The Reincarnated King (ManxManxMan)

Chapter Eighteen: A Normal Enemy

~Chapter Eighteen: A Normal Enemy~

The first thing I notice once I can see again is not the sight of the room itself; it is the feeling of the air. It feels heavy, like it is weighing down on me from every possible angle, yet it is not hard to breathe. It is just like a very present blanket that is neither one of security nor one of suffocation.

It is also eerily familiar but that is not really something I should be worrying about right now.

So, instead, I blink away a slight dryness in my eyes and begin taking in the room - because it is a room. It is one made of stone, and the furniture - from the desk, to the chairs, to a small side table, to the bookshelves - is all wooden and rustic, in a way that...that might not be faked for the sake of gaining an old-fashioned theme. The room does not even have electrical lights; all it has are wooden torches that produce no smoke, which also seem not to be actually burning for all that they appear to be on fire.

It is pretty much the exact opposite of the airport bathroom Gwyn had just pushed me into.

"I--what?" I demand, once it has fully registered that we are no longer where we were.

Teleportation is still completely mind-boggling, but at this point, it hardly matters how teleportation works. What matters is that I have a flight I need be on in less than an hour, and the last time I was teleported unexpectedly to an unfamiliar place - not counting when he dropped me back off in Wales - three days turned into a week and a half.

When I receive no immediate response, I turn to Gwyn, unintentionally knocking his hand from my shoulder. "What?" I repeat. Then, realizing that that is not going to get me a specific answer, I try, "Why're we...wherever we are?"

Gwyn shakes his head, which is not an answer, and he walks over to one of the really old-fashioned chairs. "You have been receiving spelled letters from some you can't identify," he says, as if this makes it obvious. He takes a seat and leans back into it. Speaking slowly, though surprisingly not condescendingly, he adds, "You don't know what these notes do, just that they foretell events around you. This is not safe."

I cross my arms. "I know it's not safe," I tell him, unimpressed, since he has only really seen glimpses of the things I have gone through since those notes started appearing to me. Once I figured out the correlation between the notes and the bad events, I was able to figure that out for myself. "That's why I was going to throw it away."

"Throwing this away," he says, waving the piece of note carelessly in the air, but while I am sure he is trying to make a point, and I can vaguely hear him talking still, my mind is a bit too caught on the fact that I thought I had the note last. It was in my hand and everything, so how does he have it now?

However, then something he says catches in the back of my mind, and I blink, confusion over who should have the note gone. "Wait, did you just say it could be a 'curse'?" I ask, startled.

'Curse' is not a good word. 'Curse' is that word from children's movies and horror shows that either involve a naive someone being caught in an evil person's trap and needing to be rescued by a handsome hero...or someone dying a horrible, painful death. Sometimes, it is both, but rarely is it neither.

"Yes," Gwyn confirms, mildly irked, probably because I cut him off to ask my question. However, his attention soon after drops to the note, where it is now resting in his palm, and he continues, "It doesn't feel like a curse, however, which would make it a prophecy."

Though I suppose this should not be news to me, my mouth still goes dry at the thought. "A prophecy?"

Sounds a lot more official than 'some guy gives me notes that are stupidly vague but surprisingly accurate.'