Chapter 3: A History of Violence

Tira opened her eyes to see she was on a large piece of wood rushing down the moat, which was now the speed of white-water rafting. Tira held on for what seemed like hours until she was engulfed in the waters once again. Tira tried her best to stay above water,but as soon as she reached the surface,she was dragged under again. Tira's energy has fading fast, and so was her consciousness.

Tira felt her life slowly slip away as she sank deeper and deeper. Eventually, Tira's stopped fighting it and sank to the bottom.

Hours passed until Tira opened her eyes to see that she was in a cave-like setting. Tira, still very weak, stood up and asked herself, "Where am I? Am I dead? Is this Hell?"

"Something like that," said Toren's voice from behind her. Tira turned around to see Toren standing against the wall. He continued, "Anyways, I seems we're under the castle, but there doesn't seem to be an exit, or an entrance, so this doesn't explain how we even got here, or where that blind old man went."

Tira began helping her brother search for an exit, but all crevasses were either too small or lead to dead ends. The siblings gave up. They returned to the center of the cave and decided to relax. Toren sat by a wall and Tira sat on a nearby rock, but as soon as Tira sat down, the wall behind Toren lifted and he fell down a slide. Tira ran over to the wall and jumped through before it closed on her. Tira slid at speeds unmatched as Tira said to herself, "Why do I have a feeling this isn't going to end good?"

Tira saw a light at the end of the slide and landed on marble floor. Tira stood up to see Toren was sitting on a ledge when he said to Tira, "I don't know how, but we're inside the castle."

"That makes no sense!" screamed Tira, "We fell down!" Tira ran over to where Toren was sitting to see that they we're hundreds of feet from the ground. "Well," started Tira, "Please tell me that there was something we could use around here."

"I'm afraid not," said Toren, "I've searched this place from top to bottom." Toren stood up and began to walk back and forth. Tira became irritated by Toren constant walking and barked, "Would you stop it!"

"I would if you have a plan to get us down from here!" Toren barked back.

Tira lost her temper and tackled Toren. Toren kicked her off of him and stood ready to fight. Tira wobbled up and went in to kick Toren in the head, but her foot was grabbed by Toren who flung her to the ground. Tira went in for another tackle, but missed.

"Tira!" Toren exclaimed, "Can't you see what we're doing! Fighting each other isn't going to get us down from here!"

"You're right," agreed Tira, "I don't know what came over me."

"I can answer that," said the familiar voice of the old man. "It's magic." The siblings stared blankly at the old man who continued, "Allow me to explain. You see, you may think that this place was shut down because of poor business, but that's not exactly the case. You see,this building was built with one sole purpose: To be so beautiful that anyone who saw it would be compelled to enter, and once inside, ask the help of assassins, even if they didn't need it. Things went well for years, but nothing is ever perfect. It was soon obvious that the same people that became mezmorized by the castle beauty had a permanent mental condition in which the person could become maniacal and probably homicidal with the slightest irritance."

"Oh no," said Tira softly, "I was mezmorized before the explosion and I tackled Toren earlier because he was walking. Does this mean I have it?"

The old man shook his head and responded, "The evidence is substantial. The bad news is that there's no way to get rid of it, but the good news is that some people have learned to repress it. In the meantime, back to my story. The leader became worried that his assassins would face under the same condition, so we did all he could to get HQ to shut it down, but all requests were denied. Months passed and the leader stayed antsy until his theory became true. Numerous assassins went insane and they were killed. Only their leader survived, who built a man-made mountain to cover the castle, but made an emergency entrance through the waterfall, just in case he ever needed to return."

"You seem to know more than a normal person," said Toren suspiciously, "Care to fill us in?"

It took you long enough to realize," he said, "but I am the old leader of this chapter. HQ decided that if anyone found out about this, they might not go to other chapter, so they filed it as not enough business, but the locals of Ostrheinburg know The truth, and they've been threatened not to talk."

"Now it makes sense, Toren," said Tira, "That's why no one would tell us its location."

True," replied Toren, "but it doesn't explain why he lead us here if he built this mountain to make sure no one could get here." Toren turned to the old man and commanded, "Explain."

"Very well," he replied. "I was payed by Cervantes to kill any Bird of Passage member that was planning to attack him. He called you quote Insignificant mosquitoes that have been a pain in the ass for too long unquote, but when I got here, I decided not to go through with it."

"Why not," Tira asked. The old man smirked and replied,"Because, Cervantes payed me in advance."

Great story," said Toren sarcastically, "but it doesn't get us off this building. Care to help us out, old man?"

"Well," he said laughing, "If you want to get off, just use the stairs in the back."

Tira walked over to Toren and whispered in his ear, "Uhhh, Toren. How did we miss that?"

"Don't ask me," he replied silently. "I'm still trying to figure out how we got up here seeing how we slid down, not up." The sibling hurried down the stairs with the old man close behind." Once reaching the ground Tira and Toren went over to the waterfall, but old man didn't move.

Toren spun around and asked,"You coming or not, old man?"

The old man shook his head and said, "Not. I have some unfinished business to take care of.

Tira and Toren left the old man and swam through the waterfall back onto the trail. Tira stopped Toren and said, "There's no way we'll make it to Valencia now. I say we go back.

"We might as well." agreed Toren. "We're unarmed, weak, and no clue where we are, which brings up a good question: How are we going to get home?"