Prisoners of Prophecy

Chapter 15

Melany - Tuesday, July 16th, 2019; 9:43pm

     When Calypso had left, I got in the shower and stayed there until my fingertips looked like raisins. After that, I managed to push off the overwhelming thoughts and worries that were bound to come soon enough by reading the book I had gotten from the library. But that didn't distract me for long enough. Even though it had kept my fears at bay for hours, the moment I turned the last page my reality crashed down into my unprepared mind. Pacing back and forth in my room did nothing to soothe my panic. I wanted to run away from myself and whatever was following me.
     Now, I found myself pushing through the huge bush growing wildly beside the derelict house that seemed to keep drawing me back. I hardly felt the thorns digging into my skin as I forced my way into the clearing on the other side. The Sun had finally gone down, and I was surrounded by the cool and comfortable darkness. It was a beautiful night, no clouds in sight. Countless stars glimmered brightly in the sky above me.
     I had needed somewhere to go, to think. And my feet had carried me to the place in ShadowWood that scared me the most. I chuckled quietly at the idea, but the sound was eerie in the silence.
     Stepping into this secret area brought along a confusing mix of emotions. I was surrounded on all sides - even if the dock wasn't halfway beneath the water, it would only lead to the tall barbed wire fence that closed off the property. I felt safe here. It was like no one else in the school knew that this place existed. But, at the same time, the nearness of the abandoned house was unnerving. I could imagine what powerful thing I was coming to accept was in the basement soaring up the stairs and exploding through the roof as if it were made of paper.
"Who is that?" someone whispered. I immediately recognized it was Illisha, and heard the sadness in her tone that she was trying to swallow. "You should leave. This place isn't for you."
I turned toward the sound, and my breath caught in my throat.
Standing on the crumbling dock, where I had expected Illisha to be, was a tall, featureless shadow. It had to at least tower ten feet. Its faintly humanoid shape was impossibly thin, and its arms - hands tipped with fingers three times the length of my own - were only inches above the rotting wooden planks it stood on. Some strange knowledge that I wished I didn't have told me that this was no shadow that I was familiar with, even though it was similar to the one I had seen only a few nights before.
"Oh, Melany. It's you."
I closed my eyes tightly and opened them again, like it would chase off this impossible sight before me. To my surprise - and my relief - it did. Illisha was standing in place of the shadow. I shook my head and forced myself to breathe slow, but it did nothing to chase off my panic. It hadn't been there at all. That conclusion brought a fearful thought, and I didn't know whether or not that would soothe me more than this really being my reality. Was I actually going crazy here? Was Xantara's gruesome change just as false as the shadow that I just thought I saw? The idea only confused me further.
"I'm sorry for startling you," I managed to mutter quietly. In the silence of the night, she appeared to hear me just fine.
"It's alright. I didn't know you knew about this place." She turned around and eased herself slowly into a sitting position on the broken edge of the dock. "You can come over here. You won't bother me any."
I came to sit beside her, moving as slowly as she had in fear the dock might break and send both of us tumbling into the river. "Calypso showed me," I stated, shivering from the memory.
She shot me a slightly curious glance. I could tell that there was something that she wanted to say, but she only nodded.
The river rolled calmly past. My eyes followed it to my left, all the way into the impenetrable darkness of the forest beyond. Where does it lead? I wondered. How far does it go? The sound of the water crashing against the rocks and earth that trapped it was soothing. The horror of seeing that figure that had momentarily replaced Illisha dispersed like nothing but a bad dream. I breathed deeply, relaxing for the first time today.
The shadows seemed very lively here. They slipped between the cracks of the wooden boards, dived into the flowing water below. When they slid smoothly across my skin, it felt like an icy breeze. I swore I could recognize joy in their sporadic movements. It was strange to think of splotches of inky darkness as having any sort of intelligence, but it was painfully obvious that they could think. And even though my broken memory told me these shadows have been with me for a long time, it still wasn't easy for me to accept them, regard them as the companions they appeared to be.
The silence dragged on for a while. I could feel a deep despair radiating from Illisha. It was strong enough to create an almost physical wall between us. She was lost in her own world, looking down into the river, her face scrunched thoughtfully.
After a few minutes, Illisha cleared her throat and then spoke. "Why'd you come here?"
I shrugged, not exactly sure why. There was something serene about the hidden clearing. But, the proximity of the house gave me the creeps. I could feel its energy - somehow old and all-knowing - both pushing me away and pulling me towards it. "I guess just to think. What about you? You seem upset."
"It's nothing I can really explain," she said forlornly, sighing. "You wouldn't understand."
Her last sentence sent a chill through me. She was talking about the unknown future that involved a small group of students; a group that I found myself included in. And she was the third person in the group to have confirmed that something unnatural is going on. It was becoming harder and harder to doubt it, no matter how much I wanted to.
"I get it. I don't know what you guys know, and I can hardly wrap my head around it. I couldn't imagine how you feel."
She gasped softly. "But you know...?"
"I, well - I know that I'm a part of it. That's all." I decided not to mention Xantara's change, or the shadows that scurried around us now. "I wish you guys wouldn't be so secretive about it."
Illisha nodded. "I understand. But there isn't much else to know, not really."
"Is that what's bothering you?"
"Yeah," she admitted. "I just feel like this is a lot for a bunch of messed up kids to deal with. The time is coming close, I think. And I don't feel prepared at all."
My heart ached with empathy. "How could you prepare for something like this?" I exclaimed. "It feels like I've fallen into a movie in which I was given no script. If there weren't so many weird things happening to me, I wouldn't even believe this. It sounds ridiculous."
Illisha exhaled heavily. "I've come to the realization that I'd rather learn we had all lost it than this actually being my life."
"Yeah," I agreed, comforted by the fact that she seemed to be on the same side as me, whereas the other ones accepted this much easier. "I've thought that, too. I tried so hard the moment that I came here to avoid you guys, and I learned quickly that that was going to be impossible. But this?"
Suddenly, her brown eyes widened and filled with despair that both saddened me and filled me with dread. "You're not going to run away from this, are you?"
"I want that more than anything."
Her arms shot out and she gripped my shoulders tightly, looking at me seriously. Her tone was urgent. "That's not possible." She looked around us as if she expected something to fall from the sky; maybe come out of the darkness of the forest surrounding us; or even emerging from the dark water to grab at our ankles. "Can't you feel that? Whatever this... thing... wants, it wants it bad. And it won't let us choose whether we want to help or not."
Even though my few days here proved to me that I really knew nothing of the world, I still held on to the hope that there was something to break the illusion. I thought, maybe, hearing Illisha - who seemed innocent and sane despite the bracelet around her small wrist - say something so preposterous would make everything seem less real.
But, I was instantly sure that her words were true. That voice in the basement, the one that whispered my name, was only a servant to something immensely more powerful. The unbridled abhorrence I had for the house behind me did not completely subdue that magnetism it had. I could imagine a skeletal hand reaching between the docks planks and pulling at the back of my shirt, pulling me towards the front door. Illisha was right. We had no choice in this. We had lost control of our own lives.
"This is terrible," I sighed.
Illisha attempted to give me a reassuring smile, but it came out looking more like a grimace of pain. "I know. And it's unfair." She squeezed my shoulders one more time before letting her hands fall back into her lap. She studied me with a desperation that made my stomach churn. "But don't give up. None of us can. We need you."
Her pleading tone and the helplessness in her eyes made me deeply afraid. I didn't know how I could possibly hold such a responsibility over my head; one that I could not even begin to understand. "Calypso told me to come to the next meeting you guys have. In the basement." I choked on the word. "You think that I should?"
She nodded vigorously, her brown eyes large and begging. "Please. I know you don't want to. I don't either. But maybe we can make things right and get out of this. Get out of here."