Blakeshire (Insight #9)(99)

It was hours past noon. I could tell by where the sun was compared to the burning city in the distance. From there, I figured out that south was right where I was standing, that the stone chamber was on this side of the wall. That helped, but what didn’t help was not knowing what I was even going to get or bring back. Was I really going to pull the remains of a body up here? Was that what I needed for some immortal test? Or was it just my survival they wanted to witness?

The chants turned into something low and morbid. Alamos nudged me forward on the ledge. I glanced at the crowd below me, bowed slightly, then stepped into this dark abyss, falling too fast to comprehend what I was doing.

Seconds after my feet left the ledge, I heard an explosion, then a roar. I was too worried about falling even to care. With little effort, my hands were free.

I tried to use my energy to slow my fall, flinging blows of it at the air I was soaring through. It worked, somewhat. At the very least, I slowed myself down enough to know whether or not I was passing an opening. Seconds later, I did pass the passage. My body flew past it like a lead weight.

Right after that, I splashed into water, water that was forcefully moving upward. The current slammed me against the wall and carried me upward, and before I knew it I was sucked into that opening I was trying to reach. Just as I swam into that crevasse, the water started to fall away. I had to grip the wall with every ounce of strength I had just so I wouldn’t be sucked away with the current.

Gasping, I tried to focus my eyes in the darkness. I could only vaguely see the stones; the sky and floors above were offering next to no light.

I started to fumble around this massive chamber. The floor was slick and gross to the touch. I was pretty much convinced that this was insane, that I just needed to climb out of this hole and throw it in those bastards’ faces that I was still alive.

That was when I heard that old childhood fear, that cold voice telling me to run. That was when the shadows around me started to form into a massive octopus. That was when I understood that this was a nest at one time, long ago, and it was the last place my little demon wanted me to go.

That spiteful emotion of fear morphed throughout my soul. I lost my reprieve right when I needed it the most. My heart started to pound as anxiety and adrenaline both fought to take control over my body. It took all I had not to back out of this cave and fall to my death.

Right as that thought came, I heard my name whispered by the most innocent voice in creation. Nervously, I glanced over my shoulder. There I saw Preston, glowing ever so brightly.

“Preston,” I breathed.

“Here,” he said, waving his hand for me to come to him.

The dark shadow octopus vanished, and the voice that was telling me to run let out a blood-curdling scream before it vanished into the darkness.

I glanced at my way out, then back at Preston, deciding that even though I knew that could not be the real him, someone somewhere wanted me to move forward.

His tiny body was kneeling down. When I reached him, I saw that the cave went deeper and in the crevasse below was a body. It was covered in ice, but rocks had fallen within this cave recently and those rocks had freed certain parts of the body from their icy imprisonment.

“The knife,” he whispered as he nodded to the stone floor.

I had found the remains I had been searching for.

The girl was holding her arms in a protective cradling position. Where her hands met, there was a knife, one that was regal yet looked as if it had been created today—time had not touched it.

“You tried to free me,” Preston whispered.

With a wide gaze, I looked into his blue eyes.

“You broke your bonds and saw that I was pulled in here. You tried to free me. Drake killed the monster, but it was too late…no air,” he said in a sad little voice.

“Preston, you think this was you?”

“No. I know it was.” He moved forward, and as he did the glow from his essence shined on the rocks behind the girl’s body. When I moved them, I saw a boy, his arm around the girl and the infant.

It was hard to see any of our three images in the remains of these vessels. Though they were near perfectly preserved, without a soul within them the similarity was hard to envision. The emotion, the energy I felt was the only thing telling me how horrible this death was.

“My words came back after the very first explosion.”

I stared at Preston, knowing that he had spoken long before today. In his eyes, I saw my answer. The night Drake left to find Willow for the first time, there was earthquake, one that the souls that lived here believed was an omen. That shaking had broken the ice around the baby, and the clothes around the child were pulled away.

“Knife,” he said to focus me again.

With a trembling hand, I reached for the blade that matched the sharp ice it was surrounded by all too well. With my touch, warmth came, fire came, and the thick ice instantly melted away. With the ice’s absence, the resemblance in these vessels to mine and Drake’s became more than real; it was like looking into a morbid mirror. I covered my mouth in horror as I fought my pained terror.

“I don’t know how I’m going to move these bodies,” I said as I fought back tears and gripped the knife in my hand.

“You just need the knife. The bodies will follow,” Preston assured me.

“Everything is telling me that I have to put them to rest. That these are chains on us.”