The sound of heels echo in the dark hallway, lit by dim red-flamed candles that flicker with every step.
My steps. I'm walking in the dark hallway.
... How did I get here? I look around to see my surroundings but there was only pitch black nothingness and floating candles.
The sound of my heels clacking against stone changes into a more metallic tang and my pace speeds up until I was running. In heels. Sick.
A door comes into view, decorated by vertical layers of stained glass that soon meets the bottom of my shoes, easily breaking under the pressure of my kick. Oops, and it looked kinda pretty too. Too bad, guess it couldn't take the power of my absolute badassery. My body doesn't stop running even as the bridge beyond the door starts to collapse under my feet.
I take a quick glance downwards and my stomach does a somersault after seeing how high up I actually am. Damn, I can't even see the bottom. The sound of metal against metal catches my attention- and hurts my ears- as my head turns up to look at the sword in my hand, slicing down part of the bridge in an attempt to find hold.
Upon further inspection, my heels were actually the ones making the godawful metal-on-metal screeching sound, sliding down and leaving marks on the bridge as I look for purchase.
I soon run out of bridge to slice and succeed in cutting it in half, finding myself falling into a dark pit of nothing. In an attempt to save myself, I throw my sword... Wait, is it even a sword? Whatever, I throw the sword towards the other end of the bridge. For some reason, I feel my body almost physically drawn to it.
It finds its target and I clench my fist, the sword rooting into the stone wall with thorny vine-like patterns of green light. I reach my hand to it and it pulls me towards it in an embrace of light. Hard.
My hand automatically finds its place on the handle and my feet stops me from slamming flat into the wall, the rock splitting under my heels. I felt the impact as if it's an electric shock that traveled throughout my whole body, like I fell a few stories but diagonally and my body just refused to be destroyed by the laws of physics.
I pull my sword out by slicing upwards, a beam of light exits from it and slices all the way to the top of the wall. That's a lot of damage I'm doing to this place. Why am I doing this even?
The beam of light is stopped near the top, a heart-like insignia shielding whatever's up there from further damage. The one who did it is... a knight. A blonde knight. Pretty boy knight. His metal shield is rectangular with a big golden heart in the middle. Cute.
He slams the bottom of his shield on the ground and slices sideways, sending rocks falling towards me. Okay, not cute.
For some reason, my heels are now attached to the wall, allowing me to run up towards the falling debris. I slice my way through them and once I'm near enough, I lock-on the knight and lunge.
As if my sword has a mind of its own, it flies straight towards the knight and pierces through what seems to be an invisible shield of light over his physical shield. I try to slice my way more but he stands his ground, the loud sound of metal clanging against metal ringing in my ears.
He parries an attack of mine and manages to de-equip my weapon, the sword landing a few paces away. I call it back to my hand, connecting its momentum with a horizontal slice.
It meets the shield and, as if in slow-motion, the knight looks up at me, now much closer than before. Yeah, he's really a pretty boy. Cool, physics-defying-hair kind of pretty boy.
"W-why?" I ask, my voice laboured.
Laboured? I sound as if I'm in pain. Why is that?
He gives me a soft push and I hear a squelching sound. His silver gauntlet is covered in blood and he lowers his shield. I see my reflection on his breastplate.
I have a hole in my chest.
Woah, how am I still standing? Actually- wait, no- isn't putting a big hole in my chest a little too much?! I know I'm kind of destroying a lot of your shit here but you just pretty much killed me, blondie!! I take it back, you're not pretty anymore, boy!
"Back to you, Alice," he replies to my question with something cryptic, expression almost apologetic.
Wait, who? That's not my-
Before I could finish my thought, I suddenly move my hand up and successfully get in an attack, wounding the right side of his face. Ooh, that looks really deep. Guess he won't be using that eye now. He shouts in pain and kneels down to the ground.
I- no- this Alice person shakily walks up to him and raises her sword with great effort. The blonde knight slams his shield down and a dome of light covers him and parries the attack.
The force of him slamming his shield down breaks the ground beneath us and I- no- 'Alice' falls down into the darkness.
♤ ♡ ♢ ♧
What a conundrum~
You wouldn't mind coming along, do you?
♤ ♡ ♢ ♧
I kick with a yelp as I wake up abruptly, as one does when you fall in a dream. Panting heavily, my eyes dart around my messy room with my heart beating fast as if I just ran a marathon while sleep deprived. Yeah. I'm still here.
Pat, pat.
Yeah, my chest is still intact. I'm not a human doughnut.
I sit up and sigh, running a hand through my hair, combing the messy thing back and away from my face. I'm still palpitating from the dream I barely even remember anymore... I still recall flashes somehow though. Pretty boy, chest hole, falling like a ragdoll into the darkness... What on earth was that? Man, my brain sure went wild.
I turn to my bedside table and snatch my phone, opening it only to be startled as it alarms on my hand. 6:00 AM. Cool. I stand up and pop a few bones, stretching my body side-to-side before going downstairs and preparing breakfast.
I walk by Dad's room to call him and chance upon it slightly open. He's hunched over his work table with only his table light giving him luminescence. I sigh and slide his curtains open, letting the natural light in. He turns to me, surprised .
"Oh... Good morning, Allie," he greets with a tired smile on his face. I put my hands on my hips and scrunch my eyebrows at him. "Uh-huh. Did you not sleep again?" I ask and he turns away. "I'm just finishing this, Al. It's due today."
I approach closer and watch over his shoulder.
It's a pretty little thing, like everything else he does. He continues working on a small wooden pocketwatch cover with an intricate swirling tree design. I glance to the side and there sits the pocketwatch inside its wooden case, also made of wood with small rose decals here and there. As pretty as the little baby is, it feels incomplete.
"Gonna put little jewels there in those roses," he points. Yeah, that's going to look real pretty. I smile to myself.
"Can I see what the little ones look like?" I ask and he huffs out a hoarse laugh. "Nah, I'm not gonna be the one to put 'em in. There's this jeweler just across the park, gonna go have him put them in later," he says, continuing his work on the pocketwatch cover. It looks pretty enough for me already but Dad's meticulous when it comes to the smallest details.
I notice perfect little holes on different parts of the tree and point at them. "There gonna be jewels in there too?" I ask and he nods, inspecting it and turning it side to side before nodding to himself. Finally.
"Alright! If you're done, let's both go down and eat breakfast before it gets cold," I beam at him but he waves me off. "Just a little bit more. You go on," he says without looking at me, slouching back to further work on the already pretty little baby. I sigh.
"Okay, I'll just leave some for you. Make sure you eat it, alright?" I walk off, closing the door as I leave.
Comments (3)
See all