Prisoners of Prophecy

Chapter 3

Melany - July 10th, 2019; 3:21pm

At first, the group congregated in the basement of this abandoned house seemed to be only shadows. I took each step slowly, Kai's hulking shadow consuming me. The melodic voice that had demanded Kai to bring me down echoed amongst my frenzied thoughts. I cursed myself for being curious and following them here. I was in trouble now, and being forced into a cellar with a convicted murderer who could be itching for their next victim for all I knew. What would they do to me now? I wondered worriedly.
     Then, Kai's enormous frame moved out from behind me once we reached the last step and the light filtered down into the dim room.
     And I saw her.
     My heart raced erratically, slamming against my rib cage so hard I expected it to break right through. My body was suddenly too heavy, and it took all of my strength just to stay standing. The world spun violently around me. Breathing was now more like drowning. Goosebumps covered my body, but my skin felt as if it were on fire.
     She was all that I could focus on. I had an unreasonable feeling that the entire universe would collapse if I even blinked.
     Her beauty was the kind that you only saw in movies, and infinitely more unique than that. She wasn't just pale, she looked like a ghost amid the shadows. Her full lips were only a slightly darker shade than her skin. Her hair was a pure white that not even old age could replicate, and her eyes were the pale gray of a sky heavy with rain.
     She just watched as I studied every inch of her, growing weaker with every new feature that I discovered.
     Only when my heart slowed did I notice there were many pairs of eyes on me. Five people were staring strangely at me, as if they were expecting something. I recognized the ones Kai had introduced me to but the two women in front of me were strangers. I could gather that the one who had stunned me speechless was Calypso. But, there was an almost animalistic desire to know more about her. To know everything.
     Calypso took a couple steps closer. She moved elegantly, almost like she was floating. Her proximity brought another wave of dizziness upon me. Her gaze froze me to the spot no matter how much I desired to turn tail and run until they left me alone.
     She reached for me. I closed my eyes tightly, preparing for her touch to drive me crazy, or maybe turn me to stone.
     When it never came, I opened my eyes to see Cato had moved up beside her. He was holding her wrist, glaring down at her with an expression that said, "Now, you know better than that.". He shoved her gently aside and stepped between us. With her out of my line of sight, my hazy thoughts cleared a little. Only now did I realize how strange such a visceral reaction that I had had just to someone's appearance was, and my mind reeled with confusion.
     I hadn't even noticed Cato had grabbed my own arm and rolled up my sleeve until he spoke. His voice was low, almost secretive. "One more."
     Before I could ask him what he was talking about, the alluring woman was speaking. "Who are you?" Calypso had moved back up to Cato's side. She spoke smoothly but assertively, her tone contradictory, like honey and gravel.
     I could not talk under the force of her gray eyes, so Kai took it upon himself to introduce me. "Her name's Melany. She just got here, like, not even an hour ago."
     There was a sudden jolt of pain behind my eyes. It felt as if there were needles pushing through my skull, trying to extract all of my knowledge from my mind. My frantic thoughts of Calypso's allure and of the other supposed killers around me were gone. All that was left was this immediate and agonizing headache.
     The darkness in the basement seemed to be pooling into the corners of my vision. A chill sunk into my very bones. That terrible tenebrosity was coming back, and even stronger than the last time. Memories of my childhood built up in my mind like an oncoming storm.
     The voice that I had heard before the massacre of my best friend - the one that had sometimes haunted me since - was back. Its commanding power made the hair on the back of my neck stand up. I shivered. Abruptly, the blood in my veins turned to ice. The presence that forced itself into my thoughts chuckled maliciously.
     No, you don't.
     I gasped at the same time Cato stumbled backward, clapping a hand to his forehead. He was staring at me with an expression of shock, and even fear, that contorted his features. I felt on the verge of an epiphany that I couldn't quite touch. My thoughts came back in a crushing wave as the strain on my throbbing head dispersed and the shadows slumped back into their corners and crevices.
     Illisha went to Cato as Calypso once again reached for me.
     "What the hell -" I exclaimed, but her hands clamped down on my shoulders and I lost my words.
     My eyes found her strangely pale ones, which I noticed at such a close distance appeared to have a purple hue, and nothing else mattered. Her touch sent sparks like electricity through me. My throat was tight, and each breath I took was like swallowing shattered glass.
     "How did you get here, Melany?" She questioned me cooly, but there was desperation in her gaze as if she needed me to say what she was thinking.
     Her inquiry served as a mnemonic to that day in the woods. Gruesome images flashed by in my mind and with each one, the tears in my eyes got harder to contain. The only thing that I could remember was coming to with Brittany's bloody head at my feet and the collapsed form of an old teacher of mine not much farther ahead; the sound of the officers yelling at me to, "Stay put with your fucking hands up!", as they blundered through the woods towards me. I remember Ashley's empty, dead eyes staring up at me. I wanted to scream like I had the first time, but I choked it down, afraid to look as crazy as I felt.
     I used Calypso's intense focus on me as an anchor to the present. The look she was giving me made me want to confess things I couldn't even recall in my memory of that day, but the idea of the rest of my past coming back along with it kept me from trying to say anything that happened. When I could speak, my voice was strained and shaking. "That doesn't matter." I tried to sound assertive, but it came out weak and scared. "I'm sorry I followed them here. I'll leave you alone; I won't say anything about this. I just want to get out."
     Kai interjected and my attention was momentarily mislead. "Come on. We'll all tell stories."
     "That's right, scare her off, would you?" A woman muttered beside him.
     With Calypso's demanding presence, I had not really noticed the other stranger until now. She was studying me intently, unblinking. Almost as if she believed I would disappear if she did. There was an expression on her face that I could not name, her lips pressed tightly together and the skin between her eyebrows wrinkled in concentration. Her long, black hair framed her face like liquid darkness. In the fading light it looked like one of her eyes were much darker than the other.
A wave of recognition rushed through me and then was gone just as quickly.
She peered at me beneath dark eyelashes, her gaze full of a million emotions which I could not discern.
"Maybe it would make her more comfortable," Kai said, smirking.
"If you think telling me your reasons for getting here will comfort me any, then you're crazier than I thought," I murmured, my voice bouncing eerily off of the stone walls.
"Crazy?" Kai roared, taking a step closer to me. I could feel the warmth coming off of him. "You'd have gotten rid of your family, too, if they treated you the way they treated me."
The sickening realization came to me, making my stomach churn. A faint memory of my mother's kind smile came to mind. My grief was like knives in my heavily beating heart, but my anger sent fire through my bloodstream. "You disgust me!" I yelled, any trace of my terror gone. My words echoed around us. "You don't have to kill anyone! You could have just left!"
    I was screaming at Kai, but deep down, I knew I was saying this to my father, who was now rotting in a prison cell.
Even in the approaching darkness, I could see the shadows slinking towards me. The darkness filling the room chilled me. In the penumbra of the abandoned house, we looked like a gathering of spirits. The tension in the air was palpable. The six of us shared uneasy looks. That sense of an epiphany just out of reach came and went. Six glowing green bulbs formed a circle in the steadily diminishing light. There was something wrong with this cold basement and the cultish gathering of people inside. These strangers had an aura of purpose, of a togetherness that I wanted nothing to do with, bracelet or not.
"I don't know what you guys have going on, and I don't care." I broke the silence, afraid it might drive me mad. I was beginning to notice noises in the cold room that made no sense; noises that prodded at my consciousness relentlessly.
I spun around and started up the rickety steps without another word.
No one tried to stop me, but I could not relax until I was out of the heavy feeling in that house. I took deep breaths of the outside air to get rid of the old dust that coated my throat. I hurried away from that place and those people, away from that look on all of their faces when they saw that cursed tracking device around my wrist. Clouds raced across the sky, which had been clear when I had first creeped into the house only a few minutes ago.
Suddenly, the sound of light and hurried footsteps closed in behind me. I kept going, hoping it was just someone rushing to the dorm before the rain came.
"Wait," someone called as they got nearer. "I never meant to hurt anyone. We're not bad people."
I recognized her voice even though she had hardly said a word in that horrible basement. The only one that I couldn't put a name to had now caught up to me and was matching my pace, step for step. I said nothing, the short time I had been here running through my mind like a nightmare I couldn't shake. It felt like one; it was so unreal. How had my life turn to this, and so fast? Even the woman's presence sent chills up my spine.
There was a deep pain in my heart as I thought of all of them. How could I possibly be put into the same group as them? They all held their heads high, seemingly proud of their crimes. They wore false faces - beneath that, they were full of menace and contentment with their wrongdoings. They were not people I would ever want to associate with. These were enemies. They belonged here.
     "Melany. I understand why you're upset -" she started.
     "I don't want to hear any more," I intervened. "You and your group of... whoever you are - you are not the people I want to be around."
     I began to walk faster, but she kept by my side effortlessly. Anger made my body shake and my muscles tense up; dismay jumbled my intuition. My thoughts ran wildly and without reason. Each step I took made me feel weaker. The calm breeze was growing, the clouds rolling faster across the darkening sky. There was an electric feeling in the air. I felt the sense of some oncoming doom.
     "Whatever you think you'll accomplish from following me, just give it up." I say without slowing. "I just want to get inside. Bad storms coming."
     "I think we're fine. The sky always looks this way. Just let me talk for a moment. Or at least walk you to your room."
     I stopped in my tracks and turned to face her. Her gaze was troubled. We stood a foot apart, and waves of emotion clashed together between us, ones I could not identify but only desired to run away from. Now that we were out of the cellar, I could see clearly that one of her eyes was bright blue, the pupil oddly large, and the other was so dark it looked black. It reminded me of those shadows that seemed to have come back...
     "Melany?"
     Her voice snapped me out of my daze. I shook my head as if to clear it. "If you want to get caught in it, fine. Just leave me alone. Just because we're supposedly here under similar circumstances does not mean I want to be near any of you."
     Lightning lit up the sky as if it were confirmation for my words. The thunder followed immediately, so loud that it reverberated in my chest like a second heartbeat. The rain was next, sudden and intense. We were soaked instantly. I felt the shadows sticking to me just as the rain did, and they appeared to dance in the increasingly harsh wind. I was reminded of that powerful feeling that swept over me when that voice would begin to invade my mind and then speak, and I was filled with revulsion. 
     I wished more than anything that the storm would wash away that haunting darkness, but I knew that it was just as cloying as the blood that I could never scrub out of my skin.