I took exactly a second to gather myself and darted for the door. No one stopped me this time. My feet beat against the ground as I ran without a direction, only one purpose in mind; to return back home. I could feel every stare without soo much so as taking a glimpse at their faces.
I can't afford to stop. If I do, they'll catch me - and this time, what waits for me will be worse. But my legs falter, trembling beneath me, as my heart slams against my ribs like it's trying to escape. As I finally come to a stop in a dark corner, trying to stop my body from trembling. paranoidly scanning my surrounding for any possible threat.
My mothers words rang like a bell in the back of my head; "fool them into believing you're one of them" as I planned out what to do next.
Something in my brain clicked as I connected the dots, what my mother said, what the man had said, it all made sense. I already looked somewhat like them with the pale skin I inherited from my mother and my blonde, golden - ish hair with my blue eyes.
I just had to dress and act like them, just had to blend in.
But before I can move - before the plan fully forms - a shadow splits from the dark. A man, cloaked in a heavy black hood, face swallowed by fabric and silence, steps into view. My thoughts scatter like ash.
I stumble back, but he's faster. His grip is deadly, dragging me into the corner I thought was safe. My breath catches - then vanishes - as a cloth presses against my mouth.
The scent hits first. Sweet, chemical, wrong. My limbs thrash, weakly. My vision blurs. The world tilts.
I hear my heartbeat. Then nothing.
I wake up in a room filled with nothing but darkness. Filled with a daunting silence. one that made my bones chill.
My hands shackald in heavy chains and my mouth gagged.
A shot of adrenaline washes over me as I shuffle my body to sit on my knees as my hands tremble ever so hard. I locate the source of the chains 'm held captive by. I slam my fists against the rusted nail anchoring the chains, blood slicking my grip as metal bends. Just as the links begin to give, I freeze - paralyzed by the echo of heavy footsteps behind me. Each step lands like a death knell, slow, deliberate, and drenched in menace. They're coming. And they know I'm trying to escape." I sit still, not making a sound. My lips quiver with fear as goosebumps rise along my arms. I gulp hard - the sound is getting closer. I tell myself one thing, and one thing only: "Fear kills all, you kill fear."
I grab the loose and bent nail in a tenacious grip, waiting, listening as the footsteps come to a stop in front of me.
I still couldn't see - darkness swallowed everything. But I felt him. The weight of his presence. The faint glimmer of his eyes, catching what little light there was, as he crouched to my level. Eye to eye.
My breath stilled. My fingers tightened around the nail, jagged and rusted, still lodged in the wall. I didn't think. I tore it free and drove it into his left eye.
The sound - wet, sharp, final. Blood burst like a scream. Without thinking twice, I yanked it out and plunged it into the other one. He reeled back, howling. I didn't wait to see the damage. I ran.
I made my way toward the little light seeping through the door, as I thrust the door open.
I could hear his agonizing, desperate groans behind me as a bright flash of light rushed in I squinted my eyes, I looked back, just once to see his agony. Then never again. I sprinted, lungs burning, feet pounding against the soft ground - until I'm stopped by the unusual silence. I finally take a chance to look around, the sight before me, knocks the breath out of me. I stand at the edge of a cliff, no sight of life anywhere, except for the blooming flowers and the spiraling trees in every corner, I'm standing not only in a world or dimension that I know nothing about but also a place there that had been abandoned by it's own habitants.
With a being, that possibly wants me dead.
I stand still in my tracks as I contemplate what to do next, there's no place to hide.
I could run, but for how long.......how far.? My mind traces back to the oblivion, he's the only one that knows the way out.
Just as I'm about to run out of options, I see a strange, blue light emerging from the ground. "don't". My mind repeats the word vigorously, but I can't look away, can't turn away, what's the worst that could happen any way? I thought to myself as I went toward the light. There was a hatch on a door in the ground. I pulled it open and with a a bit of force, it flung open, a strange color of dust covered my vision, when it cleared, I climbed down the stairs which led to the blue light.
A lamp sat in front of me as a bundle of scattered photographs laid on the ground.
My blood ran cold as I picked up one of the photographs. A face stared back - familiar, impossible. My own?
I dug through the piles of my memory, clawing at fragments I swore I'd forgotten. I didn't look that young in the photo - maybe seven, maybe eight. But something in my eyes… looked - different. I couldn't place my finger on what, until I looked closer.
My eyes, they were purple, the same monolithic purple eyes as His, as the one they hailed as their "Lord".
Staring at that image, My mind filled with questions, Have I been her? When? Why? Am I one of them? Was I always?
Why was my mother wearing a crown? Not gold. Not glory. something familiar, just as the one "The Lord was wearing", The one made with bones. . Who was she? Who am I?
What the hell is going on?
The questions claw at me, louder than the silence. I want to run. I want to scream. But all I do is stand there - at the edge of a world that doesn't want me, in the shadow of a truth I might not survive.