Sandry's POV:
It wasn't until I heard Tris gasp that I realized that someone other than her and myself were in the alleyway. Eyes wide, I felt myself swallow thickly before turning sharply on my heels.
A dark contrast of man stood in front of me, his shoulders broad and important looking. I shouldn't have been alarmed, if it had been anyone but him, I wouldn't have been alarmed. But, there was something about him. Something that made my insides scream in alertness, in trepidation.
He approached me quickly, faster than I had thought humanly possible. I managed to stumble backwards, looking at him in terror. I wanted to do something, run, scream, shout, tell somebody that there was a man attacking me, but my throat felt like cotton and my limbs like lead. I looked quickly at the ground, to find, to my horror, Tris squirming in silent pain.
The man didn't speak or tell me to not struggle. Instead, he pulled out something behind his back. It looked like a ordinary cloth, except that it glowed of neon magic. If circumstances had been altogether different, I would have wished to have examined it. But, of course, this wasn't the time nor place to do so.
Fast as lightening, he attempted to place the cloth over my face. I staggered backward, nearly tripping over my dress. I wanted to tell him off, to get away, but all I could manage was a sick sounding whimper. The man didn't speak, but simply chuckled deeply in his throat. I stumbled back a few more steps before finding myself cornered against a mess of crates and concrete wall.
Watching in dread, the man came closer to me before covering my face with his cloth. I grabbed the man's wrists, trying to pry the awful cloth away from me, but a sudden wash of images invaded my entire conscious. I grimaced, feeling my body go limp. The things that were displayed in front of my mind were horrific. . . people dying, a young boy being beaten by a street guard, a woman screaming. I felt their pain, like nails digging sharply in my flesh. I felt something that felt like whip come across my back making me let out a pained scream.
My body was getting weaker and weaker by the second. It felt like I had seen the images for forever before darkness started to edge my vision. I fell to my knees, still trying to wrench the cloth from my face. It felt as if someone had dunked me underwater and was holding me there, to suffocate. To die.
A blissful nothing-ness was calling me. My eyelids felt heavy as lead, and my head pounded with pain. I wanted the images to go away, and the darkness that nearly surrounded me offered my escape from these things. I gingerly licked my lips, about to fall away from consciousness, but a thought suddenly hit me like a smack in the face.
Briar. I had to tell Briar. He could help. . . he could make these awful things go away.
Reaching into myself, I called out to him. Briar. . .
It took a few seconds before he responded. Sandry. . .? What's going on?
I had little time to respond. Instead, I sent him a sharp feeling of pain, hoped he could understand why, before falling to the ground and severing the connection abruptly.
I knew little else for a very long time.
__________________________
"Sandry," Someone whispered harshly at me, their voice piercing through my blissful unconsciousness. Moaning, I turned away from them, reaching out for the numbing darkness that was fluttering away from me by the second.
"Sandry," it said again, this time more demanding, "wake up! Will you wake up?!" The person hit me roughly in the shoulder, and the darkness started to rush away like I was leaving a long tunnel, funneling into light.
The first thing that I became aware of was the tremendous pounding in my head. It throbbed painfully throughout my brain, churning mercilessly like a steel drum, pounding every few seconds. I groaned in agony, but the person next to me showed no pity.
"Will you get up? For Mithros sake. . ." I recognized the voice now that I was fully conscious. Tris.
And then I remembered the man, the images, and contacting Briar.
I quickly sat up, my head objecting to this action. Gasping down the pain, I reached up to my forehead. It felt as if someone had chopped my skull into tiny splinters.
"Ow. . ." I mumbled, tears collecting on the sides of my eyes. My whole ached terribly, and I couldn't feel my toes for they were so damp and cold at the same time. Swallowing, my throat felt like cotton, heavy and thick, and it burned like fire. I wanted nothing more than to close my eyes again and enter to a blissful nothingness, but I was faced with an obstacle.
Tris.
She was at my side at a second, pushing me up against a damp wall, trying to sturdy me. Her voice was persistent and annoying in my ear, and at first, I couldn't seem to make her words into comprehensible sentences. But slowly, as the pain in my head started to ease to a simple throbbing ache, I could manage some of what she was telling me.
"Sandry, can you hear a word I'm saying? Holy Great Mother, what did that man do to you anyway?!" She was pressing something cold and wonderful against my forehead. I could hear the anger stewing in her voice, boiling over in her words. Tris was steaming; at what I wasn't quite sure.
After a moments thought, I threw caution to the wind and popped open
an eye. It burned for a mere second before it adjusted to the light--
thankfully there was little of it. I dared to open the second one,
squinting at first, more or less in fear of pain, but after a few seconds
of minimal anguish, I started to observe my surroundings.
I could see I was in what looked like a large underground chamber.
The entire wall of was made of glittering stone, roughly but sturdily cut.
The only light in the entire room was firelight, burning brightly from
large torches on the wall, hung by brass holders. A rather large
desk stood in the middle of the room. It looked expensive, made of
the rare wood found in the far reaches of the western sea. I believe
they call it pine. Numbers of papers were stacked on the desk, looking
unorganized but in the same way professional. Me and Tris were laying
on the ground, but a thin cotton blanket was separated us from the damp
cold floor.
Blinking hazily, as everything seemed to have a glassy aura around it, I glanced up at Tris. In her hand she held a cloth, ripped from the dress I had made her. It dripped of dank water. The entire chamber dripped of water. I could barely see her, for the lack of light in the room, but she was definitely there. Her face was livid, and I would have laughed had our predicament been better.
I glanced around our surroundings once again, as if in stupid disbelief, before muttering, "Where. . . where in Mithros' name are we?"
Looking back up at Tris, I watched as she followed my observations of the chamber. Her eyebrows were scrunched together, confused and angry at the same time. Finally, after a minute's silence she shook her head. "I don't know, Sandry. I just don't know."
I bit my lip when I heard her say this. If I had been much younger I would have started to cry, but awakening in strange places was not new to me. I doubted Tris was feeling much more in despair. Instead, our cringes of brow were more or less in frustration than in desperation.
The coldness in my toes had been quite annoying by the time I finally decided to stand up. I figured that walking would help get the blood flowing to them again, maybe providing some extra warmth.
As I stood up, I immediatly regretted this. A wave of nauseating blackness edged on the sides of my vision. Groaning, I closed my eyes, felt my head spin, before I put out a hand against the wall to help steady me.
"Woah. . . hmm. . ." I grumbled, feeling my stomach roll in protest to my actions. I could hear Tris stand up next to me, knowing her eyes were boring into me and then into the doorway.
"Damn that man," she paused in thought, before adding, "or whatever It is."
I swallowed thickly, feeling my throat burn painfully. Looking around the room, I pivoted on my head around so that I was leaning against the wall on my back. Blinking away my the pain in my eyes, I shook my head and squinted. The way the walls were built seemed vaguely familiar, like something I had once read about, or once heard about. Wherever I had heard it, it didn't bring pleasant memories to my head. Instead, a shiver went up my spine.
Turning to Tris, I looked around the room. "Do you remember any of us coming down here?" I asked, placing my hand against the rough stone cutting, taking mental notes.
"Nope," she replied shortly, before stating, "I just woke up a little bit before you did." She shrugged her shoulders.
Biting the inside of my cheek, I rubbed the back of my neck. It felt as if I had tied into a thousand different knots. Even though Tris and I were in a dark, strange room, our compositions were fairly calm and measured, or at least as well as conditions could allow. I smiled crookedly. We had gotten ourselves in worse situations. Often, no thanks to Briar.
Briar. My smile became broader. I had managed to get contact with him before me and Tris had become captured. . . or whatever we were. I had found my loophole. Concentrating, I started to contact him.
Briar. . .
Then something slammed, like a huge wall of bricks. The contact between me and him came down crashing with a large bang. For a mere second I thought I might have gotten through to him, but the large barrier blocked out any light on that idea whatsoever. A shiver ran through my entire body, making my eyes water in complete despair. There was something so chilly and blank and. . . infinite about that wall.
When the connection severed, it left a ringing through my eyes that could not be explained. Yelping I covered them, feeling then throb in pain. Pulling back, I stared at the hand that had covered my left ear. It was spotted with blood.
"Did you try to contact someone?" Tris asked, her voice sounding very uneventful and unconcerned.
Tears welling on my eyes, I simply nodded in reply.
I heard her sigh. "Yeah, I've already tried. As you already know, it doesn't really work." She showed me her hand, and I stared at it with blurred vision. It was covered in blood, much worse than mine. Knowing Tris, she had most likely screamed at someone, making the barrier much worse than it already was.
"Why. . . why?" I uttered, still holding my injured ears. They were burning like fire now.
Tris shrugged before she slumped down against the wall. "I don't know." I saw her fold her hands across her chest. "It probably has something to do with our whole situation," Tris paused before I saw her shake her head. "But something about it is so. . . lonely." She shook again, except this time it was her entire body.
Yes, lonely. That was the first adjective in describing the wall. So terribly lonely, as if the walls of death had come staring at you. It felt as if Briar had suddenly taken to fever and died, and I was completely alone, which was totally absurd. I had Tris standing right next to me, in my presence. Yet, it felt as if my soul had been wrenched from my body, leaving me naked, cold and afraid. To never hear his voice again, to never straighten his forever upturned collar, to never scold him for being a nuisance, to never tease him and then he smile crookedly at me seemed the same as death to me. Or, what was even worse, to never feel the pleasant warmth I felt when around him. . . I shook my head. It didn't matter. I was not alone. Briar was not dead. Shaking my head, I convinced myself I was thinking utter nonsense.
Knitting my eyebrows together, I thought aloud. "Well, for right now, we'll just to have to ignore the separation. I managed to contact Briar while we were being attacked, so I think he might get here in. . ."
"You were able to get through!" Tris sat up, looking at me in surprise.
Reeling back, I studied her carefully. "Yes. . . " I said slowly, hoping that she had heard right. "Yes, I contacted Briar."
She seemed to relax, but a look of perplexity was still on her face. "How you can ever just think," she said, "while that was happening, I'll never know." She said something after that, but I didn't catch it, although I think it had something to do with Briar. I was too busy thinking.
My thoughts were immediately brought back to my struggle in the alley, and the dark footsteps that eventually conquered my consciousness. I remembered the horrible images that invaded my very spirit, like someone had put a large wet washcloth every hope and dream that had ever occurred to me. I saw the child being beaten, the whip hitting his back over and over again, his anguished face. And then I saw something horrific that the boy clutched in his right hand. A bright purple necklace, looking shimmery and glittery before it was stained with the child's own blood.
I gasped, my eyes snapping open. Panting for air, as if I had just come out of water, I wheezed desperately, looking around my surroundings. There was still a large desk in the middle of the room, still lighted by the dim torch light.
And then there was that terrible glorious smell that permeated the entire room. I could not describe it then, but to my feeble mind it reminded me of something that disturbed my very soul. The whole chamber reeked of both a stifling lavender and . . . death. The offensive smell of blood reached my nostrils, and the bitter smell of the lavender made my eyes water even more than they already were. Yet, in the same way, it smelled holy. Very holy.
I was still gasping when I locked eyes with Tris. Her stormy gray eyes were glittering and full of emotion, as they often are. We held a small conversation right there, but as if that did not suffice, we held the most productive conversation that I had ever had.
"Did you, you know. . . also?" I asked, muttering my words.
"Yes," Tris replied stiffly.
"Should we. . .?"
"Yeah, we should."
With that, we both ran in a dead sprint towards the door, which was to the left of us. Both of our thoughts were the exact same. We were going to get out of here as fast as we possibly could, even if it meant a few obstacles.
We both reached the door handle at the same time, and our hands had to readjust to fit around the huge handle, which was formed in an iron loop. At the same time we heaved and pulled, trying to force the door on its hinges. It didn't budge. We tried again. Nothing happened. Then, planting my foot firmly on the ground and grasping the doorknob, we gave it a last try. I heard Tris grunting as we pulled. I felt my muscles ache in frustration, but I ignored it. I simply pulled harder.
It didn't work.
Letting go, I stared in dismay at the door. Biting my lip, I huffed. "It's not budging ," I stated plainly, feeling a little more desperate.
Tris looked at me, her eyes squinted. Folding her arms across her chest, she rolled her eyes, "I'm so glad I've got you around to tell me these things," she bit in sarcastically, before biting her lip also.
I glared at her accusingly before staring at the door. It was large and wooden, looking it like weighed at least several hundred pounds without the heavy doorknob. Even though Tris had a great deal of muscle and I probably had the most calloused hands in the Kingdom of Nidra from my countless hours of stitching, there was probably little chance of making the door move.
Sighing, I folded my arms, surveying our situation. I ground my
teeth before turning to Tris. "Should we give it another try?"
She sighed also before shrugging. "I don't think we've got very
many options." With that, she spit on her hands before grabbing hold
of the doorknob. I followed her example before I counted down.
"On three. . . One, Two, Three!" And we pulled. We pulled until I think both of our muscles groaned in utter agony. Inbetween my teeth, I muttered, "How do we get into these things, Tris?"
"I dunno! Just keep pulling!"
With our last breaths and last power, we gave the door one more mighty tug. And, for a mere breath of a second, I thought we had succeeded. The door suddenly buckled, as if a rusted screw had snapped, and swung open. I was thrown backwards, on my backside, bruising it for sure. Tris was not thrown back, but she stumbled on her steps before insuring steady footing. She looked excitingly at our exit before her face dropped.
I was about to yelp out in joy, but when I saw Tris' face, I clamped my mouth shut. Staring at the door, all I saw were a pair of shiny, black leather boots. Squinting, I stared upwards, past a pair of finely wooden silk britches, with a leather strip down the side of the thigh. Above the britches was a engraved leather belt, in which a cotton shirt was tucked into. A thick, wool, navy cape came to about mid calf, and a embroidery surrounded the entire edge of the cape. I had almost admired the fine clothes he was wearing when I saw the face of the man.
I stopped and gaped.
Tris' mouth opened, no words came out. She opened it again before nearly yelling in surprise, "You!"
A salt and pepper beard and stern, oddly handsome face greeted me in a wry smile. . .
"I should've known!" Tris exclaimed again, before her eyes squinted dangerously, "I saw you in the marketplace!"
A stiff jaw and piercing eyes. He stared at me intently. . .
I closed my mouth and pursed my lips stiffly. "How do you do, Earl Heold?" I greeted, trying to make my voice sound as icy as possible.
"How do you do, Lady Sandrilene?" He greeted me back, with a slight nod of the head. "I believe we have a meeting scheduled now, if I am not mistaken."
"You are not mistaken." My lips were pursed so hard together that they hurt.
"Then let us sit: We have much to discuss."
And we sat.
Author Notes: Yeah, well, DO THE HOKEY POKEY! Er, not working. . . you guys are pretty pissed off at me right? I haven't updated for awhile. I'M SORRY!! I REALLY, REALLY, AM! I have a busy life peoples (er, sorta). Forgive me please. Crossing A Blurred Line's next chapter will be out sometime, I promise. I have not forgotten the dear story. And this story is not forgotten, I promise. Anywho, review this please. Pweety pwease? Thanks a billion people for being patient. It is much appreciated.
BTW, is everyone okay with this story turning a little dark? I was trying to move away from that, but little plot bunnies keep popping up in my head and won't go away. Well, we'll see. MWHAHA! **Coughs. . . gags**