Silent Stars (Bribelle)

~Chapter Two~

Faybelle's heels gracefully landed on the cobbled ground in front of Briar's mom's castle. The one and only castle of sleeping beauty. She gazed at the tall building, as it had been a considerable amount of time since she had been there. She made her way to the front door, discovering that Briar had left it cracked open.

"Jeez, it would be easy to rob them." She whispered to herself, the statement soon being followed by an amused snicker. Faybelle placed a pale hand on the door, pushing it open. Her eyes immediately landed on the grand entrance of the ornate castle, the interior walls blanketed with vines and roses with knife-like thorns.

"That's strange...they only ever thorn and grow like this when something bad happens to the castle..."

Faybelle curiously approached the vines, running her fingers along the greenery. Her mind raced with thoughts and questions as to why the roses and vines would suddenly grow like this as if they were trying to protect the palace.

Out of a sense of wonder, she curiously put a finger out and gently tapped one of the outer petals of a large, pink rose that was clinging to one of the sizable main vines. As soon as her finger made contact with the petal, the flower wilted and turned into a dark, blackish-blue color. Faybelle gasped as she saw almost all of the petals fall off of the stem. She watched as the short, stubby rose stem fell gracefully off of the vine and landed at her feet, the fragile remains of the flower scattered around her.

She raised a suspicious eyebrow, reaching her hand out to touch a second rose. The exact same thing happened. It transformed into a dark, wilted flower as the petals fell off and the rose stem turned into a darker green, landing at Faybelle's feet.

Faybelle knelt down and held one of the dead, dark indigo petals between her thumb and pointer finger. She held it gently in front of her face, inspecting it, watching for any clues or signs as to why the roses just crumbled like that.

"Why are they so fragile? And why didn't the vines do that?"

Her eyes shifted up to the vines, scanning the razor-sharp thorns covering them. She stood once more and put a hand against one of the vines, attempting to discover anything she didn't already know.

As her fingers crossed the vines, she didn't even notice her fingers running over a long, sharp thorn. It cut through the pale skin of her pointer finger, making a rhombus-shaped cut. The small rhombus began dripping blood rapidly down her finger and onto the palm of her hand.

"Shit!" She winced at the sharp pain that strung through her finger as the thorn cut her skin. She stuck the finger into her mouth, making a dire attempt to stop the unusually fast bleeding.

She wrapped her hand around the cut finger, finally putting an end to the red bloodstream running down her hand. When her eyes finally met the cut, she spotted that the cut was in a rhombus shape. An unusual one that could only come from sleeping beauty's castle vines.

"Well, that explains the blood"

Faybelle glanced around, her eyes finally landing on one of the many staircases.

Despite the knowledge that if she got caught by Briar, she would be dead, something drew her towards a certain staircase. Almost as if it were calling her name, pulling her limbs towards the stairs with invisible threads.

Still holding the cut, she slowly approached the staircase, almost in a trance. She tried to snap herself out of it, to release her mind from this trance, but she couldn't. There was a voice, an almost angelic one calling her up the stairs.

Faybelle's heels made a faint click as she stepped up the first few stairs, the cold, cobbled floor under her feet being smothered with vines as she walked. The vines continued to grow, the thorns becoming sharper with every vine that grew.

Faybelle was caught in a trance, falling deeper and deeper into it with every step she took. Her eyes sparkled pink as she continued moving up the steps. A rose grew in front of her, but Faybelle was so caught up in this daze that she walked over it without a glance.

The rose died the moment Faybelle's foot smashed it, becoming the same midnight blue color the other two did. The petals shriveled up, falling off of the vine and fluttering back down the stony steps. 

Faybelle reached the top of the stairs, listening to the ethereal voice that called her, singing its angelic siren song from a distant room. Faybelle continued walking in the direction of this voice, completely entranced by it.

The vines continued to grow around her as if it were trying to lead her to somewhere. She didn't know if they were trying to fight her, or if they were trying to help her, but she could barely think straight through her hypnotic state.

Faybelle walked perfectly straight, not tripping over a vine or stumbling over the stony floor beneath her once. Her feet moved slowly and gracefully until there she was. She finally reached the room this mysterious voice had called her to.

She finally snapped out of her dream-like state, looking around. The vines around her surrounded every wall, every door as if the castle were begging her not to leave. As if it needed her to go in that room.

She put a shaky hand on the doorknob, preparing herself to be met with some sort of beast or deadly attack, but no. Faybelle saw something far, far worse.

"Briar?!"