Masked

Chapter 15-The Dark Descend

Chapter 15-The Dark Descend

Calling the maskeer mansion huge, mammoth or gigantic was an understatement. It could even have made Burj Khalifa make a run for its fame. The four maskeers climbed up the steps that had been carved into the rocky hill, adorned on the top with the mansion. Nature and wilderness grew wild and untamed along the path. Freya had to dodge many feral looking vines that hung from the tree branches and the creepers laid out in a quite orderly fashion, probably to make someone trip over. Possibly someone as clueless as her. This was the place her mother belonged but at the moment it didn’t brought about any nostalgic memories. Freya felt like the new girl in town, unaware of what destiny would bring, unaware of the gaping dark abyss only inches away from her feet. She appeared timid and gullible to herself.

All the maskeers, comprising of Alice, Madison, Jack and Ryan, whom she had met so far had a potent and impressive aura about them. They were professionals while Freya was merely a beginner. They knew how to fight, how to be offensive. These maskeers were skilled fighters, war machines constructed to protect humanity from what roamed about freely at night, waiting for the apprehensive humans to step out in the dark and lose themselves to the treacherous paths of the obscurity. Freya, here was just a normal teenager, high on hormones and despondently low in superhuman strengths and powers. She was clumsy, rolled around like a steam roller, gawky and inelegant. No matter how hard she tried she always stumbled over rocks, practically as well as a figure of speech, she could not even hold a butter knife properly, talk about combating with swords. Jack was right. She was completely inept for this. Freya felt anticipation and trepidation rise up from her chest and get stuck in her pharynx. What if she did something stupid? What if everybody laughed at her ham-fisted ways? Freya commenced taking in huge breaths of oxygen, trying to stop from fainting. Shaking her head to clear the jumbled up thoughts she fixed her stare at the back of Jack’s head. They had finally reached the top of the steps and Freya saw a gigantic, intimidating door rise above them.

Sparkling metal strips and gems embellished the door. The wood had been polished deep maroon and spiky structures protruded out of it as if specially placed there to impel someone.

Creepy, sharp doors. Exactly what I expected. Freya mused, inwardly.

Madison let them all in and Freya found herself in a huge ball room-like space. The floor was marbled with ribbons of granite running along the perimeter. A wider than life stair case lifted up to the second landing only a little distance from where they stood. Above Freya’s head, uncountable stairways crisscrossed each other, probably leading to different parts of the whole monument.

It felt like living in the skies. People ambled to fro on the pathways that spread out like a spider’s web, intricate and ordered. Freya’s neck had started to hurt from looking up for so long.

The four of them ascended up the blue carpeted steps and took one of the sky high stairways that diverged from the main stairs.

“This place is so cool. Like a video game. It reminds me of Maze runners the movie.” Freya gasped as her eyes fell on a huge chandelier hanging from the roof.

Ryan gave Freya an amused smile. “This place, the island is a holiday spot for us. When we are not on our duty on the mainland we chill out here.” Freya‘s eyes now caught a new pursuit. The walls that rose from the bottom to the top of the mansion held paintings that were unusual and curious in their craft. There were sketches of monster and demons, angels and souls, wars and peace treaties. It seemed as if the history of whole world was brought down on the canvas, it felt so realistic. Colored glasses were built in the walls at intervals depicting god and mythics from different cultures. The whole mansion appeared like a cultural convergence spot.