."

It was foolish to run from yourself, but she couldn't deal with it, couldn't handle the anguish on their faces. It was unbearable; all she wanted was for it to disappear.

She was no longer running. No instead, she was walking; she walking like a sleepwalker, except she was not asleep. And like a sleepwalker Caryn did not see where her steps led her.

Her steps, they were slow, she didn't really care anymore.

Her feet, they were bare, but she didn't feel them sinking in into almost knee-deep snow, didn't feel shards of ice underneath the snow.

She felt frozen; but the burning inside hadn't left either. She could feel it in her veins, scorching her like nothing ever had before. She didn't know what was worse: the freezing cold or the all-consuming fire.

She stared right out into the white nothingness around her. It was all white on white – not a single colour to see. "Bare of life," she thought, looking longingly at the white curtains of snow at the lake's shore. It was white - and not red. She cringed and fell to her knees.

"Red," she whispered hoarsely. "It was so red." She hugged herself in helpless anguish.

The white in front her, it remained her of his pale face - afterwards, just as lifeless as the ice.

She sank down on her knees.

She dove her hands into the snow, letting them sink in. For a moment she closed her eyes to enjoy the soft cold feeling on her hands. It was distracting her from her pain - just for a moment.

"So cold - and soft." She muttered.

It was snow but it looked like a blanket ready to comfort her, to make the burning pain go away, maybe even forever.

But the frozen fire remained. It remained, the ice cold, was still burning inside.

Fire over a lake of ice. So much ice but the fire was so very strong, too strong to make it go away. So, why did she feel so cold?

She couldn't make it stop, instead it had consumed her, burning brightly.

It had robbed her of her innocence; had it taken her life as well?

"I have to be stronger than this," she murmured, "stronger than the flames." No, she was weak, and desperation was getting the better of her; so dark, so strong.

"Dear Gods, so tempting. It had been so tempting."

She felt nausea burning its way up, once again. It felt like her body was being torn apart as well. "What is happening?" She fell down onto the snow beneath her, gripping her stomach.

"Why did it have to hurt this much?"

Broken, something had been broken. She herself? Her humanity? Anyway she had no idea how to put it back together.

Pain, there was an icy pain deep in her soul.

Yet, she had tried, tried to run away from it. But it was useless, because it was inside.

It was useless, because she had carried it with her, all the miles up to here.

She felt frozen. She covered her face with her hands.

She shook in a helpless fit of hysterical laughter. "Frozen, I feel like frozen and yet I'm burning with fever."

"What have I done?" She kept asking herself, again and again.

Everything seemed to turn out so well. "Why did it have to fell apart?" she thought bitterly.

And now she sat next to the old oak by the sea of ice, which made up Winter Lake. It looked to her like an ocean made of ice, Winter Lake was vast and the snow at its shore did the rest. Everything was blurred into each other – and all was white.

All but the trees – they were shadows trapped in this white cage.

Like she had been trapped.

Ice, ice and snow were all around her. It was winter here -- and inside her soul. She was - had been a healer. What was she now?

She didn't know anymore.

"What I am? Who I am?" she asked the frozen waters in front of her.

She had asked this questions before.

Then it had been okay.

Now, it wasn't, nothing was.

"Why?" She screamed.

She got no answer, only an echo, of course. But inside the echo went on and on and on.

Only one word, why?

Caryn had fled into the forest, up to the lake. Away from the house, away from that place of horror their safe place had become.

But what did that matter when the horror waits inside?

She sank down into the snow, looking very much like a still doll in the snow.

So, what do you think?

Please review, I'd like to hear your thoughts.