The Midnight Game - Skulduggery Pleasant Fanfiction

Chapter 6 - 02:01

"Oh my God," Valkyrie said, her hands suddenly feeling numb. "Oh my God..."

"Don't panic," Saracen said, trying to calm her as one would a startled horse. "We don't know anything, we can't assume anything. For all we know he just dropped it."

"He doesn't do that," Valkyrie said, fighting to hold back more tears. "He never takes off his gloves. Never. He wouldn't do that, he wouldn't -"

"Calm down," Saracen cut her off, and she fell silent, her mind too scrambled to make rational judgements. "We just. Have. To find them. Okay?"

She nodded, gripping the glove tighter than her salt.

With shaken heart and mind, they advanced up the stairs with a new urgency, and Valkyrie tried to think of an explanation, and the only conclusion she could come to was that the Midnight Man had taken him.

Valkyrie wondered where he was. She remembered how she'd found him in the Faceless Ones' reality, and was terrified of rounding every corner in the house because she thought she'd find him, pulled apart once again, the magic drained from him, his consciousness destroyed. Or was his death being prolonged? Was he being tortured? Was the Midnight Man slipping his shadowy fingers between Skulduggery's ribs, slowly pulling them apart, silencing his screams? 

Something small and furry scurried across Valkyrie's foot. She didn't even flinch.

Would Valkyrie even get the chance to know what had happened to him? Would she even get to say goodbye? The Midnight Man did not strike her as one to be so kind. His bones could be scattered across the grounds outside at this moment, being turned to dust and scattered. She would never know any better.

Her thoughts briefly moved to Dexter and she felt a little guilty that she wasn't so worried about him, but then the fog in her mind settled again and she thought more about Skulduggery.

Saracen stopped all of a sudden, and Valkyrie jerked to a halt beside him.

"Why are we stopped?" She asked, her voice shaking. Saracen shook his head.

"We aren't...we aren't going to win this."

Valkyrie couldn't think of a positive counter claim, and all she could say was, "Why?"

Saracen looked at her, resignation in his eyes. The joy and hope that usually resided there had long since vanished. "Don't you understand the game yet? We can never win."

"That's ridiculous. If we can make it to three thirty -"

"Forget three thrity three. That doesn't matter. We can walk out of here at three thirty three unscathed. All four of us, safe and sound, and we'll never be bothered again. But we've already lost the game, because we're afraid. This fear will never go away."

Valkyrie nodded. "I know. I've thought about that. But -"

"You haven't thought about it though. Not really. I know you haven't. Because you're still carrying on. if you'd thought properly you would have given up."

Valkyrie's confusion quickly became anger. She frowned. "You're giving up? Why?"

Saracen stared at her for a second. "I've never felt fear like this before. We both know that this fear will never leave, right?"

"Well...yes, but -"

"I don't want to live with this fear."

Valkyrie paused, and then her anger melted away slightly. "Oh," she whispered. Saracen looked away.

"Sorcerers live a long time, Val. I don't want to bear these scars. I don't want to live with them."

Valkyrie pursed her lips, and then realised how long they had been standing still and tugged at his sleeve, pulling him along into a sluggish walk. For a long time, maybe ten minutes, she didn't speak, and neither did Saracen. The candles flickered constantly, and Valkyrie considered Saracen's words. He had a point - why live with painful scars that don't heal? Why irritate them every night, every time it's dark? Why live in a mindless agony when there was freedom in a death that was so freely offered?