Prisoners of Prophecy

Chapter 24

Calypso - Monday, July 22nd, 2019; 6:03pm

     After saying goodbye to a very worried and very frightened Xantara, I made my way outside. "Be careful," she had called as I walked out the door. I had told her that I would try my best.
     Though it was July and even the frequent rainy days were warm, it did not really surprise me that outside, the air had a chill to it. A younger me - one who had not yet learned what hid inside ShadowWood's fenced perimeter - might have worried a little more. Might have turned around and gone back inside, afraid that bad weather could be approaching. And perhaps it was. But I couldn't turn back, even though a park of me wanted to desperately. Because it wasn't just the cold I could feel, but this energy, too - the sense that something, something big, had been building, and it would soon explode.
     And then there was the house. I could not see it yet, but I could feel it. It - or something in it - was calling me.
     I was suddenly flooded with a deep terror that took away my already ragged breath. My mouth dried up; my lungs felt like they were shrinking. I fought for air. I fought for my strength and the already weakening grasp that I had on my sanity. I had told Xantara that I knew there was something else, something evil. I felt it now. What if I don't make it? My panicked thoughts echoed emptily in my mind. What if it finds me first?
     I tried to ignore that and started to put one foot in front of the other. But who could miss a meeting with a God? A distant thought surfaced and disappeared, alien-like; not mine at all. I studied the ground as I made the trek to that house - somehow more familiar than any home I'd ever had. I could have been blindfolded - hell, I could have been drugged - but I could have found my way to that house. Even from the other side of the world.
     Even there.
     I looked up to see the house looming over me. Its shape - which seemed dreadfully, impossibly large so close - blocked out the Sun. Under its shade, it had gotten even colder. The front door was parted slightly. The moment it had caught my attention, a gust of wind had blown it open wider. Inviting me inside. No, not inviting. Ordering me to step inside, into that darkness that the bright day could not touch. I took one glance at the shattered windows - which looked like terribly large, terribly black eyes - and then went inside.
     The darkness - This dark can only ever exist in here, I thought surely - swallowed me. The shadows were so thick that it had made the house feel colossal, even endless; as if I had walked inside and fell into a pit straight to the middle of the Earth's molten core. Or maybe further. Maybe straight to Hell. The image made my stomach churn. My throat constricted. My breathing came in whistling gasps and then could not come at all.
     A realization came to me, calm and distant against the clear insistent panic, and I shivered with the impact of it as if it were a physical thing. Suddenly, it had all become too much. It had weakened my mind, and now I was finally breaking. I was losing it - losing my grip on reality; losing my mind. I was going insane. And a knowledge - so brief but so deep it was instinctual - told me that if I allowed that to happen, everything would be over. The world would end even before that evil thing I felt watching me only a few minutes ago could get me. If it even dared to step through the door.
     In a flash of strength - perhaps the final outburst from my fading sanity - I spun around. I saw the outside; the school I had become so familiar with. It was strangely empty, and clouds had come from out of nowhere, and casted an eerie, yellow light over the place, but it was real. And that was beautiful. I could finally breathe. The outside air was tinted with the old, dusty taste of the basement - but it was beautiful, too. I felt my mind fall back into its accustomed place, shaken but still intact. The distressing speed at which my heart had been racing gradually settled.
     In a sort of dreamlike way, I noticed that the sunlight - now filtering through the clouds - stopped just before entering the house, and I realized how close I had been to some horrible fate that was possibly worse than death. Any reality I had ever known no longer existed in here, and it had almost driven me insane.
I took one last look outside - maybe to make sure I wasn't being followed; or in hopes of seeing someone, anyone, to convince myself the school hadn't suddenly been deserted; or maybe because I feared I would never see it this way again. Then, without giving myself time to think, to regret, I shut the door against that reality, and turned back around to face the darkness, and whatever it held.
The silence that had fallen in the murk of this seemingly enormous house was unbearable, abysmal, otherworldly. It was heavy; it made my whole body ache with exhaustion and some intense dread that seemed almost innate. And was it getting colder by the second? I thought it was. The fear was back, and insanity, like a monster, lurked in the corners of my mind. Was that the evil that was chasing us? I wondered. No, I don't think so. That's not exactly true.
"Get it together," I hissed at myself through clenched teeth. It sounded almost like a threat to the heavy silence in this place. I said nothing more.
I started down the hall, passing rooms I knew were there but could not see. I took each step cautiously, pausing every second to listen, to see if maybe the silence would be broken. This is real, I chanted in my head. You're not crazy. This is real.
And then music started to play. The sudden noise - like my voice - was like an offense to the still nature of the house. It was low and scratchy, as if it were being played on one of those old gramaphones; a classic song that was distantly familiar. The deep voice of a man singing echoed eerily in the hall, sounding very far away.
For an instant I thought I heard another voice under the other, this one light and beautiful. Angelic. It flooded me with warmth at the same time sending chills down my spine. Then it was gone.
I heard the door at the end of the hall open before I could see it. Then, there was a vertical sliver of red light. That sliver widened and the light spilled out of the basement and into the hallway. The door stopped opening, and I could see a knob-sized hole in the plaster behind it that I had never noticed before.
I looked at the stairs, draped in that odd red light, the source of which I could not see, and shivered.
I swallowed my fear and started down them.
Once my feet landed on the first step, the faint music stopped. I paused there and took a deep breath before continuing down. In the silence, each time my feet made contact with the old wood, it sounded like a thunderclap.
The basement was empty. I spun around in the center of the room, my terror stronger than ever. What if it wasn't real? The voice in my head was full of desperate panic. None of it? And I'm down here waiting for some God because I thought a pillar of flame told me to? In my mind, I pictured a crack running along my skull; I could hear the bones shattering. Oh god, I'm really gonna lose it this time, really gonna lose it -
"Calypso!" Someone exclaimed in a voice that interrupted even my thoughts. My name suddenly sounded like a beautiful, foreign word.
I spun around, my mouth dry and my heart racing. Once she was in my sight, nothing else mattered. The cold that I never thought would release its grip on my very bones evaporated beneath the heat that flooded my body. My mind instantly succumbed to the feelings that this woman's proximity brought me. Longing for things that I could not quite yet comprehend chased off any other thought. Lust and power tackled me intensely, draining me of my strength. I was afraid that I wouldn't be able to stand much longer under the force of her existence.
Was she the reason for my abilities, my otherworldly magnetism? I wondered dreamily, but there was no doubt about that.
Her beauty was of a kind which I was sure no one alive had ever seen before. She was the kind of woman not even the most creative and lonely mind could dream of. Her hair was the color of caramel. She had eyes more beautiful than the clearest Summer sky. Freckles were splattered across the bridge of her nose and her high cheekbones. Her lips were full and rosy pink. And as I studied them - like I had been put in a trance that only she could break - she chewed on her bottom lip, peering at me curiously beneath long, dark eyelashes. The expression on her stunning features sent wave after wave of desire through me. She wore a red dress that clung tightly to her body and stopped high enough on her thighs that it didn't leave much of her legs to imagination.
The gorgeous woman took a glance around the basement, which was still slightly illuminated by that foreign red glow, as she spoke again in that heavenly voice. "Sorry I'm late. Takes a lot more strength that I remember getting-"
She paused abruptly as her gaze landed on me once again. She studied me more intently this time, as if she were just now really seeing me. The way she looked at me - her blue eyes wide, pupils large, gaze full of an emotion I could not define - made me feel exposed, like she could delve into my mind and see parts of me not even Cato could. Parts of me even I had forgotten. My body trembled. Goosebumps covered my skin, despite the heat that coursed through me. The urge to take a step closer, into that immense power, that mesmerizing aura, was near impossible to resist.
Is this what they feel? I thought dazedly in the short span of silence between me and this beautiful stranger. Is it this strong? It can't be.
"Wow!" She exclaimed after taking a deep breath. "Haven't felt something like this in a long time."
     The feeling of being utterly out of control of my emotions was frightening, but the idea of turning away from her was as distant as all of the unnamed stars in the universe. So I could only gape at her as I fumbled for words, infatuated with her closeness.
     "Wh-What do you mean?" I stammered. My face felt as if it was on fire.
     The woman smiled brightly, flashing perfect teeth. "Oh, you know. The excitement of desire." Her blue eyes sparkled mischievously.
     Her words stunned me speechless. I gasped, unable to stifle the sound. Desire? I thought. Desire for what? Is that what I see on her face? But lingering too much on that caused my mind to wander to dark places that made my racing heart skip a beat and my lungs seem to shrink until every breath was difficult to take.
     "Are you alright?" She questioned softly.
     I couldn't dare say what I was actually feeling - that, for the first time in my life, I was so overcome with lust that I hardly knew what to do with myself. So I could only mumble, "Uh, you... Who are you? If I may ask?"
"Oh, right!" She laughed. The sound was eerily enchanting, a sound I was sure would come to me in dreams in which I'd wake from longing for sleep to return. "Forgive me, you have quite a lovely appeal. It shocked me for a moment. I am Kallpa -" The combination of her compliment and her name - a word full of beauty and mystery beyond my imagination - sent a shiver down my spine. "I am the Goddess of lust and naivety. And you are Calypso."
"Yeah." I chuckled despite how unreal the moment seemed. "That I am."
Another silence fell over us then. What I had planned to say had disappeared from my mind the moment that I had laid eyes on her. I could not focus on anything else, even if there would have been something surrounding us other than four walls and what was left of the candle our group had used so many times. It was unlike me to feel so weak; it was usually me who made others feel that way, and it was a frighteningly exhilarating experience. Under the burning gaze of this perfect and divine being, I was not myself at all. My rationality fell apart the longer that I studied her.
"I see you have fallen under a similar influence," Kallpa sighed. "I've wondered how I might affect you." She gazed at me with that mixture of curiosity and that other indescribable emotion. Her words sent boiling heat through my bloodstream. "I know it may be strange. I wish I had more time today to speak with you. There will be other days, though, to speak more. But, is there anything that I can do to ease your mind? That may be a dumb question, considering..." She trailed off.
"There's not much anything could do right now to ease my mind," I admitted, trying to search my thoughts for something that I knew I had desperately wanted to say, and only finding the power that resonated from Kallpa in waves. "I thought I had gotten a hold on, well, all of this. But it seems as if I don't really know anything at all."
"What worries you, dear?" She asked me in a voice barely above a whisper.
Her alluring eyes did not question, though - they demanded. I instantly felt the desire to answer her, and deep down I knew that resistance - if I had wanted to resist - would have been impossible. A feat as astounding to me as the idea of meeting a God would have once been. Those eyes could get me to say anything.
"Everything," I started, without yet realizing I had even been ready to speak. "It all worries me. Kai's sick; it feels like our group is falling apart under the weight of this; I'm scared we're not going to be strong enough. And I don't want to fail; I don't want to know what happens if we fail." I was rambling now, almost hysterical, and I forced myself to quiet. I took a deep breath.
And then fear came and broke the trance I had gone under. Though the fear was alarming and insistent, it chased off that cloying feeling of desire. It brought clarity. With it came the memory of that awful presence I felt was following us, as if it had to be dragged from a centuries old forgotten crypt instead being the most important thing on my mind until meeting the entrancing Goddess now standing before me.
"Calypso?" Kallpa inquired. "What is it?"
In my hurry to get it out - for I myself now felt that time was very short now, indeed - her beauty and power had seemed to dim just enough so that I could focus on what I had wanted to say. I told her what I had told Xantara, recounting the details as best I could, though her very existence was still quite distracting.
"I don't know what it is," I finished, a little breathlessly. "But I know it's wrong. It's something that doesn't like what's going on here. And that worries me the most."
But then, I saw something that terrified me more. There appeared to be a sort of recognition in her expression - a recognition that contorted her gorgeous features with both a rage and horror that I hoped I would never have to experience. It seemed that she may know something about this evil thing following us, and that she both feared and loathed it with a passion that came from her in bolts of thrilling agony. My blood felt like ice in my veins; my whole body shook. So if she knows, I thought deliriously. If she knows what it is, what now?
Unable to bear the silence any longer - I noticed that the only breathing I heard in this quiet room was my own - I asked warily, "What is it?"
She shook her head slowly, then averted her eyes for the first time since they had locked onto my own. When she looked up again, those strong emotions had faded. "I can't be sure," she mumbled. The playful glint in her gaze had been replaced with a hardened seriousness. "I will have to go now, and discuss this with the others."
"But... But what now?" I stammered, terribly afraid. "What if something's really after us? What do we do?"
"I don't know if this is a cause for worry." She took a deep breath, and exhaled it heavily. "But I can not lie to you. There are plenty evils in this world. And there are some that are quite dangerous. All I can tell you now is to warn your friends, and to be wary." She gave me a fond smile that slightly eased my panic. "You lot are stronger than you think. And if the time comes, I believe you can defend yourselves."
"I thought maybe one of us might have some sort of answers by now that might help us feel more confident in dealing with this," I sighed. "But as soon as I think I can't be any more lost, something else comes along and proves me wrong."
Kallpa took a step towards me. Her long legs brought her less than a foot away from me easily. I thought it impossible for this Goddess' power to be any stronger in this cramped basement, but I was wrong about that, too. I had gotten over the initial shock of her ethereal existence, just for her nearness to bring it back ten-fold. The longing to close the now temptingly small distance between us was immediate. Instinctually, I pinched the skin of my inner left wrist with my thumb and pointer finger. The sharp pain managed to push that urge into lesser importance.
I fell into her eyes more than merely peered into them, and for a small moment I could see it. That desire she had mentioned. It was guarded, controlled - but it was there.
Before I could even comprehend the countless emotions that glimpse had given me caused, she was turning. Leaving, I thought despairingly. "Come back next week. I will be here. I must call on the others and speak with them about the information you have given me. Thank you, Calypso."
The immediate and utter darkness, nor the sudden, deep chill that settled in the basement, did nothing to distract my mind from Kallpa's absence. She was there one moment and gone the next; as she had been turning away from me she had simply... disappeared. Her power - Her very essence, I thought in a kind of ecstasy - was now draining from my body; from my soul, it seemed. It was torment, sensing her energy run out of my pores and disperse into the basement's musty air. It was the greatest loss that I had ever felt. It was a pain both physical and emotional. For a while, I was so weak with the sensation of her exit that I could only stand there and grieve. For a while, time became nothing.