The Relentless Past

Ch. Eighteen

Ch. Eighteen

William turned back.

The grey room was nowhere to be found and it was infact replaced by a plot of land filled with flowers. Lavenders. Roses. Dandelions. They were plenty of flowers to run a florist shop for a decade. He looked down below to find Audrey staring right back at him. Her eyes were glowing and if it were possible, there might be stars in her eyes. She smiled back at him, eyelashes brushing against her cheek and maybe she, too, identified as a flower here.

She clutched his hand then, much to William's suprise and happiness, and pulled him forwards. They ran between the blooming field of flowers, more like Audrey ran and William was dragged by her. He had no time to calculate how and why they got here in the first place, before he found himself matching the smile on Audrey's face whilst they vanished in the land.

The bushes covered them till their waist and Audrey was truly so small, she sometimes completely disappeared into the flowers, only her head poking out from beneath. Then all of a sudden, she stopped and left William's hand. The smile on William's face dropped as he stopped himself before he collided into Audrey.

"Hm?" He asked. Audrey turned and pointed to the ground below her. There were thorns, thorns of roses, scattered on the ground. Above them, there was a circular patch of grass making a doorway that looked outworldly. William poked his head inside and the ceiling was decorated with flowers. Everything was honestly majestic, if not for the thorns.

"There are thorns here. We can't travel further." She said, the smile on her face turned to a pout. Something ached in William, he had never before seen Audrey smile that wide and he would agree to anything to put that smile back on her lips. Anything for a friend, of course. William was a completely good friend, he would be doing anything for a friend. He's kind obviously.

Would it be a good idea if he carried Audrey in his arms? His shoes were made of thick leather, it wouldn't hurt that much. Audrey wore sandles, yikes. He turned towards Audrey to explain his idea to her when he felt Audrey place a hand to his mouth and shush him. She had a finger place on her lips, signaling him to quiet down. William did.

Her hands were way too tiny and it hardly covered his whole face. The contact between his lips and her hand seemed to burn and William had a strange idea to lick her hand but he deemed the idea as inappropriate and shook his head to chase the thought out. That made Audrey remove her hands from him.

He then heard a small grunt coming from a distance, it seemed like an animal growl and a strange gallop of footsteps. He tried focusing on the sound that eventually seemed to fade away but he couldn't. Audrey's face was tremendously close to his and his every breath tickled the eyelashes on her face. William took a moment to study her eyes that were narrowed a little to focus on any slight danger. He liked the look in her eyes, fiery and determined. The grey in her eyes should've looked lifeless except it didn't. It almost appeared that her eyes had a fraction of every color mixed to make it grey. Her pupils were blown wide and they were so near that he saw the starkling silhouette of a horse in her eyes. He turned around swiftly and there right in front of them was a glorious horse. Jet black in colour.

The horse was not a wild one. It had bowed in front of the two with all the gratefulness of a princess and William couldn't help the respect within himself that he bowed as well. Audrey followed.

The horse was way too black that it took Audrey a moment to dissociate his features from his skin color. He was beautiful and he made a slight sound that said to mount him. William grasped her hands lightly and pulled her with him. Before she could protest, he sneaked a hand under her waist and picked her up. For all of Audrey's insecurity of being overweight, he made her seem weightless. He placed her carefully in such a way that both her legs faced the same direction. He mounted behind her effortlessly.

"Do you ride horses very often?" She asked.

" I have worked in a stable." He answered, he caressed the soft fur on the horse's body. Audrey found herself clutching on to William's shirt as he signaled the horse to walk forwards. The horse was large and as Audrey looked down from it, she was scared.

William laughed and it was a merry sound against her ears, "You're scared!"

"I'm not! It's just, what if I fall?" She asked.

"You won't, here " William said as he made her hold his waist and then she was hugging William rather awkwardly. She remained there for a few moment as the horse walked inside the circular path of grass, she looked up at the ceiling and was immediately in awe of it

"William! Look!" She pointed, still hugging him. He looked down at her then to the ceiling above. It wasn't covered by grass now, it was plastered with flowers and one seemed to fall in Audrey's hair.

William took out the flower from her hair, it was a sunflower. Audrey giggled.

"Here!" She said as she took the flower from his hands and placed it near his ear. William looked so soft like this. They were interrupted when suddenly the horse gave a low growl and stopped. The horse kicked his hindlegs and they both were unstable. They fell off the horse and had no time to recover as the horse turned around and ran away from the direction it had come from. Audrey caught a brief flash of red from the horse's eyes.

"What on earth?" William muttered.

"It seems possessed." Audrey commented.

" look down" William pointed, there were red flowers scattered in midst of the thorns. Roses. They had a weird scent coming out from them, "these roses are poisonous. Don't step on them."

"I can't step at all, the thorns are wounding me. I should have wore boots." She was half way through her words when she felt William pick her up in a way, embarrassing to her.

" I can walk, I'm okay!" She protested.

"That's not what you said earlier." He said as he walked, he would be recommending the company of his shoes later to Cody because God, it didn't hurt at all. He tried his best to avoid the red roses, he seemed to be dancing at this point with Audrey in his arms. If only they had music.

"Yes but I was-" Audrey tried again.

"You're contradicting." William laughed.

"William."

"Fine fine"

They laughed as they reached a little doorway that seemed very much like a cottage door. But then suddenly William misplaced his footing and placed his shoe on a red rose. A petal of it.

He hurriedly tried to push the door open but Audrey could feel William losing his senses and fainting against her. Very soon Audrey whitened out as she struck against his chest.

She heard a faint voice calling her name that almost sounded like Maddie.