A blinding light.
In every book she had read, in every legend she had heard, every exciting adventure began that way.
With a blinding light that made you shut your eyes, strong vertigos that made you just want to throw up and finally, after all the daze that had made you too confused and too stunned to understand and see, the wonder of finding a beautiful and magical world in front of you to make you smile.
But Andromeda had not seen any blinding light, not even when her heavy eyelids managed to hatch a little to look at her surrounding, surrounding that were not beautiful or magical at all. They were just raw, bare. Cold.
And no. No blinding light. Not even a ray of it. Just darkness.
Thick. Stifling, and almost solid darkness, heavy on her shoulders and bowed head.
What about vertigos then?
No, not even vertigos. She had no nausea, no need to throw up, she was just feeling numb, and tired, but not confused. No. Not even that.
Andromeda was well aware of the dryness of her mouth, the stiffness of her limbs, the weakness in her bones and the itching of her right arm, arm her eyes sought with uneasiness, afraid of finding burned skin or her bones in plain sight after the searing pain that had made her scream and cry, but no, no burned skin, no bulging bones, just her arm, Kai's bracelet and cold handcuffs to lock her wrist.
Handcuffs?
A sharp tinkle followed the stirring of her arms when Andromeda tried to see if even her other wrist was locked, and it was with horror that she noticed not only the cruel handcuffs clenched around her tanned skin, but even the long chain that made her bump against a stone wall when she tried to stand up.
But nothing, nothing was comparable to the despair that filled her eyes now clouded with tears when the scream she was expecting to hear did not come, even if her lips kept on moving, even if her chest began to burn, even if her throat quivered under the air that left her lungs, but did not make a sound, not even a note.
- *Why aren't you dead?
Her head snapped up when she heard the rasping voice a few step from her, yes, a voice, dark, low and so cold to make her shiver more than the icy winter she could feel grazing her skin, however, even if she could hear him, his voice, she could not understand the words or recognize the language with which he was speaking, but it did not really matter if she could understand him or not, not when something grasped violentely her throat, silencing her thoughts while the man, or so she thought, so she hoped, dragged her to her feet with so much speed to make her eyes dance behind the eyelids she had closed instinctively for fear of what she would have found in front of her.
- I killed you.
Something sticky hit her face, a trail of saliva her terrified mind shrieked horrified, but Andromeda did not even dare to open her eyes and see if she had been right about the sticky thing she could feel slipping on her chin, not when the hissing voice was so close to her, so close that she could almost feel his breath into her own mouth.
- Why aren't you dead?
A hiss.
Whoever was in front of her wasn't speaking, he was simply hissing, or gurgling or whatever a raging animal would have done to intimidate his opponent, but Andromeda wasn't simply intimidated by him, she was scared to death.
Yes, scared, so scared that she could actually tell which one of her tooth was quivering.
She was a tangle of fear, horror and confusion, but in all the shambles that was now her mind, there was still a part of her lucid enough to realize that she wasn't dreaming, or hallucinating. Unfortunately.
It was all real. Painfully real.
Real as the terror that was biting her soul, real as the sorrow that filled her throat of new screams she could not free, and real as the horrible creature who kept on hissing and spitting in her face, tugging her like a rag doll she would have liked to become, so to not be able to feel anything anymore.
- Is this what keeps you alive?
When Andromeda felt the hand that was holding her by the throat slide down her chest, something snapped inside her, and even before her internal voice could tell her to stand still, to not move, to keep on pretending to be dead, her body had already reacted to the touch.
She could almost feel the bones of her wrist crack when she tried to fight the metallic hold, but when her hand managed to stop his fingers from doing whatever he was going to do to her, Andromeda could not feel relieved for his failed attempt to take away from her more than just her hope, not when the eyes she had opened to see where his hand was going found the face of her tormentor, a black hole where there should have been his head.
And even if she knew how useless was for her to scream, even if she knew how pathetic was for her to burst into tears, she could not prevent herself to not do any of these things, to cry as a foolish child, and to let her lips part, freeing the fear that was twisting her inside, but if her soundless voice did not attract the attention of the horrible creature, there was the cold trail of her tears that tinkled to the dirty floor to made the thing aware of her awakening.
Of her resurrection.
- Useless human.
Insulted.
She had just been insulted.
The horrible way he had just spat the word did not let room for doubts, but Andromeda did not find the strength or the will to feel affronted by whatever he had said to her, because her senses and her eyes were too destabilized by the way the creature kept on chewing words between his rotten teeth to be aware of anything else, because he had no head, but he had a mouth and the sharp teeth of a beast, teeth her eyes could not stop watching moving, clashing and cracking, a revolting display that this time made her really want to throw up, but she could not, not even that time, not with a mouth so dry.
- How did you do it? Tell me!
Her fingers sunk into the dirty and dark fabric that covered the creature as a cloak of darkness from head to toe when he began to shake her once again, hissing and spitting in her face while trying to extort from her some kind of answers, answers Andromeda, however, failed to give even to herself, not even the most important one, because she should have been dead, but she wasn't.
She was alive, still breathing, and that was more worrying than what was happening to her.
She had felt her neck crack, she had felt her heart stop, she was dead whispered her terrified mind to her shattered and confused soul, and Andromeda could not give a sense to it, to her resurrection.
Or she was simply in hell tried a tiny voice inside her head, a chance her mind almost took into consideration, but no, she wasn't even in hell, she wasn't simply dreaming, she was just stuck, and where and how were the things she should have tried to find out.
*- Let me go!
What should have been a thundering demand remained a simple thought in her mind when Andromeda felt a wave of rebellion ran through her veins for the way he kept on tugging her, but she was too weak to be able to make him loosen the hold on her neck, her chipped nails too short to scratch him, to hurt him, but she would have liked to do it, to make him feel pain, the same heartbreaking pain she was feeling now, even if she had never been a wild person, even if she hated to see other people get hurt, but he was chocking her, and not even her soft spirit could not stir and revolt against that.
A retch went back her throat when the drenching smell of rotting meat penetrated her nostrils, but her teeth remained planted in the dirty fabric she had just bitten to make him let her go, her eyes focused on the putrid dark skin that she was able to see when her canines were able to tear the fabric to let her reach his arm, to sink better.
Tears gathered in the corner of her eyes when the piercing smell became too much to stand, his skin too sour to not make her tongue retreat and hesitate, a hesitation that the cruel man did not let pass, grabbing her by the hair that he began to pull with so much strength to rip off some of her locks, and it was when she felt the gentle touch of her stripped hair brushing her cheeks that she felt her heart break and her arm sting again.
It began with a weak itching, an irritating pricking her nails did not try to soothe or relieve, because, instead of weakening the grip to reach her wrist and give her some kind of relief, the hold she had on his arms strengthened, her fingertips now sunk in the skin she finally managed to mark with her nails while her breath began to quicken and follow the thundering in her chest.
Because more than her inexplicable resurrection, more than her state, her sorrow, her pain, the sight of her hair on the floor made her scream from the inside.
A scream she could feel reverberating in every fiber of her body, stirring the layer of tears that blurred her vision.
Her hair.
He had ripped her hair.
The hair Alecta had styled with love and kindness to make her pretty.
The hair Alec used to pull to draw her attention.
The hair her mother wanted always in order and clean, flawless, but she had failed her.
She had failed her mother.
The hard floor welcomed her body when the creature suddenly let go of her, but Andromeda was too lost in her own pain to notice the blinding light now reduced to a pale glow that had surrounded her right arm, or the pained hissing above her head while her trembling hand reached the floor, brushing the pale hair strands she collected in her palms to examine lost in a daze the odd color they had taken.
White. Her hair had turned white.
- I see.
That time Andromeda did not lift her chin, she did not look at him, even if she had heard him, even if the way he had spoken made her aware that something was wrong, very wrong, but nothing could be worse than resurrecting after a painful death into a dark world with an evil being as the only living thing with her.
A pity, really, how naive she still was, because she would have learned soon that there was always something worse, a lesson she had to learn at a high price.
And the first price to pay would have cost her hope.
Her sanity.
When she felt it tighten around her neck, few were the things Andromeda could do apart from gasping and trying to fight his hold on her, her legs that kicked the air with the hope to hit him, the imprint of his fingers so perfect around the fragile line of her throat to make her almost believe that it had always been that way.
His hands around her neck.
His fingertips sunk into her skin.
She on the verge of a painful death.
The floor welcomed her body once again, without giving her time to pity herself, to catch her breath, to do anything else apart from coughing and crying, and it welcomed her fall many other times after that one.
One. Ten. Fifty.
Andromeda lost the count of the times she had fallen to the floor after the sixtieth time, dead, and dead she soon wished to be when she understood what the creature had already realized before her.
She could not die.
He could break her neck.
He could pierce her chest.
It did not matter. She could not die.
She would have come back to life every time.
She could not die, but that did not prevent the dark man to kill her every time, again and again, breaking her neck with the hand Andromeda had tried to avoid at the beginning, to fight back, but she was chained to the floor, and to the floor she, in the end, chose to remain, there was no reason for her to stand up, after all.
Oh no.
There was the dark man to make her stand each time, she could not do anything apart from waking up everytime as nothing had happened, as she had never been dead, a light scar on her right hand the only broken thing in her apparently immortal body.
Immortal.
She would have laughed at the absurd idea if only she had had the time to do it, to let her mouth take a gentler fold instead of the painful crease that followed each of her falls, but then, little by little, the tiny pieces she had been able to collect after every horrible death began to sketch a horrible scenario she soon regretted to have found.
To have painted.
Because she had finally seen the light.
And yes, it was blinding as the story told, dazzling as the legend sang in rhyme, but the wonder never came and never would have come, for her.
Because every time she had opened her eyes, she had never found a magical place or the desire to smile, but a dark world and the wish to cry.
She wasn't living a beautiful dream, but an endless nightmare.
And she had been granted no gift, but a curse.
A curse that had taken the form of the bracelet her eyes did not leave as her eyelids began to lower and the breath she had recovered was taken back from her lungs and chest, her trembling hand closed protectively on what she had lost along with the hope to be able to go back to her family, to have back her quiet life, to return to how things were before.
But everything had changed.
The color of her hair that had turned white.
The voice that she had lost along with her hope.
And the throbbing of a heart she felt stop as her eyelids led her to a darkness that, however, Andromeda would have found every time that she had opened her eyes.
Again and again.
*"Fix the inside and the outside will fix itself"
A favorite song. An inspiring movie.
Teenagers tended to take courage and boldness from a singer who sang of rebellion or an actor clad with the skin of dead animals who talked of freedom, but for Andromeda, the wise words of a dead German poet had always been the only thing able to make her break free from the temporary state of depression and dejection that had made her lower her head and hide inside her blanket.
She too was a teenager, after all, and even she had been capricious, she too had felt hopeless.
Powerless.
But wasn't that what all teenagers were at their age?
Powerless, still too young to stand on their own, continually hovering on a thread that could bring them towards adulthood, towards responsibilities, towards mistakes that could not be forgiven easily, action that could no longer be justified as the result of child's inexperience.
Ignorance.
But everything, even the most ridiculous thing seemed insurmountable at that age, an unfaithful boyfriend, a bad vote, strict parents, foolish little things that had never made Andromeda cry, or sad, she had always had to take care of her mother to have time to feel sad for herself, for her unrequited love, for her broken friendship, she had never had the time to cry, not when her eyes had always been too busy to search and fix the cracks into Calisto's lonely gaze to let the tears get caught between her eyelashes.
So no tears. No sadness, for her. Only a calm smile on her face and a positive attitude to light up her and Calisto's path.
But now she was alone, her mother a distant figure she could not reach, or touch, or feel besides her, she had no one to fight for, and even if the thought had made her cry with her chin sunk into her chest and her eyes so full of tears to not let her see anything else apart her own misery, her pathetic state, she had come to terms with her unfortunate state, her desperate situation, she had accepted it, and then, she had decided to react, to do what she did best.
Fix broken things.
Her broken hope.
Her broken body.
That broken world.
Therefore she had fished out from her numb mind the words that had always made her brave, and strong, and to that words her broken mind had held on, because she was trying to fix things, little by little, one step at a time.
She had succeeded in fixing her broken mind with the awareness that she could not come back, that she was stuck there, that she had to face reality, as far as the reality she had to face was beyond any human's understanding
Because she had been thrown into another world. She had been left alone with an evil being as her jailer.
She had been cursed, just as in one of the stories she liked to read.
Cursed by deities for a whim, for an obsession, for an unrequited love.
There were many tales of a young, lovely woman cursed by some capricious god for a ridiculous reason, but they were just that, tales, legends, imaginary, unreal, and even if she was young, even she could be lovely, she knew no god, she had met no deity, just Kai.
Gentle, quiet Kai.
Kai, who had melted between her arms like snow in the sun.
Kai, who had never answered to her calls.
To her pleas of help.
Because she had tried to call him many times, of course she had called him, even without a voice, even if it could seem foolish given that he was the reason why she was there and not in her world, but Kai had always been a special existence she had never been able to ignore.
To let go.
Yet, he had not answered. Not even once. Not even after all the times she had screamed out his name, and maybe someone else in her place would have given up, but not her.
She had kept on calling him, on whispering his name in the hope that he would have answered, because he would have answered.
He would have heard her call.
He was her friend, her confidant, he was her family, and if there was one thing she had learned in her life was that you could never betray or leave your family.
Therefore she wouldn't have left him, she would not have betrayed his faith in her, in her ability, in what she could do.
It is meant for you, Andromeda.
Her eyes searched for the bracelet on her wrist when his cryptic sentence returned to make her reflect on what was meant for her, snatching her a sad smile.
Be enslaved was meant for her?
What did he mean with it?
What exactly did he expect from her?
Unfortunately, she had not been able to answer, to give herself an explanation, not even after two weeks of pondering and crying, not even after taking back her sanity, her hope, keeping on fix things and herself meantime.
But how could she know how much time had passed?
Two weeks were, after all, a definite amount of time difficult to count without a clock, a phone or the sun, but the moon had been enough for Andromeda to estimate the passing of time.
Odd, really, how she could tell the passing of days just by watching the position of the moon in the sky, but she could, and not because she was a scout leader, or because she had an enviable sense of orientation, it was quite the opposite, because she had none, but she liked to read, and once, she had read in a book how to read the stars, so to be prepared if her and her mother had been lost somewhere.
Calisto had always told her that she tended to imagine strange things too often, as if they could be lost somewhere, but she was lost, and she had thanked whatever deity existed in that world for the moon, because the dark world seemed devoid of any kind of light, and the thought to be left in the darkness had made her cry more than one night.
So she had been grateful for the moon and, above all, for the forgetful student of astronomy who had left in their hotel some old books of his university.
Thanks to the heavens she had never been picky about her readings.
Her mother had been right, in the end, she was a know-it-all, but for the first time in her life she wasn't feeling ashamed to be called like that, because it was thanks to her knowledge that she could feel, if not happy, at least a little relieved, more confident, even if she knew that her mother had never appreciated her love towards book and knowledge since she was so pretty to not need something like that, Calisto's exact words, but it was thanks to them that she could let go a little of her desperation, that she was able to stand up from her kneeling condition.
They were what they were, and she was proud to be what she had always been, a young girl who liked to be ready for anything, who had learned to react to desperate situation, and she was in a desperate situation, maybe, the most desperate one, but there was only one thing you could do when you reached the bottom.
Going up again.
You could do nothing apart from that, even if you would have had to face again what had made you fall, and just as it had already happened in her life, it had not been a thing what had made her fall, but something else, something she still could not define, but what she had started to call dark man.
Original, wasn't she?
Dark man.
Between all the name she could have given him she had chosen that one, but after all, wasn't that what he was?
Dark and a man, even if Andromeda knew, deep down, that he was not even a man, he was just…something else.
Something darker, something rotten, something that should have been buried in the ground, but well, neither of them could die, apparently.
They were both cursed, both forsaken, both alone, alone how Andromeda had never felt in her life, because there had always been someone to fix, she had always had Calisto to help, to love, to save, but this time the only one who had to be saved was herself.
She had to save herself.
She had to protect her broken mind and shattered heart from who would have tried to break her again, from something evil, from a darkness she had already faced when she was still a child.
Dark man.
She had used that nickname before, and she had chosen to use it again because she had read in a book of psychology that it was easier for a disoriented mind to associate something foreign with something familiar to make a crazy situation simpler to take without breaking down.
So she had done the same thing, she had associate something foreign with something familiar, and even if it was a little insane to call her tormentor with the nickname she had given to her father she had done it anyway.
Hans Wolfstang.
Her father's name, an arrogant name for an arrogant man.
Andromeda had never liked her father, not even once, not even when she was little, when it was simple for a daughter to fall in love with her father, but she had never felt love for him, only bitterness, aversion, and once she had grown, she had shown small signs of hatred when she had seen how coldly and cruelly he treated her fragile mother, and cold he had always been, even with her.
It could seem cruel on her part, but Andromeda firmly believed that her father could not love anything.
He was simply devoid of any kind of love. It was simple like that.
Hard-hearted and cold, but beautiful.
Oh yes. Hans had always been a beautiful man, a beautiful man full of beautiful promises who her mother had followed blindly when she had been too young and too naive to understand how shallow and dark was the soul hidden behind his white smile and sharp grey eyes.
At fifteen Calisto had fled from her land in search of fortune, of fame, too beautiful for her little village, too full of hope and dreams to remain in her little island.
She had run away from home, she had become a wanderer, and in her wandering she had found him.
Her father.
Hans was a famous photograph, but a useless man, a liar.
He loved beautiful things like him, and when he had seen her mother he had fallen in love with her golden hair, her skin kissed by the sun and her exotic beauty, not with her wild heart, not with her fragile soul, he had loved the shape in the mirror, but when he had seen the fragility hidden in her beautiful body he had lost interest.
Troublesome.
The word had become a refrain on her father's full lips.
She could not recall how many times he had used the word to address her mother, but she knew that they had been a lot, and when Calisto had shown sign of pregnancy, he had used the words to address both of them, calling them troublesome, a waste of his time.
Of space.
Cruel. Cold. Heartless.
A dark man.
Hans was a cruel man capable only of cruel words and cruel actions, not so different from who she had met in that world, actually, they were more similar than she liked to admit, to accept.
So he had become the first familiar thing into a foreign place, and she had become less frightened, less disoriented, more vigilant, pragmatic, and it was in the searching of another familiar thing that she had found something else to associate with her world, with her life.
At first, she had mistaken him for a heap of dirt, nothing strange or absurd given the pitiful state of her prison and herself, but when she had seen it move, she had understood that what she was watching wasn't a mass of garbage, but a person, an old, wounded man chained to the ground, and pity had been the first thing she had felt after a spark of hope had began to burn in her chest once she had understood that she wasn't alone.
That she wasn't the only one there.
Pitiful weren't them?
She, chained to the floor without a voice to use to call out for help and him, so small and thin to fall to pieces at any puff of air.
She had tried to catch his attention of course.
She had no voice, alright, but she could still throw rocks, but the small one she had thrown at him did not make him look up from the ground he was staring at so intensely.
Unfortunately, she did not have a good aim, the first one had been lucky, but she wasn't a lucky person in the first place, and the rocks she had thrown after the first one had not even reached him, had not touched him or made him flinch, so she had changed tactics.
She had reached the pool of dark water from which the dark man had pulled her out, and she had gathered in her palm as much as water as she could to be able to make it splash near him, the unmoving man, but again, he had ignored her.
Maybe he had become deaf just as she had become mute, but when she felt more than heard the chilly air that preceded the arrival of the dark man, her eyes caught it, the stiffening of his shoulder, even if he kept on staring at the ground, even if the darkness was treacherous, but her eyes had become used to it, and she had seen him move, she had seen him react to his presence.
- Have you become a little more collaborative, human?
Andromeda quickly recovered her place against the wall when she saw him move towards her, her legs close to her chest and one hand placed protectively around her throat where she knew his fingers were aiming to take away her breath and life, but even if the dark man seemed to know more about her bracelet and the strange blinding light that it emanated, she had understood something too in two weeks, and when she felt his finger brush her cheek she did not flinch when she felt the sting on her wrist, actually, she had expected it, and, judjing by the way the dark man had already retreated the hand he had expected it too.
- I see.
- Go to hell!
Her lips moved, but no voice came out, not that she expected to have her voice magically back, but she needed to vent her anger, and cursing him helped her to feel less hopeless, less pitiful, defenseless, even if she was still pitiful, still hopeless, but defenseless? Not so much.
Because she had discovered something she could use to keep him at bay, to make him back away when she wanted to be left alone, and even if her power did not prevent him to pierce her with a sword or let her bleed to death she, at least, had succeeded on not being touched directly by him.
What a pathetic power then if she could not even free herself or really defeat him, but it was obvious that having your own body embraced by a burning blinding light wasn't something she could use to get free.
Actually, it was already difficult trying to control it, the burning.
She had failed many times, but finally, she had learned what made it burn, what awakened the bracelet and its blinding light.
The stirring of her soul.
The light reacted to her emotion, her distress, the scream of her soul, and before learning to control the burning she had had to learn to control her emotion, to fix the inside, something easy, something foolish, but it was not easy to be in control of your emotions after being tortured for weeks, with a body that could not die but a mind that could remember everything the day after.
Every opened gash in her chest.
Every breath lost in her fall.
Every tear shared on the dirty floor.
But now her eyes were dry, her chest stitched up, and her breathing steady as she watched the dark with fear, yes, but even bravery.
Strenght.
He has no eyes, no face, but she knew that there must be something under all that darkness, he had to have something her eyes could pierce or cut, she had made him bleed from his arm, she could make him see that, even if still afraid, she could fight him.
She could challenge him.
- You are not the only one I can make scream.
Her eyes did not leave him as the dark man gave his back to her, a strange action that made her stiffen a little, because she wasn't used to seeing it, his back, he was always facing her when he was ready to strike and she could always say when he intended to strike, and he was going to, she knew it, she could see him getting ready to slash with his sword, but what, was something she could not understand, she could not see, not when she should have.
Because if she had been able to tell what he was going to strike, if she had been more farsighted, if she had been less brave and more attentive, she would have understood who would have taken her place, what flesh his blade was going to cut, and when she saw the dark man raising his arm, she saw them shimmering in the darkness in front of her.
The old man's sky blue eyes.
Open. Scared. And now focused on her face as he was begging her to help him.
To make him stop.
To save him.
- Stop!
Her voice did not come out, her despair did not come out, her pain, did not come out, but she kept on screaming, and when she felt the sickening smell of blood filling the air she stood up from the ground, her knees shaking, her chest burning and her eyes full of tears she drank when she opened her lips to scream again, to beg him to stop.
- Please! Leave us alone!
The chains that kept her prisoner to the wall stopped to tingle when she heard the scream, but her lips had stopped moving, her throat had stopped burning, yet, the cry still echoed in her head, in her soul, a childish broken pleading she felt pushing and break the glossy surface of her eyes, the trembling line of her mouth.
Because she had begged her father to stop calling them a waste of time, of space, just as she was begging the dark man to leave him alone, to spare him!
She had begged him to let her free, to let her be, to not stab her mother with his cruel words that made her cry, that made her bleed to death.
She had begged, she had even kneeled in front of him, just as she was kneeling now, her trembling hands to her chest, her desperate gaze on the back she tried to touch, to grab, but she could not reach him, not with her voice, not with her fingers.
She could do nothing but watching someone bleed to death once again.
Because she was alone.
She was broken.
She was stuck, but there was something she could do, something foolish, something useless, but something, and if burning was the only thing she could do, then she would have burned as she had never done before.
Andromeda clenched her teeth when she felt her arm sting, when she asked for it, prayed for it to became stronger, to follow the thundering in her heart, the throbbing in her eyes, but it was not enough, the blue light was too weak, a faint glow she tried to strenghten to attract the attention of the dark man and save the man she now could see on the floor, a trail of blood on his temple and his eyes blurred by the tears she could feel rolling on her own cheek, but he kept on watching her, on searching her desperate gaze just as she had tried to do with his.
To meet his eyes.
To not be left alone.
To find something to watch beside the void and her own misery.
And she did not avert her gaze, she did not turn her face, she stared at him, she let him cling to her trembling self just as she clung to the desperation she felt rising in her throat, in her chest.
Why me?
Andromeda had never been able to answer that question, not even after all those weeks, not even with all the things she knew, not even after having accepted her new reality, her new world.
Her state.
Why her?
Why did she have to be there, to face death, to be cursed, to watch someone else die?
She wasn't someone special, she was only herself, boring, talkative, dreamer Andromeda.
She wasn't strong.
She wasn't powerful.
She wasn't magical.
She was just…her.
She was not enough.
Why me?
- The real question you have to ask yourself, my dear, is why not you?
The flame around her kneeled form faltered when she heard it echoing in the air, a faraway whisper her gaze followed to the dark pool of water she had seen stir a little, a trembling surface on which her eyes stopped, his name still stuck in the throat filled with the tears she tried not to shed, not now, or else she would have lost him, and she could not lose him.
Not again.
- Kai?
She was talking to a pool of dark water.
A trembling smile touched her lips when the thought reached her disoriented mind, and maybe, she would have thought to have gone mad for something like this, but too many strange things had happened in her life, and talking with a pool of water was the most harmless of them all.
What she did not expect, however, was that someone would have answered to her voiceless call, but Kai had always been the only one able to answer to question she had only thought and never asked aloud.
- I am here, my dearest. Forgive me for my delay.
He was there. Kai was there.
- What…Where are you? Where are we? What-
- One question a time, my dear. I am not strong enough to answer them at once.
When she heard the shift of air in front of her Andromeda knew that he was in front of her, that she had attracted his attention, that the other prisoner was safe, but she kept on looking at the dark pool of water, tightening between her bruised fingers the ruined fabric of her dress to give herself strength, courage.
One question.
He had asked her to ask one question at a time, and even if there were many things she wanted to ask, even if she was still a little angry at him, there was one thing she wanted to know for sure.
The one thing she died to ask.
- A..are you alright?
The silence that followed her trembling thought made her fear that she had lost him, that she had been left alone, again, but when she heard it, his warm and fond voice, she felt her heart tremble for the joy.
- I am fine my love. I am simply lost.
Love.
She had been called that way just once, but that time had been enough for her to decide that whatever was going to come, whatever they had to face in the future, she would have always protected Calisto.
She would have always followed and loved her fragile mother.
She could still remember the trembling of Calisto's hand as she caressed her cheek in front of the airport, both of them ready to leave behind a dark man and a dark past, how soft and light was her voice when she called Andromeda to make her look up and meet the teary eyes she had placed on her, how fragile was the small smile she had addressed to her before calling her, her only true love.
A lonely tear rolled down her cheek when she recalled the memory, but all the fondness was lost when she felt the dark man bend towards her, towards her neck.
Andromeda gritted her teeth when she felt his hand close around her throat, but she ignored him, she let him trap her.
He could strangle her if she wanted to, he could slash her with his sword if he wanted to, but she would have listened to Kai until the end, she would have had her answer, and she would not have let go. No.
Not that time. Not again.
When the dark man lift her from the ground she did not fight back, she did not turn her face to look at him, to see his rotten teeth, to felt his nauseous breath against her cheek, she kept on staring at the dark water, she kept on asking questions, she kept on acting brave, daring, but all the bravery she was trying to collet, all the relief she had gathered left her when Kai's words, Kai's asnwers give a sense to all that madness and a name to the creature she finally returned to watch with what she had never felt in that dark world.
Recognition.
Tears gathered in the corner of her eyes when she began to give a sense to his shape, a meaning to his darkness, when she succeeded in recognizing him and the world that surrounded her, because she had always loved books, she had read whatever she could, and she had read even that one, she had read even about him, what should have been the offspring of a fantasy, of an old tale, the character of a book, but the hand he had just placed on her head was real.
The breath that made her lashes tremble was real, the lips Andromeda felt smile against her cheek when he made the side of their faces touch was real.
He was real.
- You know me.
His words were lost in the whirlpool of fear, shock, and pain that was breaking her mind again, even Kai's warning was lost among the madness that was returning to crush her sanity, and when she felt his fingers sunk into her skull even her breath was lost before she felt something crush her head.
Her mind.
The first wave of pain made her squint her eyes so hard to felt her eyelashes mark the tender skin above her cheeks, but when she felt the second wave of pain push, her hands ran to the fingers that were trying to crush her skull while a row of images flashed quickly in her mind, images she had not called back, she had not wished to see.
A high mountain surrounded by mist.
The shadow of a giant, red dragon.
And a little man.
Short, with auburn curled hair and a brave gaze.
A great destiny.
And a simple name to remember.
To learn.
-No.
Her legs began to kick the air while her hand tried to loosen his grip on her head and everything inside her began to scream in horror for what he had seen, for the shattered pieces of something he should not have known, something he was trying to pull out of her brain, crushing her mind, making her scream in horror for what he knew.
For what she had done.
When the column of light pierced the dark sky of Dol Guldur, many eyes turned where no one dared to look, not even the bravest one, not where only darkness could be found, but anyone in Middle Earth had seen it burn in the sky before disappearing as nothing had happened, the fain trawl of light Andromeda kept on radiating when she hit the floor, the dark man now gone, but not her pain.
Not her horror.
- Go.
When Kai's anxious whisper reached her ears, Andromeda looked up from the ground she could not leave behind, just as that place, just as her guilt, her sin, but when she moved her hand to cover her trembling lips she noticed that no handcuffs were on her wrist.
That she was free.
Even before her eyes could adjust to the darkness her legs had brought her towards the stairs she began to descend before something made her stop and return back.
A shadow of pain flashed in her eyes when she saw the old, bruised man shrink when he saw her kneel in front of him, his awed and fearful sky blue eyes a stab Andromeda welcomed with a small smile, bringing her still burning hands on his wrist.
- We should leave before he comes back.
The eyes Thàrin son of Thròr had closed on seeing her reach for him opened wide when he seemed to hear the whispering of her soul, a soul Andromeda was trying to keep whole as she helped the wounded dwarf to rise on his shaking legs, charging her body of his weigh as both of them left the barred ground, descending the dark, broken stairs Andromeda eaten up with fast steps, almost as she was running.
But she was running.
She was running away from the dark man she could felt whispering in the chilly air words that cut her inside as he regained his strength, as he changed his soul into a storm, a storm that did not follow them.
And she began to really run that time.
She stopped a second just to make Thàrin climb on her back, a weight that would have slowed her steps and made them an easy prey of the dark man, if only he had decided to follow them.
But he was not following them.
He was following something else, someone else, and it was all her fault.
The rock cut the tender skin of her feet as she glided between the ruins of Dol Guldur, but she never stop, she would have never stopped, she would have kept on running away.
Away from the darkness that would have returned to haunt her broken heart.
Away from the awareness to have just condemned an innocent man to a painful death.
When the first knock echoed between the colored, domestic walls of his home, Bilbo Baggings decided to think nothing of it, to not begin to imagine things, to simply identify the unusual noise as the howling of the wind that had started to blow outside his house, nothing more, nothing less.
When he heard it a second time, however, his lips hesitated on the edge of the porcelain cup he was going to bring to his mouth, his eyes focused on the golden, warm tea inside which he could see himself frown.
Had it just been a knock then? He asked himself, annoyed.
It was midnight, after all, and he was not expecting anyone, of course he was annoyed.
So he chose again to think nothing of it, to drink his tea in peace, it had been a stressful day after all, and he was feeling too cozy with the warmth of his chimney to leave his comfy armchair.
Let the wind howl all it wanted, he would have drunk his tea before going to bed, that was what Bilbo Baggings intended to do, what he was going to do as he placed his cup on the bedside table, stretching his numb libs in front of the flames before frowning when he heard it s third time, the damned knock.
Grumbling under his breath, the drowsy hobbit took an old candelabrum from the table to enlight the path that led to his front door, an annoyed grimace to make him look less hospitable and more grumpy than a hobbit should have been, but he has was not expecting any guest, therefore there was no reason to be hospitable as he always was with his guest, not at that hour and not with unbidden guest.
A shiver shook his form while one of his hand ran to close his robes to protect him from the icy wind that had just invaded his home, his eyes focused on the thick and unusual darkness that engulfed the garden where nothing moved. Not even a leaf.
What an awful weather.
His eyes left alone the dark sky he was watching to come back where obviously he found no one.
Because he was alone, he was a fool.
Cursing for the second time, Bilbo began to close his door, but even before his fingers could leave the door handle, a strange noise made him raise up from the ground a pair of peevish eyes.
- I am beginning to get angry, you know? - he shouted to the icy wind when his sensitive hearing caught another strange sound, and all the calm he was trying to keep was soon replaced by anger.
Irritation.
- Did you hear me?
No voice followed his shout, only the howling of the wind that had become icier, biting.
Because it was too cold, too dry, and he was too tired to let the wind trick his mind.
With a heavy sigh Bilbo Baggings decided to return to his bed, to finally rest, and he was going to, he was really going to do it if he had not heard again the same, odd sound that this time made him spring towards it.
- Where are you hiding? Come out if you have the courage! I am not scared of you – he shouted to the darkness, moving the candelabrum in circle to see if his eyes could see something, anything, but he could not find anything while getting angrier, more annoyed. Frustrated.
- Did you hear me? I am not scared of you!
- You should have.
When the candelabrum hit the ground, no flame risked to burn to ashes the shiny grass of the well-kept garden, because even before they could reach the soil, the flames had already been turned off, and maybe, if they had kept on burning, some sleepless resident of Hobbiton would have found the courage to face the awful weather to see why Bilbo Baggings's garden was on fire.
But no flame was left, no one tried to leave their house, and Bilbo Baggings would have been found dead only the day after, when it would have been too late to help him.
To save him.
* The sentence I used is of Herman Hesse.
*Black speech
*Soul's voice
Here we are!
I hope you liked the story so far and that you will follow me and Andromeda in a new, dark adventures in Middle-earth. This is a ThorixOc story, and we will meet soon the King under the mountain, thanks for reading!
Until the next chapter!