Right… Here we go! Here is the next chapter… I'm sorry for taking soooo long to update…I have had musical dress rehearsal and performances along with a HUGE Humanities Project (Art Critique)… lots of fun, but anyways… I'm sorry for the swanky bit so far… I think I might bump it up to R… 'tis just to racy… but there shouldn't be much more wrong… maybe ONE more teeny weenie thing…haven't decided if I like it or not yet… but here we go…
Chapter Thirteen
I felt my heart rip apart every time I took a step with James near me. I wanted to jump at him and rip every limb off his body, but I couldn't. Every time we entered a room, a voice whispered in my mind, saying, "Don't kill him… Not yet… wait until the end…" I was not scared I had gone crazy… I had been crazy since I was fifteen.
We soon entered a new chamber that was so full of heat that my hair instantly turned wet. I looked at Jack, and saw his hair was flat and wet as well. James hair had done so as well, but it was not as obvious in his hair because his hair was so disgustingly greasy. I felt a heavy pressure on my chest, and soon found a giant statue looming in front of me.
It looked like a giant, heavyset man, wearing no shirt, sitting with its legs crossed. It had six arms, three on each side, each with its hands extended out to rest on the ground. Each hand seemed to welcome me to cross onto it. Jack made a move to one of them, but I held out my arm. "Do not cross onto the arm that feels right to you," I felt myself saying. I looked at the stone wall, and found writing on it, carved in.
Il est le prémier labyrinthe. Trouver la juste pathe, suivez ton couer. Ton couer est connu la pathe.
(This is the first "maze". To find the correct path, follow your heart. Your heart will know the path.)
I suddenly felt a tugging at my heart. It felt peculiar, yet, it didn't hurt. I looked down at my breast, where my heart is, and I saw a gaping hole. I placed my hand over my heart, and felt no beat. I looked up at the necklace, and suddenly found it floating, and holding my heart within its depths. I could just barely see a slight red dot in it. The necklace started to float, and I followed it, almost as if I was in a trance. I tripped over something, and fell to the ground, but I did not care. All I cared about was following that diamond.
~Jack and James' POV~
They saw her suddenly look down at her chest, and feel her heart, but nothing seemed wrong. She suddenly looked up at the mid-air, contatining nothing, and started to follow something invisible. Jack looked at James for a split second, and then started to cautiously follow Katherine.
Katherine turned around briefly and said, in a toneless voice, "Follow me…" They did so, feeling very confused and worried. Jack watched her very carefully, and noticed that she wanted to touch something invisible in the air, but she never moved.
Katherine's POV~
I kept watching the diamond, as it floated towards the farthest tunnel to the left. I found it closed. I looked up at the diamond and said, "Ah, very clever. I see what you are doing…"
Jack looked at Katherine and back at the tunnel. There was an opening just waiting for them. But, if Katherine did not go, he would not. And why was she talking to herself?
I followed it, past every single tunnel, until we reached the last one. It was the farthest right hand. The diamond started to float up the arm. I followed it, not watching where I stepped. We made it up to the back of the statue and found another obstacle waiting for us.
This one seemed even more perilous than the other did. I read the writing on the wall and found that it said:
This is the test of your intelligence and ability to reason. This obstacle has seven paths. All are similar in looks, but one is the one that can lead you across. Neither end is your friend, but do not shy from them entirely. The farthest middle, and left two more cannot help you on your way, and you shall die on your footstep. The one between is not perilous to your life, but you shall not get to where you want from it. Second to the middle, and friend to the farthest right, may seem wisest and kindest to thee, but it will lead you to a pit of hell. Now choose wisely, and do not linger long on any.
I stared at the wall for several minutes. I could hear James getting very impatient. He finally yelled, "Goddammit Katherine! Are you suddenly falling in love with this damn wall, or are we getting a move on anytime soon?"
I turned around at glared at him. "Shut the hell up James! For your information, this wall is holding all the information you need to get farther into the cave and closer to the treasure. So just shut up!" He walked up to me and slapped me hard. I could feel my stomach boiling, and my hand itching to reach the knife in my shoe, but the voice came in my head again, telling me to wait until the end.
"There isn't anything on that wall at all Katherine! You're imagining things. Good lord, first its seeing something even slightly remotely attractive in that horse's arse over there, and now its writing on a wall?! What even will happen to you when we are wed!" James stomped off, and leaned up against the wall. He lit a pipe, and started to smoke. Jack just stood, between James and me, closer to me, restraining himself from strangling James.
It hit me suddenly. I crouched to the ground, and used my finger to draw out a small diagram. I X-ed out every path that didn't work, and finally realized which one it was. I counted from the left how many it was, and counted on the actual paths which one it was. I walked to the path four from the left, and two from the right, and walked down it, feeling James breathing down my neck. I whipped around to look at him, and said, "Get yer goddam breath off my neck."
He looked at me and said, sharply, and cruelly, "Just for that, we'll have to torture you're love some more." We had just made it off the path, and we were walking down another tunnel type thing. The torches placed all the way down the hall lit every time we were near to one.
He pushed me up against the wall and kissed me again. This one was more poison than the other, because I knew that Jack was feeling more pain every time. I pushed him off of me and said, "If you want that damn treasure, you better hurry along and stop messing around."
He leaned right up against me, and bit my ear. Then he whispered, "I haven't begun to mess around, my dear…" He laughed evilly in my ear and started to walk some more. I felt my stomach clench, both with anger and fear, and my throat bunched up in pain. I wanted to cry, but I knew I couldn't. He was waiting for the moment when I did and then he could do what he wanted to do for years.
Jack walked up behind me, and whispered in my ear, "I will throttle him in his sleep if he touches you again." I nodded. About an hour of walking down the endless hall, we arrived in a new room. I peered into the room, and expected another obstacle, but didn't find one.
But, the moment I stepped into the room, my sight went black, and I couldn't hear Jack and James any more. But a new image came over my sight and my body.
~Katherine's Vision~
The woman was bent over, screaming in pain. Her face, what little could be seen, was skrewed up in the pain. She had burning ropes all over her body. A man stood over her, laughing, his laugh chilling to the very fire that tortured the woman.
"You see what happens when a woman tries to avoid helping me… Now, you are paying the price of your stupidity!" he howled. He pulled a red-hot poker out of an fire in the room, and walked up to the woman slowly.
She whipped her head up, revealing a face of hidden beauty. She was once beautiful, but this torture had taken it away, and killed it. Her face, red with anger and tears, was shining with sweat. Several cuts lined her face, bleeding the crimson tide onto her white shirt. She snarled at him, breathing deeply, her eyes filled with more tears of pain.
He started to prod her with the iron, leaving it there long enough for it to take effect on her.
Another image flashed across her face. This one, hit her very close to home.
A man, with a tight fitting beard was pushed up to a wall, where he was chained with very long chains. A man pulled a lever down, stretching the man's body. He cried silently with pain. Tears ran down his face as he started to talk to himself, muttering names.
"NOW WHERE IS THE DAMN DIAMOND?" a man screeched, whipping the man on the chain object.
"I don't know, dammit!" he yelled.
"Fine…" A man walked out of the shadows. It was James Gibson. He held a knife that glimmered in the moonlight. "You will not talk, I will kill you."
"I knew it all along that you would kill me. That's why I sent the diamond out of your grasp, for ever!" the man being tortured said. James slowly walked up to him. He grabbed the man's chin, and lowered the knife to his throat.
"It is such a shame to say good-bye to a man of your stature. Good-bye…brother. Go up to Heaven, and tell mama I won't be coming soon…" He slit the man's throat. The man being tortured said, slowly and shakily: "Katherine, pardon me for no there…"
A third and final image flashed across Katherine's eyes.
There was a giant fire, gaping, striving to eat again. There was a giant long with five feet of strong chain sitting next to it. James walked up to Katherine and Jack. "One of you must die, in order for the other to go unharmed…" Jack looked at Katherine.
He walked her up to a wall, and whispered in her ear, "I can promise you'll be saved if I die. But if you are to die, you cannot promise me if I'll be saved." He placed his lips on hers, giving his heart to her, and he walked away. In her hand, she felt something cold and hard. In her hand was a box. The box had the words: Forever Amour. She opened it, and inside was a compass. She looked at him.
Jack mouthed the words: To find my heart with. He walked up to James, and was chained to the log. Katherine pushed against the wall, feeling her heart snap into five million pieces. Her tears came out, flooding her face. Her body shook as she watched her one true love die for her.
A voice filled Katherine's head, saying, "This is what happened with James, and what he plans to do. It shall not happen, unless you are to attack him before his time. Do not strike yet…"
~End of Vision~
I snapped out of my vision, my hatred for James the strongest I had ever felt. I looked at James, and said, so softly, "You are my Uncle…" James whirled around, and slapped me. "Where in hell's name did you get that?"
"MY father told me… When he gave his life for me…" I said. I stood up slowly, careful not to let my actions go wild, and walked on, deeper and deeper into the cave. We entered another room, and then, we found the treasure.
~*~*~*~
Authors Note: ALMOST THERE! Next chapter, and those of you awaiting a timely expiration to James just may get it! *Wink* But in order to get this, you must review! Thank you much!