Her Fear, His Obsession

Strength to defeat his obsession

"WHAT?" Luca roared, as Liam trembled before him. Liam had been the unfortunate one who had to inform him that the Queen was missing in the maze of darkness after she made another attempt to escape. Knowing the King's anger, Liam had already hidden the two guards responsible for the failure and dispatched the rest to try and find her. But twenty minutes later, they had found nothing and Liam was forced to tell the King.

Liam understood the difficulty- the guards were forbidden from touching her, told to use their bodies as a means of stopping her without touching her or looking at anything other than her feet. Meanwhile, the Queen had literally jumped the banister and landed on her two feet. How were they to compete with that? But fear had overtaken Liam and he stood quiet as the King ranted and threw books at him. Absorbing the hits, he knew that the books would become gunshots if he opened his mouth.

After about 10 minutes of letting his anger out, the King had refocused his efforts on making sure she was well. Both he and Liam took off towards the maze. Luca had spent his childhood exploring the maze and he knew it like the back of his hand. The most experienced maze master, he was sure that he could find her in no time, but he prayed that the darkness didn't consume her before he found her.

The maze of darkness was a relic of the Old World, designed to entrap one of the most powerful forces of darkness. The force could kill anyone in its walls, a fact that Luca knew all too well. The force had taken his little sister and mother from him when he was 12 years old. Luca had never intended to become king, all he wanted to do was defeat the force. What he hadn't known was that when went head to head with the force, his soul was infected with darkness and that darkness made him the Night King. His slaves and guards were all entrapped by the darkness and immortalized, only to die when he decided it was their time. He managed to remove the powerful darkness from the maze but the effects still lingered in the maze and the souls it had consumed. If she remained in the maze for too long, the darkness may start to spread to her soul, albeit much weaker as it was only remnants of the true force.

Determined to not let it spread to his one love, Luca raced through the maze. Using a number of shortcuts, he made quick work of the maze, covering 80% of it in 15 minutes, his fear multiplying after every minute he couldn't find her. Finally, he heard loud pants and a padding of feet on the floor-

it could only be Alia.

Rounding the corner, Luca saw Alia running with a crazed but determined look on her face. He knew that she was trying to run away and normally he would have been upset at her. But looking at her frantic eyes and heavy pants as she hobbled on the floor, clutching her side, any sense of anger towards Alia was replaced with concern and guilt. His Queen was suffering because he had failed to show his love and devotion. But he would be sure to prove it to her once he got her out of this damn maze. Fortunately, he saw no changes in her aura which soothed him about the effects of the darkness. She did have a chance.

"Alia, my love, stop!" He called out. She froze and spun around, noticing him with the same frantic look growing in her eyes. She knew he would be nice to her now but would be infuriated once she got back in the room, so she wasn't going to give him the satisfaction of taking her back. Ignoring his call, she spun back around and started running as fast as she could. Luca kept up with ease, which only drove Alia to run even faster. She was running so fast that she didn't notice the sharp edge of the corner she was preparing to round in an attempt to lose Luca.

SLAM!

Her left shoulder ran smack dab into the sharp edge, her body being twisted to the left from the force that she ran into the wall. Pain seared through her left side and she could feel that her packing earlier had only somehow worked as she felt a warm sensation creep around her left abdomen and hand, covered in scratches. Her left hand throbbed in even more pain and she fell on her outstretched left hand, in an attempt to protect the left side of her body that was destined to fall first as her contorted movements had resulted in her doing a full circle with her upper body and her legs giving out so that her legs were sprawled up to her.