Lost

Chapter 23

"Where's the key?" I asked quietly, my voice breathless.

I wasn't sure why the mermaids had helped us get here or why the entire island was resting on a skull. It was all too weird to take in.

"I have it." Said Bree, almost sheepishly, pulling the key out of her pocket and dangling it in front of us.

"So...these are the doors back to our lives?" Drew asked, whistling quietly between his teeth.

"I'm guessing they are." Kate said, staring up at them, taking in all the locks and gears overlapping each other.

"These candles were lit not too long ago." Nadia whispered, wringing out her long thick brown hair.

"Which means..." Irene hopped closer to me, her bad ankle flopping at a queasy angle.

"...Someone was here just a little while ago." I finished, taking her arm and slinging it over my shoulders

I shivered, but not from my dripping clothes.

"Bravo! Bravo!" A loud clap sounded behind us and we jumped.

A strange man walked through the wall of water, his dark robes somehow remaining perfectly dry. He was in his late thirties, though he seemed to have a timeless quality to him, as if he'd seen many horrible things and grown inexplicably old because of them. His hair was a metallic blond, grey streaks creeping up his sideburns and the back of his neck. His skin was pale, with sharp cheekbones protruding from his face and searching grey eyes piercing my thoughts. I wouldn't necessarily call him evil. Just tired.

Bree fumbled with the key, almost dropping it in the shock of a new person.

"Who...are you?" Asked Kate, swinging her honey brown ponytail behind her as she turned to meet his gaze.

"Before you start believing that I am the villain in this touching story, I shall tell you my part in it." The strange man began as if he'd said it a million times, "My name is Damien. Like you, my only memories are of this lost island. Unlike you, it is not due to amnesia. I was never lost. I simply was created for the sole purpose of taking care of this island. I am immortal." I couldn't quite place his accent. It was vaguely British.

"Are you..." Will began.

"Human? In a sense, yes." Damien raised an eyebrow, "the purpose of this island is to make your lives here miserable. I control this whole landmass." He snapped his long, thin fingers and a tower of sand funneled up from the floor. A flick of the wrist and the sand flew back down and settled once more on the stone.

"I don't understand," Alex's brow furrowed in confusion, "why do you need to make our lives here miserable?"

Damien frowned with impatience, "As you are probably aware, your lives before you were brought here, were extremely depressing, if not terrible. My job is to make you happy to get your old lives back. Life won't seem so bad once you're away from the Grauths."

"Grauths?" Jewel echoed.

"Ah...the monsters which were chasing you." Damien looked a bit uncomfortable.

"You mean, you were controlling the monsters?" Isaac asked, taking a step forward, his eyes flaring with anger.

"Ahem...ah...yes. About that. I can control them to the point where they draw blood...but just barely. After that, their actions are out of my hands." Damien shifted restlessly, his dark robes swishing about his feet.

"Reed died because you couldn't control them!" Will took a step forward, his face contorting in anger, "do you even care?!"

"Please. Let me tell the whole story." Said Damien, having the audacity to look slightly ashamed. In our eyes, he should have been groveling on the ground, begging for our forgiveness.

We were slightly curious so we listened, our eyes narrowed and our fists clenched in anger.

"Where do I start...I haven't told this tale in...many years. Hundreds, maybe." Damien stroked his chin, deep in thought, "one fine morn, I realized that a young lady had crashed on the island in a plane. I was quite bored of terrorizing lost people, and I thought I'd have a lark. I dressed myself up in lost clothing and went out to meet her. Her name was...Amelia Earhart."

He fell silent for a moment, his old eyes dancing with fond memories.

"I fell very far from my lofty throne that day. I suppose you would say that I...fell in love with her. Weeks I spent with her in paradise, perfectly happy for once in my long life. She was thirty nine at the time and I looked forty (though I was hundreds of years older) we were an old couple but we didn't care. We had the island to ourselves. What more could we want? But Amelia was always a little sad. Though she was madly in love with me, and I with her, she always wanted something more. She wanted her memories. I never told her the truth about me. I let her believe I was just another lost victim. I was weak." Damien's eyes grew cold and distant, "I was afraid she would hate me. Now I realize that she was far more sensible than to forget her love for me over the simple fact that I control this island."

I thought back to all those times when the earth had closed over the way out. That must have been Damien.

"Before then, I would always wait until the lost people had been properly terrorized before I let the mermaids beckon them into the sea where they would take them here. I would be waiting with the key and I would explain everything. Then they would go through the doors back to their lives. When I realized that Amelia wanted to leave, I wanted to do everything in my power to stop her. She knew nothing of the doors here. She knew nothing of the Grauths. She just grew bored of the island. She was an adventurous soul." Damien sighed, "I was stubborn, however. Once she left, I knew I would never see her again. She was extremely wise and she soon figured out how to leave using the compass and the key which I had hidden but she had so cleverly found. She drew up the map. She told me she knew how to leave and I grew very angry with her. We had a huge fight. She was very hotheaded and I, as I have already said, was very stubborn. I still am. Still, as I hid down here, she left the clues around the island in the hope that I would one day leave. She...she only had my wellbeing in mind. I thought nothing of what her wishes were. I only wanted her to...stay. Forever." Damien blinked and swallowed hard.

"I was so angry at the time that I-I sent the Grauths after her. I didn't intend for them to actually...." Damien trailed off, his thousand year old eyes filled with hundred year old pain, "I left her body in her precious airplane. I left all of her sweet clues exactly where she left them. Before I grew angry with her, I left the key on the tree stump. And there it has lain for seventy nine years. You poor young lost souls are the first to ever decipher her clues. To ever find her body. Congratulations. You are free to leave."

Silence filled the underwater room.

Thump

A body fell through the wall of water.

I wasn't sure if this body was dead or alive.