wonderboy ↠ fitz vacker

5 | Gone

Fitz, Biana and Keefe ran to the hallway to see where the scream was coming from, but it had stopped. The thick weight of silence wrapped around them, and quietly, but quickly they moved around the narrow, long hallway, with Keefe leading the way. 

They heard the scream again, and ducked. It came from downstairs. Fitz looked at Biana, who was nearly crying with horror and fear. He held her hand to reassure her, but when the scream was over, they continued moving. 

"It's coming from the main hall," Keefe whispered. "Let me check it out first, you guys stay here."

He went down the stairs quickly, but quietly.

 "I'll go with him." Biana said. 

"No, no, you're not going anywhere." Fitz insisted. 

"No, it's fine, I can turn invisible, we'll be fine." Biana didn't wait for a response, and just patted his hand and disappeared into the stairs. Fitz murmured a curse. He felt useless. He glanced over the stair railing, trying not to let too much of his face show, but it was useless anyway, because he couldn't see a thing, it was all dark. 

He sat down on the floor after a couple of minutes had passed. He wondered if they were okay, wondered if it was wise to sit here and do nothing. He wondered if that was better because he didn't know Candleshade like Keefe did. Then, interrupting his thoughts, another shriek. That's it, he thought, and he went down the stairs too. The lights had gone out, but he was trusting in his instincts to find his way around. He transmitted to Biana, is everything okay? Where are you?

I'm okay, she answered. But we also don't know where the shrieking is coming from, we've been searching everywhere, but there's no one here.

I thought I heard it outside, said Fitz, I'll meet you out front.

Okay, I'll tell Keefe, she said. Fitz made his way outside, trying not to make noise, or bump into things. The silence was deafening, if he even ruffled a single feather, whoever was here would know they had company. 

He finally found his way outside and found Keefe and Biana already there. "Hey."

"Did you find anything? See anyone?" Asked Keefe. 

Fitz shook his head, "Not even your dad, which is odd, considering someone sounds like they're getting murdered in his house."

"He's never here, he probably won't even find out about this, 'cause he never knows what's going on."

Another shriek. 

This time, it sounded closer. Fitz cursed when he heard it coming from the gnomes' place. The ran towards it, and when they opened the door and it all  happened so fast. The place was dark, but there was a figure of a person in the dark, but in the blink of an eye, the lights came back on revealing a wounded gnome was holding his arm and sobbing uncontrollably, and the figure was gone. Fitz heard a faint whisper, but Keefe and Biana quickly ran to the gnome to see if he was okay, and the whisper faded. 

"Oh my gosh!" yelled Biana. The gnome was pale, on the floor in fetal position, desperately clinging to his arm as if it was going to fall. "Can you sit up?"

He nodded weakly, and with their help, he sat up. 

Fitz gently approached him. "Can I see your arm?" The gnome hesitated, but slowly removed his hand from his forearm. A chill went down Fitz's spine when he saw it. His forearm was covered in blood, but there was something that could be made out. A word. Two words. 

"No more?" Keefe read. Biana hugged Fitz. The words were carved on his skin. The gnome continued crying and quickly put his hand over the wound when it started bleeding more. The room was covered in blood. The gnome had bruises and cuts all over his body, but nothing quite as bloody as his arm. 

Fitz turned to Biana, "go get some bandages, quickly." Biana ran back inside. 

Fitz turned to Keefe, "you help him get inside. Somewhere safe and warm where we can take care of him. I'll hail Elwin and Sophie."

Keefe kneeled next to the gnome and helped him up. Fitz carefully walked outside the room, checking his surroundings in case anyone else was still around. He suspected the message the Neverseen had sent had been received, but he could never be too careful. He walked near a fountain, far from earshot. 

He called Sophie's name into his imparter. It rang for a couple seconds before she picked up. 

"What's up?" She said. 

"Something terrible has happened. You have to get here quickly. Bring Elwin."

"What? What happened? Where are you?"

"I'm at Candleshade. We were researching at Lord Cassius' library when we heard a scream. The lights went out, long story short, the Neverseen were here, and they wrote a message on a gnome's arm. He's very weak." Fitz explained. 

"Okay." Sophie tugged an eyelash. "Are you safe? Are they gone? I'm coming over, I'll hail Elwin and you hail The Collective." 

"Okay then. Come quick. I don't know how much time we have." 

Sophie started running, and before she cut the call off, she said, "Already on my way."

Fitz hailed the Collective, who were all efficient in coming quickly. Before he knew it, practically the entire Black Swan were standing on Keefe's living room. Elwin had gone on to another room to help the gnome (whose name they later learned to be Algim). They heard the shrieking they had heard before, again. Apparently, gnomes had a very different scream from elves or humans. 

"Can you walk me through the whole thing?" Asked Mr. Forkle. "I want to understand completely how this all started." 

"Sure. We were in the library, just chatting." Keefe started, but paused. "I never knew anything like this could happen."

"You can't be slacking off when you're doing important Black Swan work, Keefe," Lord Cassius scolded, "especially not when you know how we're being hunted one by one."

"Hey, I wasn't 'slacking off'," Keefe resented, "I was doing research. We were doing research, when all of a sudden there was this horrible scream, and the lights went off. Obviously, we went to check."

"All three of you?" Asked Tiergan. 

"Well, yeah." Keefe replied.

"What did you expect us to do?" Fitz asked. 

"I'm not scolding you, you did the right thing, but what were you researching exactly? Did you find something?" Tiergan continued. 

"It was a book," Biana answered, "about a woman called Lenna Aerella. We couldn't read much, though, because that's when the shrieking started."

Mr. Forkle and Tiergan shared a look, and all blood drained from their faces. 

"Did you take the book with you when you left?" He sounded more desperate now, with a panicked look in his face.

"N-" Biana started, but before she could finish, Tiergan and Mr. Forkle were already running upstairs. Fitz ran after them. 

They got to the library, and they started looking around. "Fitz, where is the book? Where did you leave it?"

"On the table, but-" They ran to the table and started checking every book. "Tiergan, what's going on?"

Tiergan ignored him, and squeezed Fitz's arm, pulling him to the table. "Which one of these is it?"

Fitz looked at all the books. 

He shared a look with Tiergan.

"It's not here."