The Red Knight - Merlin BBC [2]

Chapter 21: This isn't Real

Third Person P.O.V.

Leon sprints down the hallway, Edythe's screams becoming more pained and urgent with every passing moment. He continues turning corners, ducking under arches, only to find dead ends and having to re-track his steps while also desperately trying to find Edythe. Leon keeps calling out for her, but she only responds with suffering and tortured moans of pain. The maze seems never-ending, and Edythe only seems to get further and further away despite Leon's thorough attempts to find her.

His stomach churns with every scream, anger burning through every one of his cells with every plea. Leon finds himself not even regarding his wellbeing as he forcefully runs into walls as they become corners, anything to get to her.

And then the screams stop.

Leon finds himself coming to a halt with the sudden silence, colour draining from his face. "Edythe?" he calls out once more. He doesn't get a reply.

The knight frantically sprints down the various halls, finding the walls become further apart, eventually opening up to a large cavern, much like the one he was in before. His chest heaves as he tries to regain his breath, looking around the cavern madly to choose a hall. But then he sees the figure on the ground in the centre of the cavern—a heap on the floor.

"Leon?" the heap croaks.

Leon is already by her side before his name is fully called, falling to his knees harshly as he discards his sword beside himself. "Edythe", he fretts, ignoring the pain of the cuts acquired on his knees from the sharp fall as he pulls her into his arms.

She's dressed in a simple thin long black dress, her blonde hair knotted around her head, blue eyes bloodshot with fear, pain and tears. Her feet are bare, bloodied and bruised, much like her arms and exposed collar bone. Edythe's face is bruised and cut. Her skin pales like snow.

"Leon-" she cries, tears escaping her eyes. "It hurts" her eyes fall to her stomach. She pulls her hand away from her stomach to reveal a gushing wound, blood pouring out all over the floor and onto Leon's lap.

The knight quickly covers the wound with his hand. "Everything will be okay", he frantically replies, applying pressure to the wound. "I'm here now. You're going to be okay", he repeats for her, Edythe unable to reply with anything other than 'It hurts'.

Leon's heart races in his chest, threatening to burst out and run away as he tries to think of how else to help the woman in his arms. The woman that he loves.

"Leon", Edythe's voice says sternly. He looks down at Edythe, but her lips don't move, even as he hears her voice once more. "Leon."

He turns as he feels a hand placed on his shoulder, looking up to see Edythe standing healthy and very much okay behind him. The knight looks down at the fragile body in his arms, her lifeless eyes staring back up at him with a ghostly empty vessel. His breath is shaky, eyebrows furrowing in confusion as he looks back up at the Edythe with her hand on his shoulder. This Edythe is wearing her usual attire, the same clothing he so distinctly remembers as the clothes she wore when they first met. Her hair even braided back in the same messy braid.

"This isn't real," she whispers in his ear.

Leon looks back down at Edythe in his arms, everything about her seeming different. Like she isn't Edythe. The woman standing behind him, that's my Edythe, Leon thinks.

"This isn't real," he says in time with Edythe.

In a blink of an eye, both Edythe's are gone. All the blood that had been staining the floor, Leon's pants, and chainmail is gone, replaced by the dirt and dried blood from days before. The knight looks around in a daze, breath still heavy from the panic he felt. Everything makes sense to him now, Leon regaining himself with the realisation that nothing he had witnessed was confirmed, as Edythe had told him before entering the labyrinth.