Worlds Apart

Chapter 19

W H E N • G O L D • R U S T S

Sep. 09 2020 18:03 CET

The Chamber, The Port Inn

Elin leaned against the railing at the third floor landing, breathing hard. The lights seemed much too bright, piercing her eyeballs. Unlike the other floors, there was only a narrow corridor here, stretching endlessly on either side with dizzying beams of gold and brown. Across from her was a locked door with a sign hanging askew, telling the clientele Do not enter, staff only. It was dusty and untouched. Elin pushed the door open.

The room was unlike anything she had seen here. The ceiling arched high above their heads, lined with metal rafters, each cut across in slits of fluorescent light, clouded by years of dust and grime. The wood floor was more grey than brown and veins of silver ran peaked out from under the sheets of dust. Pillars stood on either side, part-metal part-wood, decorated with geometric carvings that had turned into labyrinths for the spiders that inhabited them. A plum carpet led them across the vast room—what would have been part of the hall on the lower floors—to a large mirror, decorated similarly to the pillars and yet there was an ancient air to it. Through the smudged glass were hazy reflections of them and the door behind them—outwardly inconspicuous, but here she could see the inside fit right into its surroundings.

The room felt like a cross between traditional architecture she was familiar with in this isolated little town and a futuristic style not unlike what she had seen in sci-fi movies. Elin glanced over her shoulder. Daisha probably could have told her more about it; she had heard the woman talk at length about architectural styles only once during their brief acquaintance but it was enough to know she was well-versed in it, something which had surprised her. So far, her impression had been of someone who only had space to think of her work and nothing else. She stood now a few steps behind her, face closed off as usual but saying nothing, and Elin knew she had been wrong to think that.

Doors led out of this hall, all of them dusty except one, whose metal glistened even in the dim light. A muffled scream came from behind it and the trance the room had put her in shattered. The poignant mixture of fear, sorrow, and rage filled her again, and spurred her into rushing towards it without a second thought. The door slid open before she even touched it and she came face to face with a woman tied to a chair, looking up at her with shocked bloodshot eyes and tangled red hair. Regine.

Relief flooded her. She was alive and here and she was okay but it was short lived. Just as Elin realised that the look in her dear cousin's eyes was one of unadulterated fear, a figure emerged behind her from the shadows.

They stood still and unmoving, more ghost than human in the dim, diffused light. Patches of skin seemed to glow, shifting clouds at sunset, pierced by a crescent on the forehead. His eyes were hollow, the dark one an endless tunnel, the gold one reminiscent of forgotten treasures at the bottom of the sea. Lips curled into a smile, so out of place it sent shivers down her spine. He stood half a foot shorter but still towered over her. Maybe it was the way their presence seemed to expand more than their physical body, a faint whispering in her ears, lingering clammy fingertips on her arms.

"You!" But the fear and shock was quickly replaced by anger, vivid pictures of all those he had killed running like the film in her mind's eye. "How dare yo—"

"Wait, wait!" Elin was startled to see Riona. As the girl stepped between her and that murderer, hands up placatingly, Elin eyed the pair suspiciously. She should feel sorrowful, betrayed, but all she felt was more furious.

"Just—listen. It wasn't intentional, okay? They didn't mean to kill all of them and—and there's a good reason behind all of it!" Riona gave her a futile and hopeful smile. "See the Gate here—"

"A good reason? You have seen what they have done and you're telling me it was all for a greater good?! Killing my FAMILY—"

"Yes—no!" The girl seemed lost as to what to say. In a better state of mind, Elin would have told her not to bother. She wasn't going to be calmed down. "No, no it was wrong, yes, but it isn't...malicious. Just misguided, right? Tell them, Neal." She looked at her brother pleadingly. It didn't escape Elin that she was keeping her distance from him.

"They knew too much. They had to die." Their voice was low, hoarse, crawling into her ears like centipedes.

Riona's eyes went wide. "What—no, don't say that," she wailed helplessly.

"Your family is the reason for it all. They had to go to fix it. Isn't that obvious?"

"What did they even do? What did they do so heinous that you murdered them?!" Elin snapped.

"They stole. They stole from us." They stepped towards her, careful and deliberate. Elin swallowed the urge to back away. "And they refused to return it. So I made sure they wouldn't do it again."

Horror. That was the only way to describe what she felt. Pure horror that squirmed into her gut and wriggled its poisoned tentacles into her limbs. She wanted to scream until that monster's ears bled but she couldn't form the words. Daisha remained silent at her side.

"Now," they said briskly, clasping their hands, as if wrapping up a meeting and not breaking her world. "I believe it was in your possession."

"What is?" she asked weakly, feeling as though her knees would give out.

"The Eye of Forseglet."

A memory flashed behind her eyelids, from an angle that was not hers. The crystal ball on her shelf. Flashes of text in a language she couldn't comprehend with a model of it, sliced in half to show its wired, metallic innards.

She remembered Regine telling her their grandmother gave it to her, a serious but puzzled look on her face as she beheld it. Elin did always get an odd feeling looking at it.

"I will not give it. I do not know why you want it but I will not." It must be for something horrible. After everything they did, she couldn't believe it could ever be for a good reason.

"Please," he scoffed, amused. "You won't have to."

Suddenly a young man was at his side. He looked alive but Elin could tell he wasn't. He was too unearthly, his feet making no sound on the old, creaky floor. In his flickering hands rested the crystal ball.

"Come on," they said, walking past her. "If you made it this far—not many can—you might as well see what your family did to us."

The spirit pushed them into the main hall they came from. Daisha made no argument and followed listlessly, her eyes dull.

Neal walked towards the large mirror and pushed the glass to the side. It slid seamlessly despite the years of unuse to reveal complex circuitry and a gap in the centre with veins snaking out into the device. It looked like an empty socket, the eye gouged out.

They placed it there and it clicked softly, the veins turning gold, little specks of light appearing, blinking sporadically on the surface. A twisted grin of pure delight spread across his face as the glass slid back.

Elin could see the apprehension on her own face even through the grime, waiting for something horrifying to happen, for the hotel to crumble, for a world-ending clap of thunder, a light that would burn them all to ashes.

Her bated breath was answered by silence.