The hallway past the mirror from reception that both Eryn
and Shroud had entered to was similar to that of reception. The walls were
mirrors, the floor was marble, however this room was a box, rather than an
octagon. Along the surface of the mirrors on either side were cracks, fault
lines in the glass heading down the corridor. Shroud had no idea what had
happened Neave but this certainly wasn't a good sign. Moments later Lily
entered the corridor and caught up, and had finally successfully talked Valma
into sleeping. The next room was pitch black, the two glowglobes the three of
them carried illuminated the dark for only a few feet. The Mirror Vault is
exactly that, a vault lined with mirrors, but in this darkness they took on
another form. They seemed to be a sheet of deep water, or oil reflecting in
tones of blue. Towering mirrored cabinets, holding the precious and the
valuable, stood as imposing pillars. There was no sound, no light nor wind.
Shroud used his mental link with Neave to try to locate her, but she wasn't
responding. The group split, trying to cover as much ground. Lily's eyes were
used to darkness but this was something that she had not encountered, no grave
or tomb was this still. To her this was not just the absence of light, the
darkness was its own presence. Eryn on
the other hand, could happily see in the light. He almost revelled in the fact
that he could do something the group could not but then immediately regretted
it. Out of the corner of his eye he spotted something moving in the mirrors. It
seemed to be causing ripples on the surface. He didn't want to believe what he
saw; a writhing mass of flayed flesh and sinew, dripping in blood.
Shroud had barley seen Neave's glowglobe on the floor. It
was fading into watery ink of the dark, smashed into pieces. The light was
fractured against the shattered glass on the floor. Neave's shadowed figure lay
in-between. There was the same horizontal fault lines in the storage pillars
with what could only be described as downwards claw marks in the fault lines
towards Neave. Shroud cradled her, and in the fleeting light noticed the
bloodied edges of the glass on the floor. Neave was slowly loosing consciousness.
He tried to heal her wounds, only for
Eryn to step in and bandage up her cuts and lacerations. He then asked Shroud
if he had heard him, about what was in here with them. Shroud did not react, he
was still focused entirely on Neave. It was then that Lily screamed. A sound the rest
of the group had not heard, and so became instantly frightened She too now saw
the flayed flesh in the mirrors, twisting and thrashing towards them. She saw
more than she would ever wish upon her enemies. At the centre of the creature
was an eyeball, the size of child. It was the colour of gold, with a halo of
burnt orange around the pupil. Veins, the with width of straw, pulsed with its
twitching movements. It did not blink.
***
Across the city Chloe had found herself on the rock garden
outside Mezzo. She dared herself to look over the edge, and was nearly sick
into the horizontal waterfall. She slowly stepped backwards, edging towards the
centre of the boulder. Her heel clipped something and nearly tripped off the
edge. It was a wooden box, and with a few knocks, apparently hollow. It had a
oval crystal to top of one of the broader sides. Above on the adjoining face of
the box to the crystal was, what she presumed, to be a hatch. She held the box
now with both hands, with the crystal
facing towards her at the top. There were too bloodied handprints on either
side, which had now soaked in. She placed her hands over the prints and could
feel that the wood under her thumbs was different to the rest. She gently moved
them and the crystal became opaque. With this transition it now displayed text,
a list of flowers. Some were common ones that Chloe knew well . Others, she
remembered her childhood, with the rest being either too exotic, or too
complicated to pronounce. She moved her thumbs again and different flowers, in
turn became highlighted. She picked a flower, a type of blossom and moved her thumbs again in
hopes to continue.
The next screen then displayed with a proximity value. It showed
a number incredibly close to zero. She looked down and rock garden and to her
surprise, the bouquet plant had that
flower. She looked at the box and then back at the flower, trying to understand
how something that normally grew on trees could grow on a garden plant. She moved the box closer, the
value now reaching zero. There was then
a display of multiple warnings before the box rattled and out from the slot
fired two ceramic needles, tied to what appeared to Chloe as common twine. The
sensations under her thumbs changed and so too the screen, now displaying a
sets of strings of numbers and letters with multiple periods punctuating the
lines. Chloe wheeled through them,
selecting a string that gave her a good feeling. The colour of the blossom
changed from a pale pink to a vibrant blue. She was then prompted to select if
she was sure she wanted to establish a connection. Without hesitation she selected 'yes'. Without realising, the box had now tethered
her wrists with string. The world slowly began to sink into darkness. The city
became shapes, that became blocks of colour, until that faded into grey and
then black.
No comments:
Post a Comment