A Tale of Shadows - THE OUTDATED VERSION

Chapter 7 - Spreading The Prophecy

Jeffrey was standing outside the military base he was placed into, looking at the stars. The amount of silence he noticed was so enormous that he wasn't expecting it at all. There were no humans walking, there were only trees and the night. The world hung above him with all its might, reminding him of how vast it truly was. He only wanted to be alone and inhale some fresh air, but his mind wouldn't let him. He had others to help him with life, which still didn't give him much hope, even though the enemy had lost the previous battle. After all, not a nation fears an individual if it's unwarranted. 

While he was wondering what was happening to Melinda at the moment, a letter flew into his hands like a peaceful little dove. The envelope was a very light shade of brown, almost beige, and the letter was not sealed that carefully. He opened it instantly, throwing the envelope onto the ground. He raised an eyebrow, staring at the letter with all the attention he could muster. There wasn't a lot of text, yet the letters were incredibly small. He also noticed that it was a poem. Not fully knowing what to anticipate, he started to read it in his head:

Against the rising darkness, a hero will stride

With unending determination from his side.

A sword in his hands he always bore with pride,

A chance to fight for the people he never denied.

Across the lands, he is not much known,

And his time to train has long foregone,

But if destiny has made that call,

He will be the one who will save us all.

Jeffrey frowned at the pessimistic tone of the prophecy, trying to fight his heart, which knew just how true it all was. He didn't know whether it was translated from another language or not, but he knew that it was coming from Viola, so he trusted her. He began moving towards the inside of the military base, complete with a frown on his face and hopelessly slow steps. He was fully aware that all of this could have happened anywhere at any time and that it would have made no difference. He simply wasn't feeling that well. When he came in there, he went to sleep immediately, ignoring everyone's questions.

***

Melinda was sleeping as peacefully as she could that night, which meant that she was spinning around on the floor, her body restless. Before her eyes, there was sure proof that she could never escape reality. She was standing in the forest all by herself, watching as innocents were slaughtered. It was early in the morning, and the sky was eerily white. It had just stopped raining. It had been raining so much that a lot of mud had been formed as if the fact that there was blood galore on the grass wasn't enough. Since she was wearing a stupidly long white dress and heels, she slipped and fell, stained with the imperfections of the universe beyond. She fell even deeper in the blink of an eye, fell into a void where she could sense cold and tainted hands touching her. Then, silent as a fly, these hands suffocated her and left her to die.

She woke up early due to Patrick shaking her. She tried to restrain herself from yawning as much as possible, and only yawned a little bit. He smirked, holding an envelope in his hands. It was the exact same kind of envelope that Jeffrey had gotten the night before. Melinda blinked, wondering why he was doing this. She had so much to ask. However, she just listened to him.

"It seems that your boyfriend is destined to be the chosen one who will stop me. I have grasped just how much you love him and care for him, as he does with you. It would be a shame if he failed to fulfil his mission, if it all turned out to be for nothing. More tragedy stacked on top of already existing tragedy, more people who will never return, more chaos and disorder, more of everything you and those on your side fought against. But, alas, he was not trained to be a great sorcerer of any kind, and he was drafted randomly. Your side looks as if it has already lost."

Melinda's expression was blank. She bit her lip with all the force inside of her, hoping that her eyes would not reveal all the sadness and anger and fear that belonged to her soul. She stood there for many seconds, searching for the right words to fill her response with. He was not moving, incredibly pleased with what he had inflicted upon her. 

"You can torture me all you want, Patrick Hemmingway. You wish to watch me shatter like a porcelain doll, but I won't be so weak as long as I stay true to my ideals. This could be a ruse for all I know, for I have no reason to trust you. It doesn't matter if it's real or not. While I'm staying here, I desire to show you that you have underestimated me."

"I would love to see that, if you can keep up, of course," he replied, sounding as if he were holding a laugh. Suddenly, he slammed the door in her face, dropping another paper on the floor. Foreign words were written on it, but foreign words from a language Melinda could slightly recall memories of from before, which she had still forgotten so much of.

Interesting, she thought, picking up the paper.

***

Melinda then started to read the contents of the letter in her head. It was written in the ancient language of Xar, the country that Obscuria once was. She knew some of the words, and she simply realized the meaning of others through context, so she deciphered the letter easily:

"The memories of old are awakening. And those that are already here cannot bring it upon themselves to leave us. It's easy to bring back things that are dead - don't you agree? We cannot fully bring back a language with such rich roots, but we still have remnants of it. And even I have memories I will never be able to forget. I will always remember how a person long forgotten has given to me a dictionary of great value. I have put it somewhere no one except for me will find it. No one will ever-"

The letter ended abruptly with traces of spilt and dried ink on the bottom of the page. She turned the paper around and found no more words on it. Her face red, she crumpled the paper, tossing it on the floor. She was sick of him playing games with her. And now she had many questions. Was this an excerpt from his diary, if he had one at all? Did he write a letter to someone he knew? She severely doubted that he had any friends, but couldn't it be possible? Did he write a letter to her? Could it be why he spoke so openly of death and necromancy? If so, then why was he tossing the prophecy in her face at every opportunity? How in the world did he have no one else to talk with about a thing of such importance?

But there were more important things to worry about, especially the place where the dictionary could be at. Slowly, very slowly, she approached the door, staring at it as if she was expecting it to reveal to her the biggest secret of the cosmos. Her blood was freezing, every drop of it, yet her heart would not surrender so quickly. Her ears being certain they had not heard a single sound, she gripped the doorknob, sneaking out of the room immediately afterwards. Each step she made caused the floor to creak, creak so loudly that it was unbearable. There were many doors near her, all of them closed, excluding one. It was the door at the end of the hallway, the door of the seemingly abandoned study.

She soon began to explore said study. It was neatly organized, so neatly that not a particle of dust or a paper laid around unguarded. There were two large jade plants in pots on the opposite side of the room. The walls were painted pink, and there were no curtains around. There was a picture of a cat on one of the walls. It caused Melinda to wonder who owned the house before.

She opened the first drawer on the desk, which was in the middle of the room and made of mahogany. She couldn't have possibly know how large the dictionary was, and the drawers weren't small, so she believed that there could have been a chance that they were there. But as she opened the first drawer, and the second and third and fourth and fifth, she realized that these drawers, all filled with papers and pens and other such objects, may have been too obvious a place to put the dictionary at.

Then she checked all the books on the bookshelf, which was on the right side of the desk. She now thought that it might have been too obvious a place as well, but she couldn't leave a single spot uninspected. Most of these books had covers with bright colours that belonged on the rainbow, and none of them had anything drawn there; only words. There were some books coloured in the shades of black, brown, grey and white. She took those immediately, and the red and yellow ones as well, but just those without any cover art. It was a bit hard for her to carry them all, yet she managed, for she wouldn't let something so trivial ruin her mission. However, she almost dropped them when someone started to open the door.