Poor Thing || Trollhunters || Angor Rot

5. The Chosen One

We rode through the night streets of Arcadia, Claire on the bike and I behind her holding on tightly. My curiosity was peaking. I felt that I would soon witness something absolutely extraordinary. Fresh crispy air kept me alive despite the late hour.

I got down from the trunk in silence when the girl stopped at the edge of the city canals. We carefully walked down the concrete bank and walked under the main bridge. I looked up at it, catching a new perspective. Yesterday we watched the sunset here, together with Jim and Toby.

Claire pulled a pretty orange crystal out of her pocket and ran it along the wall. The semicircle she had created sparkled with an unnatural glow, and after a moment the concrete crumbled into small pieces. I approached, encouraged by my friend. A staircase of blue crystals stretched out in front of us. They led down in a spiral, and... what is beneath? It remained hidden from my sight.

"Let's go. Be careful, it can get slippery" black-haired girl warned me and went ahead.

As we walked down, the sounds of our footsteps echoed around us. Claire remained silent the entire way as she led me along a wall strewn with tiny stones and sparkling crystals. They were mesmerizing. The lower we went, the thicker the air became. It smelled unobtrusively of moss and damp, a bit like an excavation site in a Mediterranean country. It's familiar.

When we reached the very bottom, a street stretched out before us. It was full of stalls and small, somewhat primitive houses. Around us, a high vault rose, reaching far beyond my sight. I looked around in amazement, my mouth slightly open. All the streets seemed to converge towards a giant orange crystal, emanating a pleasant and warm glow. 

"This is incredible" I whispered, feeling my head spinning again. "This is incredible!" I laughed, running down ordinary stone stairs. I was ready to explore all around, but Claire's hand stopped me. 

"Hold your horses, we can't go any further" she whispered, pulling me back towards where we came from. 

"But why?" I asked with confusion, frowning. 

Claire led me a bit higher, and only then stopped to explain everything to me. "The head of the entire Trollmarket is Vendel. He's a troll who places great emphasis on caution, he doesn't like strangers. I'm afraid he'd react badly if he found out you were here with me." she explained briefly, heading up again. We climbed for a long time, the way up seemed a lot longer than the way down. Finally we emerged back into the canals and the passage behind us disappeared.

"Are they afraid of people's reactions?" I asked, touching the place where a second ago you could enter another world with the touch of your fingers. Now the wall was solid and cold.

"Yes, but they also have a lot of enemies among other magical creatures." Claire stated, crossing her arms.

"Wait, so there are others?!" I asked a bit too loudly. "Sorry," I corrected myself with an apologetic smile. "Are there others?" I asked again, hopefully.

"I think there's someone who will explain it to you perfectly" she said with a mysterious smile.

Jim Lake.

On Monday after school I didn't give him a moment's respite. I questioned him about everything as if he were interrogating me, increasingly surprised by the revelations he told me. He was a Trollhunter, a warrior standing guard over the welfare and safety of the Trolls. I couldn't believe that such ancient magic existed, dating back to the times of Merlin - and that Merlin himself even existed. I learned so many amazing things that my head felt like exploding. It turned out that Toby also knew about everything and was helping Jim, as was Claire. And that they were trying to save her brother from the Darklands.