Prisoners of Prophecy

Chapter 33

Cato - Wednesday, July 24th, 2019; 3:41pm

     I had spent the entire day feeling tense and anxious. Each hour felt like it lasted a week. I could not focus on anything other than what I had to do after my last class. I was impatient to get it over with, to see whatever divine thing had brought me here and why. I wanted to finally know what all those voices that haunted that house wanted - who they were and who they had once been. I wanted answers to the countless questions that had kept me awake so many nights.
     But I was also utterly terrified. I had seen all of them - except Xantara, who was destined to be last, for some unknown reason - coming from their own encounters with the Gods, shaken and weak. I had heard their divinity would run through your veins and take every ounce of strength you had. That kind of power was incomprehensible and extremely intimidating.
     The time was drawing near.
     After class, I had dropped off my laptop and made my way to the quietest part of ShadowWood - the large, flat stone by the river. From here, not only could I see the house in it's full, horrifying but amazing glory - I could feel it, too. The electricity in the air was powerful, persistent. Sentient. It would wordlessly persuade me to take frequent glances at it, even though I wished more than anything to forget it's existence at all. It was calling me, demanding me to come inside. And the strength of it grew every passing minute.
     I thought about the last time I had been here, trying to escape the chaos of this school. It had only been yesterday, around the time that it was now. But it felt like that had been a million years ago. The arrival of Gregory Allen had disturbed me deeply, and the brief interest he had shown in the house last night only worried me more. Melany had been the final one. We knew that, it had been confirmed by whatever lie in that basement. So who was this - this murderer showing up and asking us questions about the building that no one else seemed to even notice. The house had caught our attention for a reason. So what was this stranger doing, wondering about it's odd existence here? A part of me was concerned that he may have a reason here as well. But one that was entirely different from ours.
     A loud splash sounded from beside me, snapping me out of my thoughts. I pulled my gaze - a bit unwillingly - from the house to look down at the river to my right. The current rolled on smoothly to wherever it eventually ended up, but the water was otherwise undisturbed. It had sounded like something had jumped in right beside me, but there was no sign that anyone, or anything, was anywhere near.
     The sudden noise had startled me, but after, in the slightly ominous silence that followed, I thought that maybe that wasn't the only reason that my heart was raving and my throat felt as if it were closing up.
     There was the growing energy of the house - or whatever was within it, waiting for me. But it felt as if there was now something else, too. Some sort of heaviness had flooded the air - a thick, cloying, invisible aura that made it harder to breathe. I had no idea where it had come from, or what it meant. All I knew was that it felt wrong, just as Gregory's arrival had.
     And also that it seemed eerily familiar to what Calypso had said she had sensed before that man had asked them what they had been up to, at the house that was invisible to everyone else here. Except for us - the ones who had been chosen by the tribe and their Gods, who were all in a way as trapped here as we were. And, now, Gregory as well. ShadowWood's newest convicted killer.
     How much crazier can this possibly get? I wondered, and the thought echoed, lonely, in my mind. Do they really think we can take this?
     As I stared at the water rolling on in the same direction it had been for who knows how long, the current changed. A whirlpool around two feet in diameter had appeared out of nowhere, spinning lazily at first before beginning to quickly increase in speed and size. In seconds, it had grown to four feet around, and the center of it seemed to be a foot deep, at least. Jumping into that, I'd imagine, would at least pull someone under and confuse their direction for a moment.
     I watched the strange phenomenon, awed. What's causing that? I thought in disbelief. Never seen anything like it!
     The daze I had fallen into broke when a skeletal hand - the bones yellow with age, muck, and whatever grew in those depths clinging to it - exploded from the water, followed by an arm which was dressed in the tattered remains of a dark colored, dirty jacket. The fingers grasped at the air blindly.
     I uttered a breathless gasp and jumped backwards, away from the horrifying sight, my pounding heart in my throat.
     I ran into someone scrambling away from the nightmare I had found myself in. They grunted, but did not budge. My terror grew immediately into an uncontrollable hysteria. I prepared to run, from the corpse in the river and from whoever had happened to show up at the same time.
     But it was only Kai. "Geez, Cato, I wasn't trying to scare you," he remarked as he grabbed me by the shoulders, keeping me from falling to the ground. He spun me around to face him with ease. "You're jumpy today."
     For a moment, I couldn't speak. Fear had frozen me, erased from my mind everything but panic. I wanted to tell Kai that we needed to run, that there was a rotting body coming out of the water, coming for us, but all words failed me.
     Kai - who looked a lot better than he had yesterday, but still appeared to be getting over the last bit of the sickness that had befallen him - studied me quietly for a moment. His skin still had an unhealthy yellow tint to it, but his eyes had gained back their vibrant emerald color. I recognized the familiar arrogance in his gaze. His presence offered a little comfort.
     "Hey, are you good?" He asked after a brief moment of silence.
     I had finally caught my breath and my rationality and started blabbering. "Kai, there's something... Something in the water. It's coming out of the river and it's gonna get us Kai I -"
     "Whoa," he interrupted me, placing a large hand on my chest. "What do you mean? What's in the river?"
     I took a deep breath, let it out slowly. "There's a body in the river!" I exclaimed breathlessly.
     He pushed me aside, laughing. Stepping closer to the river, he said, "Body in the river. Cato, did you go crazy while I was g-" His sentence ended abruptly. "Oh, shit."
     I turned back around quickly, each rapid beat of my heart echoing as loud as gunshots inside my head. My stomach churned. A chill ran through me, causing my whole body to tremble. If I didn't suddenly feel so terribly weak, I would have run then. My throat had shrunk to a pinhole, my chest tight and my breathing coming out in wheezing gasps. I wanted to scream, but all that would come out was a moan.
     The corpse had dug it's fingers into the soft soil by the river and had pulled itself halfway out of the water. What was left of the skin of it's face hung from the shattered remains of it's skull in leathery strips and tatters. There was a jagged hole where it's face should have been. All that was left was its jaws and the few teeth that hung on - an unsettling, dead man's grin.
     It pulled one hand out of the dirt and reached for Kai, fingers unfurling and closing, unfurling and closing again. Kai uttered a disgusted grunt and kicked at it. The toe of his sneaker connected with the corpse's chin with a loud crack. It's head snapped back violently, and it fell back into the water. There was a splash, then silence.
     Kai took a couple of hesitant steps forward, to peer into the river. I followed cautiously, expecting the rotting body which had somehow still been alive to explode out of the water again, this time grabbing one of us and pulling us under with it. I waited with bated breath.
     But a couple of minutes passed, and nothing happened. I finally exhaled. My heartbeat had slowed to a less concerning pace, my fear still there but now manageable.
     "What the fuck was that?" Kai exclaimed dubiously, wide eyes scanning our surroundings. "Man, I thought you were kidding."
     "Hell if I know," I remarked breathlessly. "I was just sitting here, and it... Kai, that was a dead man! How was he still moving?"
     Kai shrugged. "The fact that it moved might have once scared me. But now it kind of makes more sense than some of the other things I've learned. What's more concerning is how did it get here? And why? I mean, that thing was reaching for me." He turned to look at me, his thick eyebrows scrunched together. "Do we really have something after us? I thought you guys were just... scared, or something."
     I gaped at him and pointed at the river with a shaking hand. "What do you think? Bodies don't come out of the water grabbing at people for fun! We need to get away from here! Tell everyone else!"
"Kai!" Xantara's voice sounded close behind us. "Finally out of that dark and smelly room, I see!"
We both turned around. I guess the horrifying distraction had prevented me from hearing her approach. She had only been a few feet away, and was now coming to a stop in front of us. She was smiling brightly. The wounds on her face were almost healed. It would have been startling to see someone heal so quickly in another time, a time where I knew nothing of this school and what horrors lay within its fenced in property.
Now, though, I could hardly find the rationality to ponder on it.
"Very funny, Xantara," Kai growled. "But its not the time."
She studied us more intensely now, dark eyes scanning us beneath long eyelashes. "You guys alright?" She asked, her smile fading.
"No," Kai answered. "We're not."
I turned my head to take a glance at the river, still afraid that that thing may come back at any moment.
"Well? What is it?"
"We got damn zombies in the river. That's what," Kai retorted.
When I looked back at Xantara, her eyes were wide with disbelief. "What do you even mean by that?"
"I mean what I said! I came over to talk to Cato and find he's got a dead guy coming after him!" He gestured to me and then to our feet. "It tried getting me and I kicked it. It hasn't come up again. But it could. What is after us?"
Xantara's shocked gaze flickered back and forth between the two of us. Her mouth moved soundlessly for a moment, as if she were fumbling for words. "Is it... Is it gone?"
"It hasn't come back," I answered quietly. "But that doesn't mean it won't."
"Melany... She had forgotten to say something about what she had heard from her chosen God last night..."
"Withholding important information?" Kai snarled. "Sounds about right."
She shot him an angry glance so potent that it frightened me. "I ought to have Calypso do to you whatever she did to Melany. See if you can talk after that."
Kai, who seemed utterly lost at her statement, still tried to seem confident with his answer. "Calypso can do whatever she wa-"
"Just tell us what she didn't," I interrupted. "Kai, just... Just chill out for a second, would you?"
Xantara cleared her throat. "She told me that Llanthu thought this thing following us was an old friend of theirs. Someone either stupid enough or strong enough to betray the Gods."