Prisoners of Prophecy

Chapter 12

Melany

I was surrounded by an endless night with no stars. I had never experienced a darkness such as this. It stretched out in all directions. I floated in somewhere that was somehow both limitless and empty, void of anything at all. The tenebrosity consumed me. I breathed it in, could feel it coating my lungs. I could taste it, like the air after a heavy rain and the blood filling your mouth when you bite down too hard on your tongue. I could even feel the weight of its boundless mass crushing my body.
Though the concept of being stuck in an infinite world of black should have terrified me, I was calm. There was even a sense of bliss in each beat of my heart.
A small bulb of orange light flickered into view an unknowable distance away. There was something familiar about that light, but I could not place it. All I knew was that I needed to follow it. I did not know why, or where it would lead me, but I was suddenly sure I had to be wherever it took me.
I took a step forward, though there was no visible solid ground beneath my feet. A wave of vertigo left my head reeling for a moment. I was convinced that any time I would start to fall forever into this darkness. But I didn't. I forced myself to look away from that deep murk underneath me and focus on the ball of light that seemed to have already gotten significantly smaller. Farther away. I started to walk briskly, and soon after that I was running. For a while, no matter how fast I ran, it didn't seem to be getting any closer.
Then, that light was growing nearer alarmingly quickly. Even when I halted in my tracks, stunned, it continued to come towards me. In just a few seconds, it was at my feet, and I realized what it was. A candle, holding onto its last bit of life, it's wax melted into a puddle around it on an invisible surface.
A sense of dread like a heavy stone settled in the pit of my stomach. Some realization was dawning on me; I could feel it, like the electricity in the air before a thunderstorm. I closed my eyes as if I could block out the fear that was coming over me, but I was only met with more darkness.
When I opened them again, I was in the basement of that godforsaken house. The candle was still on the floor in front of me, it's flame dancing. That calmness disappeared instantaneously. My heart pounded erratically. My mouth was dry. It had become hard to breathe, and I choked on the old, musty air. The room was freezing, and I shivered uncontrollably as coughs wracked my body.
When that feeling of immeasurable power washed over me, I could only plead in my mind for it to please, please go away as I struggled to catch my breath.
"You were born for this." The voice, full of charm and malice as well as something much more sinister than I could comprehend - the one which I thought only existed in my mind - spoke aloud. It shook the entire room, and I was afraid that the whole house would collapse on top of me any moment. Its energy filled my veins until I thought I would explode. "Remember that. You are a prisoner of this prophecy that has called for you."
My vision went black.

Sunday, July 14th; 1:13pm
I sat up straight in my bed, clawing at my throat, gasping for air as I had been in that terrible nightmare. My skin was covered in a sheen of sweat but chills ran through me incessantly. I wanted nothing more than that dream to disappear in my waking world like most dreams do. But instead, it played over and over in my mind as I took in deep gulps of air to rid myself of the heavy atmosphere in that freezing room that I still felt in my lungs.
Maybe all of it was a dream, I tried to convince myself hopelessly. When I tossed and turned in my bed restlessly until I decided to go back to that house and see what was so cool about it. Those voices whispering my name. It was all in my head.
But, no matter how much I wanted to believe that, I couldn't. I could still feel the basements cold air on my skin, the utter terror that swallowed me when that candle's supernatural flame died and those whispers started.
The impossible reality of what my life had become hit me like a train. Terror turned my blood to ice; shock scrambled my already erratic thoughts. Questions formed in my mind and disappeared just as quickly underneath new ones. It left me dizzy. There's no way, I kept repeating in my head, trying to drown out everything else. There's no way. It was just a dream and none of this is real you're overreacting...
An image of Xantara momentarily broke the continuous wave of overwhelming thoughts. It didn't comfort me, like her presence comforted me in an odd way I couldn't explain, only deepened my fear and confusion. It was almost as if my own mind was teasing me. "Sure!" The picture seemed to say. "Sure, deny those things! But let's see you deny this!"
And it was true. No matter how outlandish this all seemed, that was one thing I could not excuse nor reason with. In just a few days, I had seen Xantara's appearance change drastically. Her one blue eye had turned black, which made me wonder if her other eye had once been blue as well but changed before my arrival. And the scars that had appeared and continued to darken... I recalled my dream where I had been a child and Xantara had been next to me, with glowing red eyes and bloody gashes in her cheeks but the sweetest voice I had ever heard; that dream that hadn't really been a dream at all.
Xantara had been in my life before this school. And she was changing in ways I would have once thought impossible.
     The thought put a heavy feeling of trepidation over me. Because if that were true, how could I doubt anything else, no matter how unreal it seemed?
     I felt on the verge of delirium after coming to such a conclusion. What does that mean? I asked myself. What happens now?
     A cold breeze that seemingly came from nowhere caressed my face. I shivered. Suddenly, it seemed much too dark in this room. I reached out and turned on the old lamp on the bedside table beside me. It flickered for a moment before coating the room in its dim light. What I saw made my throat tighten until each breath came out in a whistling gasp, and my pounding heart echoing in my skull.
     Those shadows were back. I watched them slip through the doorway, slithering out from under the bed, coming from where they gathered in the corners. They looked unnatural in the dull light. Their existence, especially now, was another thing I wanted to make sense of, or ignore completely, but couldn't. These shadows were not a product of light and objects; these shadows were sentient things. The realization of that left my head reeling. I felt delusional coming to such a decision; but in this moment, I was sure that it was true. They didn't move aimlessly. I watched in horror as they gathered together with purpose, coming together to form a gyrating black mass that encircled my bed like a predator waiting for its prey.
     I was afraid, sure. Yet, strangely enough, not of the shadows. I didn't feel as if I was in any danger. I even felt safe in their presence. Even as they made their way up the sides of the bed and puddled around me, the mass so large that it swallowed my bed, the only fear I had was of the unknown. Of what else could possibly exist in a world where darkness had a conscience.
     My past taunted me, perched at the deepest parts of my mind like it always did when this odd darkness fell upon me. Naturally, I instantly began to force those memories back into the forgotten library in the back of my brain.
     But, then - despite the sudden horror that came over me - I stopped. Instead of fighting, I tried to welcome it. What happened that day? I asked myself, the shadows, anything that could answer. A piece of me was expectantly waiting for the truth of what sick fate my old friend had come upon. The rest of me wished I would never find out, petrified of the idea of living that moment again.
     My vision blurred and those shadows slipped in from my peripheral, blinding me.