Because I Love You✔️

Chapter 35: Sleepwalking

Chapter Thirty-Five: Sleepwalking

A familiar noise made Xaphile twitch wide awake.

He didn't know what it was, but for some reason, it stirred something in his memory.

Still half asleep, he sat up in bed as the noise, a shiver of wood sliding against stone, quietly repeated itself.

Dim candlelight from the one of the oil lamps in the hallway crept under the door, and as his eyes strained to find something in the gloom, he noticed the two shapes marring that single line of illumination.

Feet? he groggily wondered. Who's standing outside the door?

Just as he thought it, the door itself opened.

A spear of light passed over his dazed face, making him raise a clawed hand to shield his night-blind eyes from the attack... then he saw the dark shape peering through the six-inch crack with eyes deeper than any shadow he had ever seen.

They seemed to suck in all the light around and kill it mercilessly, in a way that chilled him to the core and made his skin ripple and jerk.

He opened his mouth, but the figure held a very human finger to its lips and a pair of eyes.... kind eyes of dark brown, eyes that were no longer forged of unforgiving black... smiled at him.

Xaphile closed his mouth, heart quieting, as the hand's fingers curled in the universal gesture of 'come here.'

Then the figure disappeared.

Slowly sliding out of the bed as if in a trance, he stood up with shaking knees, but when he wrenched open the door and stepped into the hallway, the figure was nowhere.

He turned, arms hanging limply, and stared off down the hall just as all of the oil lamps went out at the same time. Dazed, he merely blinked as his pupils expanded, still able to see perfectly.

"S'dark," he groggily whispered. "Wha's... going on?"

Confused, he looked down the stretch of hallway that led to where he and Sinmir had fought.
No one was there.

He turned to look in the other direction, towards inn stairs.

He blinked again, since the mysterious figure was looming near the spiraling staircase.

He opened his mouth to call out to the person, but they raised a hand and motioned for him to follow, which he did. He crept as quietly as he could past countless closed doors until he reached the turn, and with hesitation born of unfamiliarity, he walked down the stairs after the figure.

Shirt off, hands hanging limply, mind glazed over, he walked.

The figure was standing near the entrance to the Inn, and it continued to motion for him... continued to beckon, outside.

Thoughtless, Xaphile followed the figure across the bar room and past the tables, not even feeling the cool night air when he stepped out into the open. Tail dragging limply behind him, he moved after the shadowy person,  heading down the stone steps and into the city of bridges.

Everything was blurred over... time had no depth, no sense of meaning... and it wasn't long before the one leading him stopped, turning. He was standing in front of a tower of some sort, at the junction of an open doorway. The moment their gazes locked, the shadowy being turned and walked inside.

"Wait..." Xaphile sleepily croaked, slowly walking after him. "Where are... you going...?"

When he got to the doors and turned to look inside, he once again had the pleasure of seeing his secretive friend walk away from him, only this time, it was up a bizarre set of stairs.