A/N: I don't know how to introduce this chapter, you'll just have to read it for yourself…

Chapter 5

Sealed Rooms

The room was closed, no windows, no doors, nothing that would ever lead out of it...there was no light within the room…save for what emanated from her. She was glowing bright enough for her to see where she stood and where she walked, yet it was not enough for her to light the entire room.

"Helles, can you hear me?" she thought, conjuring an image of the boy, imagining him right there with her, "I hope you do…"

Tears sprang in her eyes as she reached out to the beloved image, touching his hair and imagining the silken strands between her fingers.

"Vali…how about you? Do you hear me? I miss you too…" another image sprang forth…an illusion so beloved and welcome in her loneliness. "I wanted to see you…"

Her hand reached out to touch the other boy's face, and in her illusion, she could almost feel the warmth of him, the smooth feel of his skin.

It was hard to control herself—wishing to hold them close, but unable to. She wiped the tears from her eyes and began to walk away, dropping back from her dreams…

She wandered aimlessly, stopping when she came to one of the four walls of the room, and as she reached out to touch it…a crackle of magical power seared her flesh. But she did not flinch, slowly she watched the wound heal…saw her flesh regenerate…saw how the burn left, no mark, no scar, no sign that it had ever been there.

The hair at the back of her neck pricked, and she felt growing dread within her…a dark energy flowed within the room, and she shivered from knowing the hour of torture was to begin again…over and over…until she screamed out in pain…

By instinct, she turned to see hazed images…slowly taking form…Dark Frames—monsters made of mirrors and glass. They did not harm her, did not even attack. The faces in the two mirrors were smiling at her evilly, as though eager to see her suffer…to mirror what her fear looked like when they were through with her. They were her curse.

"Please don't…" she begged, and began to run. Hands emerged from the frames of the creatures, each of them took one of her arms, binding her, "I won't look! I won't! I won't anymore! Please!"

The ghostly faces on the Dark Frames on either side of her smiled, and those same faces hazed and became distorted…changing, becoming more human than ghost-like. She started to sob…"I don't want to see them…no more…I beg you…" she cried, "I don't want the pain anymore…I don't want to see them that way!"

The images in the dark frames grew clear…almost as though they were real…each contour of their faces were clearly defined, each feature distinct from their eyes to each strand of their hair…as though they came directly from her dreams and illusions of them in her loneliness…Helles…Vali…

Each frame showed one person…two men tired and exhausted, their eyes wild, their voices hoarse from screaming, their clothes shred and tattered…dried blood staining their cloaks and bodies.

As the men screamed and shouted from pain and exhaustion…she screamed from pain within…

………………….

A sealed room—his coffin.

He was dying…again. The exhaustion gripped at him, and he swung his sword at the undead monsters before him. They came from a portal that never ceased from sending him the creatures.

The undead monsters…zombies, ghouls, and their kind flocked to him. Their mouths gaped horribly, revealing teeth that reeked of fester; their mouths were almost detached from their jaws, secured only by rotting remnants and tendons of flesh.

They came close to him…their arms, stiff from death reached out to him, clutching at his armor, trying to strip it away from him.

Their jaws clamped down on parts of him that were left unprotected by his armor, and he gritted his teeth to stop from yelling. Blood spurted from his wounds, while the undead creatures licked it up like an elixir.

His eyes grew dim, and he was dying…his vision blurred, then grew dark…he was slipping into death,

"Vali! Vali!" the voice was shrill and terrified,

"Rune…" he thought, and slowly life poured back into him.

The creatures feasting on him were thrown back by a blinding light that melted their rotting flesh from their bones upon contact.

A dark frame appeared before him…showing him the image of a girl…she was crying again, he could not hear what she said…but he knew that she was calling out to him.

"Rune!" he shouted, lashing out at the ghouls and zombies surrounding him. Slashing his way through them…trying to reach the portal from which they came from.

He was close…the portal was within his reach. The dark frame showed him her images, her face broken with anguish, she had closed her eyes tightly, as though something terrified her.

"It will happen again…" he told himself, as he moved closer to the portal. He grit his teeth and moved forward, forgetting his resolve never to try reaching the portal again, to block out her voice from reaching him…to stop giving him hope and life, only to send him back to death.

He was a foot away from the portal when it began to shrink, to slowly disappear…he never reached it…

The undead monsters began to attack him again. He slumped to the floor, his body exhausted from fatigue…for an immortality of battle that never ended and will continue forever. But as he felt the cold stone beneath him and the hilt of his sword in one hand, he was not thinking of his curse…

A sheer helplessness ate from within him…

"Rune…" Vali whispered brokenly, "I'm sorry…"

……………………

He was chained and shackled in a dark room. The metal cuffs that bound him at his wrists and ankles were cold and grimy with moss and other fungus. He was like a caged animal…bars held him within his room, but only darkness was seen from beyond it…he had nothing to look forward to, he only waited to die…to end his curse.

Suddenly a dark frame appeared before him.

He shut his eyes tightly at first, and opened to see the ghost-like face within the mirror, it was smiling.

The frame disappeared…and was replaced by a small girl, not more than four, holding tightly to a yoyo doll, "Helles, let's play…" she coaxed, he smiled as he watched her play with her doll, tossing it into the air and catching it. Her laughter was music, and she ran towards him…holding out the doll…"Helles, you can be the papa!" she smiled,

"What about Vali? What's he going to be?" he asked, playing with the girl,

"He's papa too…" she answered candidly,

The image vanished…only to be replaced with a beautiful young girl in a dress. "Helles! Let's dance!" she invited, holding out her arms out to him.

Helles chuckled and reached out to her…suddenly he stopped himself. "No! I won't! I can't!"

The girl looked saddened, "Come on, Helles…are you mad at me?"

"No, I'm not…it's just that…I can't…" but his chains vanished, the shackles from his ankles disappeared into thin air.

"You can dance, cant you Helles?" she insisted, as she took his hands and placed it surely on her waist. There was no music, but she held fast to him and danced to a tune that was never there…silence.

He was holding her tight now, his arms encircled around her. "Aesir Rune…I…" he began,

"Helles, you won't hurt me, right?" she asked, leaning her head against his chest.

"I won't…" he answered,

"Really?" she asked again, looking up at him.

"I won't…" he answered surely, suddenly she jumped away from him. "Rune, what's happening!"

"You won't hurt me right?" she asked, fear in her eyes.

Suddenly, he felt something in his grip, something familiar…a cold metal hilt…

His body began to move…his feet moved in the direction of the girl. A pulse of adrenaline pumped through his entire body, filling him with unwanted strength. His mind screamed to stop…but he had no will over himself,

"Rune, get away from me!" he ordered, as his body moved towards her…

"You won't hurt me right?" she smiled, looking at him trustingly, never leaving her place.

"No! I won't do this again!" he said, searching for control…but his arm raised itself…the dagger seemed to glow with its own light, and thrust itself into the girl's chest. "No! This can't be happening again!" he screamed, feeling the warmth of her blood on his face, on his body, on his hands…

The pain and horror never left his face. Once again, he was back in chains. The girl was on the other side of the prison—dying.

The dark frame appeared once again to him.

"Let me help her! She's dying!" he screamed, pulling his chains, reaching out to her. His wrists were bleeding from the cuts of his metal bonds, yet still, he could not reach her.

He was screaming—the guilt was consuming him, and he ignored the blood from his own…he could no longer tell what was his, and what was hers…they were still blood…marks of his own guilt…

He lost his chains again, and the girl's image appeared again—clean and unstained by blood…alive once again.

"You won't hurt me right?"

He moved away from her, knowing what he was to do again…the same dagger appeared in his hands, and he closed his eyes, feeling his body move without his control.

They came over and over again, images of her…alive and happy…and the same thing happened…he was screaming wildly now. He thrust and swung his dagger at images of her until he was bathed in her blood…it was only then he was back in his shackles.

He felt the blood on him dissipate into nothingness. He was tired, and exhausted, his body tense from swings and dagger thrusts, and his eyes stared dazedly at nothing.

He lay on the cold stone floor…no sleep to come to him, no comfort that could ever be offered, and while he stared blankly into the darkness…her words echoed and bounced off the walls…leaving him worse than dead,

"You won't hurt me right?"

………………

A/N: as usual, please leave a review…thanks! The next chapter will come soon…