Fog of Shadows

Part 30

 Alisea never looked away as her dear friend plunged the razor sharp knife towards her neck; her eyes never broke from Willow's and her ears rang with the sound of the blade embedding itself in the hard wood of the table. The blade hardly nicked her neck. At this point, Alisea could not speak, could not think, and could not move. She only felt sorry for Willow when she saw the anguished expression on her friend's face. "I can't..." choked Willow, her voice shook and her hands dropped the blade. " I can't hurt you."

Finally, Alisea found her voice, "It is alright Willow, can't we all just leave this place?" her voice was barely above a whisper and only Willow heard her.

"What are you waiting for mon Cher?" asked the skeleton as he walked over to Willow and picked up the blade she had dropped. "Don't you want her to exist forever with you?"

Willow turned to her master and looked at him with pleading eyes. "I can't hurt her. She is the only child I can ever have. Please let her go, I do not care about the others, but please let her go." She clung to her the tattered remains of her master's skin cape. "I beg of you."

"You expect me to show mercy after you ran away and disobeyed me? Wasn't it I that gave you life after the world took it from you?" Willow hung her head and nodded.

"Wasn't it I that allowed you to take revenge on the families that forsaken you in your time of need?" Again, Willow nodded her head.

"Yet you ask for leniency when I want to give your daughter immortality? I have right to take your life from you." He tore her hands from his cape and pushed her aside; leaving Willow lying impotent on the ground. "If you won't do it, then I will do it for you!" He approached the table and grabbed Alisea's jaw to lift her head, exposing her neck. "I will make it quick and painless for you." Alisea could smell the skeletons rotten, moldy breath as it raised its arm, ready to plunge the blade into her slender neck. Accepting her fate, the young captain closed her eyes and waited for the ice-cold sting of the blade.

Lifting her head to her daughter, Willow was freed from her useless, numb state and hurled herself at her master with a bellowing war cry. When her master's head hit the cave's dirt floor, his red-colored glass eyes popped out and rolled under the table that Alisea was strapped to.

"You spineless traitor!" shouted Horace through his thick, ocean tattered mustache as he pulled his rusty sword from its sheath and charged at her, only to hit the floor when he tripped over Flinn's foot.

Jumping to her feet, Willow grabbed the knife from her master's hand and cut the rope restraint holding Alisea's injured hand. "Here, take this and flee!" she pressed the blade into the young captain's hand, the metal cutting Alisea's skin, before returning her attention to her master in fear. Suddenly, Horace, who had gotten up and come to his master's aid, threw her to the ground. Willow's head hit the ground hard, but it hardly phased her and she clawed her fingers into the dirt to get away from her attackers; all the while, her master crawled around on the ground to find his glass eye.

Using the knife Willow had handed her, slippery with her blood, Alisea managed to free her other hand from the restraints; her hand burning from the rough wooden handle digging into her fresh cut. Trying to keep her mind off the three grotesques on the ground before her, she freed herself and turned to her chained friends. The first she tries to free is Flinn, who smiles at her and tries to pull his wrists free from their restraints. "Are you alright?" he asked, but she did not reply. She dug the tip of the knife into the keyhole in the hopes that she could free him.

Grabbing a nearby rock, Willow swung it at Horace's head; hitting her target and sending Horace to the ground, holding his nose in pain. Still clinging to the rock as if it were a beacon of safety, Willow scrambled to her feet; now, her target was her former master. She knew that, as long as he wandered the earth, neither her daughter nor she was safe. As her master searched under the table that held his victims, Willow sends the rock flying down at her master's head.