Speak of the Devil // COMPLETED ✔

😀

Killua woke as if from an accidental nap—disoriented, lost, and feeling as though he missed something important that day.

"Fuck," he said, to no one in particular as his eyes adjusted to the dim. His hands sunk into feather-light sheets. They were green—a color bedspread he didn't own, and void of the quintessential floral patterns his grandmother had populated the linen cabinets with at his grandfather's house.

The air was so still and quiet it was static to Killua's ears. His own blood rushed back to him as, slowly, he raised his eyes to the room ahead.

He first noticed windows—windows the height of the colossal buildings on campus and framed by columns that seemed to drip from gothic vaults. The windows themselves were arched and spindly with curved grids and elegant stained glass. They washed what little light Killua had into blues and greens.

For a moment, Killua felt waterlogged. It was a sensation he could only equate to playing pretend as a child with Alluka in their swimming pool back in New York state.

Swimming at night, with nothing but the eerie pool lights and the moon. The stars.

Killua was frozen by unexpected fear. He sank deeper into the mattress, sheets pulling up, until they were over his head and he could count to ten and believe he was in his dorm.

It was all for naught.

Eventually, as the silence endured—reassuring with its consistency—Killua edged toward the floor. He let the sheets trail after him, pooling on frigid tiles under his socks.

His leg bumped into something clunky. He jolted at the unexpected touch and, looking down, found his backpack. He hurriedly donned it.

He was still in his clothes from that morning—or was it that morning? He'd lost track of the time, and as he neared the window, he couldn't make sense of what he saw beyond the pane.

Evidently, time wasn't a concern for him here, he decided, and resumed circumnavigating the room.

The bed was situated at the head of what appeared to be an atrium, or perhaps a ballroom—whatever the case, the space was more ideal for a gala rather than a bedroom. His footsteps were all but silent despite the stone and bricks—what walls weren't occupied by windows were instead strung together with tapestries and weathered banners.

He followed a row of tapestries to the nearest archway. It led to what appeared to be an infinite corridor.

Where am I? he wondered, and decided to test his voice.

"Hello?" he called out, but even his voice didn't carry. He lost sense of space with this simple test.

With only one direction to go, Killua started a long trek forward with no end in sight.

The vaulted ceilings seemed to hang and drip with curtains, banners, and chains from chandeliers. Killua walked across webs of shadows from windows to his left, each sill and pedestal occupied by statues, trinkets, and books. He passed furniture swathed in white, like he'd stepped into a foreclosed castle.

The moment Killua approached an intersection, he took the turn and tried again to say, "Hello...? Seriously, is no one around?"

It was all some wretched nightmare. Trapped, alone, bound to forget where he came from or where he was going. It was a miracle he stumbled upon candlelight at all.

A chandelier was on the floor ahead, its decorative crystals aglow with few candles still lit. The wax had turned to white puddles on the marble tiles.

"Killua?" someone said, and Killua waited for an echo that never came.