Twisted Dawn - 3. Noctume of Shadows

“You should not be here, either one of you.” I was seriously starting to get pissed of talking to this guy. Ash and I woke up in a giant room, or what passes for a room wherever we were. There were no windows or doors, but there were a shitload of walls, and some guy who said he was my guardian. That was when he started to rant that we shouldn’t be there.

I cut him off midway through his speech with a sideways glance and asked him where we were. As if he were realizing for the first time that I was very much alert and very angry, he turned to face me and introduced himself as Mathias.

As he began a deep bow, I pulled him to me and asked him where exactly here was. Mathias stared strangely at me for a few seconds before he said we were in the Clearing. Ash must have recognized the importance of the place, or maybe it was the name, I’m not sure, but he said we needed to get out of there. I looked around at Ash and saw the anxious look on his face as he looked over my shoulder. As I started to turn, I heard someone shout no, and then everything went black. Again.

I woke up what felt like hours later and found myself hanging from what very much resembled a meat hook. I slowly turned left and right and could just barely make out that Ash and Mathias were there as well in the same restraints. I was about to make some smartass comment when I felt a hand placed on the back of my head. As my mouth snapped closed with a loud click, I heard a loud voice in my head that screamed “Do it and I’ll kill you.” I slowly wiggled and squirmed until I was facing the person who was palming the back of my head, and saw that he was there, but he wasn’t. Whenever I looked into his face all I could see was a glimmer of what should have been.

I opened my mouth to speak and became familiar once again with that hand. ‘Don’t Speak, Just Listen.’ I closed my mouth and looked to where his eyes should have been as he began talking. He told us that we were being held by the Unown and whatever we did do not reveal which of us is cursed. Being me I of course asked him why and was rewarded with a sharp smack to the head.

“The Unown want to control the Cursed to become whole again, so it’s in your best interest to remain silent.” After he finished speaking I mustered up the most insulted expression I could achieve and told him I wouldn’t tell I just wanted to know why. As he stared blankly at me I turned around and looked at Ash, and Mathias who were hanging behind me. As I turned back around, the guy with no face looked us over and said we may have a problem.

I turned completely around to face him, and when he saw my face said we definitely have a problem. I tensed as he grabbed me by the chin and yanked me forward while he stared into my eyes. I could feel him reading me and could even see what he was searching for. He let me go, then turned to me and introduced himself as Auric.

As he finished speaking he took one more look at me and as I stared back I could make out his every feature. His Green Eyes, His Black Hair, he even had a similar scar to the one I’d got a few years ago except it appeared reversed. I looked at him and asked who are you, really? As his face pulled back into a wide grin he looked at me once more and said ‘I was once cursed too, but now I’m so much more.’ I turned trying to get a better look at Mathias when my eyes fell on a mirror not far from me.

A flood of confusion washed over me as I stared into the eyes of my reflection. The intense green eyes were still there, but they had changed. As I stared the green eye color I was born with became an almost intense shade that is impossible to even come up with a name for while the whites of my eyes turned as black as night. I looked at Mathias and Ashley and saw fear and when I turned back to Auric he was grinning like a kid in a candy store.

A sudden pounding in my skull rocked me backwards on my hook as my headache increased to monstrous proportions. As the pain of this drew tears to my eyes I looked to Auric as he stood there watching with glee. As he watched he began to mumble to himself saying things like definitely more. He watched for a few more seconds before he lifted his eyes to meet mine and said ‘So are you.’ That's about the time everything went white and the pain started.