Darkness' Vanity

Chapter Four: Death and Destitution

I had a dream of being at home in my bed. My mom was, and I could smell her cooking downstairs. I could see my breath in my room. It was morning, so the sun shone through my window lighting the entirety of the room. My eyes hurt from the light. I sat up and wrapped my blanket around me for warmth and headed for my door.

My room was on the second floor of the two-story house. Upstairs there was only me and my mom's rooms. I had no siblings, so it was a pretty lonely house most of the time, but I had grown used to the silence. I made way towards the stairs and continued my zombie-like walk down them. My blanket was long and dragging along the floor; almost causing me to trip and have an "I've fallen and can't get up" accident. I regained my balance and hitched up the blanket being careful not to trip up again. "Adeen," my mom called out from the kitchen. I must have made more noise tripping up then I thought.

I jumped down the last few steps and made way towards the kitchen. The smell of food filled the House. It smelled Delicious. "It's almost ready, do not get hasty," my mom said with a smile. She liked to make jokes like that. My mom was European. She never really told me what type, but she did say her family was from everywhere.

I sat down at the small two chaired table and watched my mom cook on the wood burner stove. I should've known it was too good to be true. The room melted away. Everything consumed by a quickfire and I was left standing in a black empty space. "I should've known; a dream," I thought. The reason for me being so hard on myself was the fact my mother had died some time ago when I was younger. That had to be a dream. I had thought I was over this (me randomly dreaming my mother was alive in vivid detail).

When my mom had first died, when I was younger, I dreamt like this a lot. My dream would always be a typical day at home, with my mother, then everything would disappear. It would burn away in a fire. Then my dream would abruptly end. It was ironic considering this was the fate I had lost my mom too. She went in a fire.

With that thought, out of the corner of my eye, I caught a small glimpse of light. My eyes quickly snapped to the origin of the glow. There was a small glimmer of shiny light just before me. It was hovering in the emptiness before me. It then started to dart around in the air in front of me leaving a trail of light where ever it went. I then noticed that it wasn't just moving in random motions it was spelling something. I started to read "your path is guided by the one soon to be the king of forces beyond you. You will be the deciding factor of the force that will be lead whether good or evil. Now, go he cries out to you, and you need to not only save him but yourself". The light soon faded after. The surrounding glow and message soon disappeared along with the faint glimmer.

I lay on my knees my palms flat on the ground beneath me. I had no clue what the floaty light specter thing meant or of any soon to be king. I was taken aback by this and had no idea why this was happening to me. Just days before I was a normal girl living a normal life. Well, as usual as an orphan whose mother died in a horrible accident and father left before she was born, but conventional nonetheless. I was 16, but I had been living by myself for around two years. With that thought, the room started to glow faintly, and I could begin to make out shapes. It slowly faded into focus much as a camera does. As soon as the room came in to focus I remembered my situation. I was in a large what seemed to be a throne room. It had giant stone pillars to either side of the room. There was a massive fire in the middle of the room, and I remembered I was just in that fire before I passed out.

Just as that memory crossed my mind, I saw a thin, pale figure with dark hair crouched over a body. That body was mine. Before I could react, I ran towards my lifeless self. I sighed with relief when finally reached my body and realized I was still breathing. The figure at my side was Finciar. He was a childhood friend who only recently showed back up in my life. It was he who had dragged me into this unknown world. This all started once I met him again.

He was calling my name and gently shaking me to wake me up. There was a crash that that shook the immediate vicinity as a pillar to our left exploded and crumbled down. Finciar threw his body over my unmoving one before him to shield it from the debris of the destroyed pillar. Before the dust settled, I saw a red-haired kid, pulling himself up to his feet on a gigantic sword, emerging from the rubble of the broken pillar. His face was apathetic like getting smashed through pillars of stone was an everyday thing that he had got tired of a long time ago. His clothes were torn to ribbons, and he was covered in blood, but that didn't stop him from picking up the massive sword and charging towards whatever had just used his body like a wrecking ball. There were chains following behind him.

Finciar was now shaking me more urgently. He was now screaming, "ADEEN WAKE-UP!" He was also adding in how this was not the best of times to be going into deep sleep. One of his hands were inching towards the sword on the ground beside him as if he would have to step in for the little guy, who was now being used as a demolition tool. I could not see what trouble we were facing, but whatever it was, it was huge and angry. The kid was tossed back towards us. His body limply bounced and settled beside us, chains snaking across the ground after him. His massive sword flew back shortly after and effortlessly dug into the floor beside the boy, inches away from his arm. He merely pushed himself up and stood, crawling up the sword to get to his feet. It was painful to watch.

The boy's face had the in braced death look on it. He had sheer boredom smeared on his face. He slowly slid the swords free of the ground and took the same charging stance, but to despite the unchanging look on the boy's, his body revealed the boy was tired, and his arms gave out, and the massive sword clanged to the ground, and the boy started to fall. Finciar quickly lunged towards the boy and caught his limp body. He hurried over to mine fumbled to pick up the sword he had abandoned to grab the boy and ran it across the shoulder of my lifeless body. Before the blood had time to flow the boy was drinking my blood. I was appalled. "WAKE UP," I screamed. I gasp for air as I woke up on the floor of the throne room with a loud scream.