Midnight

42 - Shadow Portals

Blake was given a solo job. Vendel wanted Blake to look all over Arcadia for anything unusual, obviously, she couldn't do it alone. She asked Claire to help her with checking around everywhere in Arcadia.

"Okay, we are going to check only the big places such as the Planetarium, Museum, School, and downtown, that's all we're going to do," Blake points out, she looks at Claire and saw her expression, she was nervous and sighs. Blake places her hand on her shoulder, "don't worry, I care for your well-being, we'll take a look for the 10 minutes and we're going to the next place," Blake reassures Claire.

"Thanks, let's do this," Claire thanks them and she throws a portal open. Blake runs in first. She enters the portal and their first destination. Blake landed on her knees and coughed up a little bit of blood. She gasped.

"No, not now," Blake whispers. She quickly gets up from the ground and looked around, "huh, the Museum,"

Claire jumps out of the portal and looks around, "the museum?"

"That's what I am questioning, why brings us here?"

"I'm not sure,"

"This place gives me the chills, this is where the Killahead Bridge was before. It's more of nostalgia than chills," Blake says, "okay, let's look around, let me know what you find," Claire nods. They both go into different parts of the museum. Blake was glad to not find any goblins nest anywhere. Neither on Claire's end.

Claire opened another portal that went to the Planetarium. And to their expectations, there was nothing to be found. It seemed that the goblins and gummgumms only were interested in the most populated part of Arcadia. There was nothing to find so they went to their next location.

Their school. It may not be the place where they'd expect anything unusual. It was just a precaution because both of their Trollhunters go to school there. Who knows what's going to happen.

The last place was downtown, the last portal took a lot of damage to Blake's body. Instead of a few drops of blood, it was a handful of blood. Blake quickly wiped it off and went down the road. Claire followed and noticed Blake down the street, "Blake, you're already going to do your section of downtown?" Claire questioned loudly.

"Yeah! Then we're done, let's do it," Blake replies and quickly runs around. She really wanted to finish this task and not get caught like this. She wanted to tell them when Jim recovered. On their search, they didn't find anything out of place. Blake went home and Claire did as well.

Blake started to do dry coughs. She can hear a thumping coming from upstairs and then toward the stairs. It was Sky.

"Blake, oh my god, you look terrible," Sky ran toward Blake's side and helped her stand up properly. She sat her down on one of the tables and looked at her face. Her eyes were slowly turning purple over her black eyes. Her skin was paler than her normal pale from the last time she saw her. The colour in her hair was draining away.

"Did - did you go into anything that involved the darkness?" Sky questioned.

"Yeah, why?" Blake questioned, feeling slightly concerned.

"In the past, three people before me died quicker than a month. They died after half of the month went by. Because they were in the Darklands for 10 days and only lived for 5 days on the surface,"

"But how--?"

"This was many centuries ago before Gunmar was banished into the Darklands, he found this amulet, claimed as his own until he lost his eye. The next Midnight Trollhunter fought beside him and before they disappeared into the Darklands, he turned into stone after 5 days and the amulet was left there for someone else to have..." Sky reached into her pocket and grabbed a recent photo of Blake, "this was you before the darkness started to consume you,"

Blake looked at the photo and noticed how fresh she looked and energetic. Sky pulled out her phone and put it into selfie mode, "this is you now when the darkness is consuming you," Blake was horrified at what she was shown.

"You went into the Darklands for half of the day and many of those dark portals did you go through?"

"5 portals and we've been in there for 30 minutes,"

"That means you have..." Sky gasped, "you only have 18 days left,"

"It took 5 days away?!"

"Yes," Sky whispered loudly. Blake started to panic. She started to breathe in heavily and she held her chest, the tightness in her chest was painful. Sky tried to calm her down and it was easily done when Sky breathed in and out slowly, "from now on, don't go through the shadow portals even if it's a part of the missions you go on. Okay?" Sky commanded.

Blake nodded. She went up to her calendar and scratched out the 5 days, "18 days, how will I tell them now when I'm this close to dying?" Blake wondered as she bit her nail.