Prisoners of Prophecy

Chapter 34

Cato - Wednesday, July 24th, 2019; 8:39pm

I had excused myself soon after what Xantara had said. The implication of our enemy possibly being as ancient as the Gods, and maybe even as powerful, was too awful to bear. Also, I couldn't stand being by the river any longer. I thought I'd never be able to relax on that rock again. The last safe spot in ShadowWood had been taken from me. I would never be able to sit there and watch the water roll on confidently without wondering if a body might come out of it and drag me with it, down into the depths.
I had went to my room to shower, leaving Kai and Xantara looking both confused and concerned. I tried to stay there as long as possible, but the force of the house and whatever was inside it was becoming stronger with each passing minute. Its impatience was not just a constant ringing in my head, it was a physical thing as well - it was like something I couldn't see was shoving me in the house's direction.
Now, under the cover of the night, I stood before it. I couldn't really remember making my way to this horrid place at all; it was more like I had just appeared here, just by hearing its call.  Its massive shadow shrouded me in darkness. My heart hammered against my rib cage. The temperature seemed to have dropped an alarming amount. The shattered glass in the windows reflected the moon, giving the dilapidated building what looked like eyes which glowed with sinister light. Its intense energy slammed into me, wave after wave of it. I wondered how strong it would be inside, and if I'd be able to handle it.
The front door creaked open slowly. There was no breeze, no cause for it to open, but it had anyways. The only thing that it could have been was the house itself willing the door to open, wordlessly inviting me inside. A chill ran down my spine. My mouth was now terribly dry. My breath came in whistling gasps. Fear tightened my chest. I wanted nothing else but to turn around and go back to my room. Forget any of this existed.
But I knew that I had no other option but to go inside and face it.
I took a deep breath before walking onto the porch and then stepping inside. Without thought, I shut the door behind me.
The house was more often quiet than not, but this silence was deep and unnerving. My heartbeat - the only thing I could hear - echoed loudly in my ears. The darkness was thick and impenetrable, seeming to have an actual weight to it. The house was full of it, making it feel as if it was much bigger than it actually was. I could not see anything - not the walls, not the door at the end of the hall, not even the floor beneath my feet.
I felt my way through the abandoned home, taking each step hesitantly, part of me afraid that at any moment the floor would disappear and I would fall into a chasm of blackness that would never end. I held one hand out to my right, running my fingertips across the peeling wallpaper, and the other out in front of me. Each step was like a thunderclap in the quiet.
My hand hit solid wood. I shivered. I knew I was now standing in front of the door that would lead me down into the basement. Were they here now? Even my thoughts sounded much too loud. The ghosts that lived in the walls of this place? The God I was here to meet? I fumbled for the doorknob, trying to resist my growing horror.
Before I could find it, I heard it turn, and the door started to open on its own. I backed up, out of its way, uttering a sharp gasp. It hit the wall softly. After a moment, I started slowly down the steps, breathless and uneasy.
The basement was full of shadows. I couldn't see the walls, but it felt as if they were closing in on me. It was freezing down here, but the air was thick and difficult to inhale. The still quiet in the small room made it impossible to ignore my panic. There was nothing else to focus on. I couldn't discern how much time was passing, but it became harder and harder to force myself and stay, waiting for what I had no clue. I thought I would soon lose my mind. It was just me and the darkness and the countless worries in my head, for what felt like an eternity.
Any moment now, my fate was supposed to be laid out before me by a God whose powers I supposedly held in my own hands. There was no excitement now that the time had come - there was only frightened uncertainty. Would they show up? I wondered. It felt as if I had been down here much too long. What if someone notices? What if it's past curfew and someone sees that I'm in this old house instead of in my room?
But, then another possibility came to mind, one that was insane but also entirely sensible in this dark and silent room, where even time had no place. How much of this could I be dreaming, or making up? Could this all just be a fragment of my imagination; could it be that I lost my mind a long time ago?
And, to my surprise, the idea didn't seem so bad. If it was just a dream, if I was just crazy... Then I really didn't have such an enormous responsibility on my shoulders, right?
     But I knew that was only wishful thinking. Not even insanity could have come up with something like this.
     Before what led me to ShadowWood, I had been a logical person. Coming here to find a house that was haunted and voices in the basement hinting that me and the friends I had made were meant to be here, and to find out later that these ancient Gods had called us here because they needed our help - I would have never accepted anything like that before.
     What happened next, though, made everything else I'd experienced here seem minor and insignificant in comparison.
     First, the room was flooded with this unfathomable power. My head took it the worst. It felt as if someone had sunk hot blades deep into my scalp, melting through my skull, piercing my brain... and twisting those blades until they created tunnels in my mind. Was this how people felt when I read into their inner, secret monologues? Was this why they winced, why they paused and rubbed at their temples as if they had gotten a sudden migraine? Those thoughts were instantly snatched and sliced into a million indiscernible pieces. A God was surely reading me now, like an open book.
     Then, a rush of cold air hit me, so forcefully that I almost lost my balance. There was a Whoosh! and suddenly the basement felt much, much larger. It was as if the walls had slid backwards on invisible tracks, or disappeared altogether. Though I couldn't see anything, I could sense that, somehow, the space around me had grown substantially. It seemed as if even the floor was gone - I could neither see or feel the solid concrete beneath my feet. It was like, all of a sudden, I was floating in a vast emptiness that could possibly be infinite.
     Lights began flickering into life all around me. They varied in size and color. Some seemed to be very close, some were a terrifyingly great distance away. How big has this room become? I wondered.
     But, with a growing terror, I came to the realization that I was no longer in the basement. I was no longer on Earth at all. Somehow, I had been transported to somewhere in outer space. The lights I were seeing around me were not just lights, they were stars and planets and constellations farther away from me than I could even comprehend.
     My panic was rising to something that was closing in on uncontrollable. My heart was racing erratically, my breath coming in short gasps. I put a hand to my chest as if it would calm my heartbeat and make it easier to breathe.
     Breathe? The voice in my mind was hysteric. You can't breathe in space!
     I had no time to ponder on that, for a massive ball of orange light appeared in front of me, so suddenly that my ears popped and my eyes felt like they were going to catch on fire and melt out of my head. It hurt to look at, but I could not pull my gaze from the amazing yet horrifying sight of it. I had never seen something more huge, more luminous. It was so large that I had no knowledge of a measurement to scale it.
     It was so large, in fact, that it had its own gravitational pull. And I was now being dragged towards it at impossible speeds. I could feel an intense heat coming from it, quickly growing stronger. I would surely turn to ash if I got much closer.
     There was nothing to grab onto, nothing to stop my rapid approach to whatever this colossal orange thing was. There were only planets and meteorites, stars and emptiness, and the glowing ball of torridity that could very well be the Sun, for all I knew.
     This is the end of me.
     "That is not true," a voice spoke, her tone gentle and even musical. It echoed all around me, but I could see no one. "You are strong, and you are wise. This is only your beginning."
"Then help!" I screamed shrilly at the woman whose very voice filled me with a foreign and powerful energy. "Help me! I can't stop!"
"Notice you are in the most dangerous place to exist to mortals, without any sort of equipment... Yet you are alive. Calm yourself, Cato. This is your domain as much as it is mine. Your fear is weakening you."
I gasped, taking in a lungful of air in a place where oxygen hardly existed at all. She was right. New knowledge flooded me, made my head ache. Science meant close to nothing now. If I could breathe in space, did planets have gravitational pull? For me, they didn't have to. The beautiful voice had told me this was our domain. So why would I be in danger here?
While my thoughts had been racing, I had stopped moving. The blazing star or planet or whatever it was, was still quite a distance away, and no longer coming any closer. The heat that had been coming from it was gone, though it should have now been strong enough to incinerate me. A calmness enfolded me. The enormous array of colors and the endless blackness in between changed from terrifying to gorgeous in mere seconds.
"You are a quick learner," the voice spoke again, but this time it only came from one direction. Somewhere in front of me.
She appeared from the darkness as if she had been borne from it. She dressed like an ordinary woman in her twenties, but it was obvious that she was not ordinary. The knowledge in her eyes - which were as black as coal - was infinite, ageless. She did not only look foreign to the state of Maine, but to the entire world I had always known until this moment. Her beauty was unique, even unnatural. She had locks that hung down all the way almost to her ankles, her skin dark and flawless, the color of coffee beans. She had vitiligo - pale skin splattered across the tops of her cheeks and the bridge of her nose, almost like freckles. They reminded me of the constellations that surrounded us. She had an air of mystery and extreme intellect about her that drew me in just as the massive planet behind her had. This pull, though, I didn't think I could resist, even if I wanted to.
I dipped my head respectfully, momentarily too stunned to speak. There was no doubt that this was one of the Gods that the tribe leader, Achiq, had spoken of. To finally be standing before such a divine and unearthly powerful being was enough to make me feel as if I were close to succumbing to madness. I was both awed and afraid all at once.
She returned the nod, as if greeting an equal. It felt very strange to be regarded with such honor by someone who radiated royalty. "It is nice to finally meet you, Cato. I am Uma. I reign over the stars and the mysteries between them; I am the Goddess of faith and knowledge."
"Uma," I repeated, my tongue tingling with the glory in her very name. "Thank you." It was daunting to look into her dark gaze, which seemed to hold all there is to know about anything. Would she teach me all it is she knew, or would the magnitude of her existence suck all sanity out of me?
She narrowed her eyes questioningly. "Why are you thanking me?"
"Because you've given me abilities that no one but me and my friends possess. We get to help you and the Hawaykaw tribe be as renowned as you once were. It's a beautiful and historical moment to be a part of." I had answered honestly, but I did not say everything. I couldn't admit that the idea of it was also more and more frightening by the day.
She sighed heavily. I thought I saw a hint of sorrow in her expression. "I suppose you are right. But, not only is this a rare and amazing opportunity for you all, and for us... it's also a terribly important and dangerous responsibility. The courage and fortitude you must have is immense." She shook her head slowly, momentarily averting her gaze. "Because this is also... It's all so uncertain. Things are happening that we weren't expecting."
When her eyes found mine again, I could see them brimming with a sadness that made my own heart ache. "Some of you may not survive. Maybe not any of you will at all."
Everything she said crashed down on me; shock ran through my body like I had been struck by lightning. Trying to accept all of this at once did not only mentally drain me of any reasonable thought, it also physically pained me. The force of the power coming from the Goddess in waves was weakening me with each passing moment. Here I was, floating in the endlessness, stars and planets all around me, with the ruler of them in front of me, telling me I may lose my life trying to bring the best of her's back.
     I inhaled deeply, exhaled shakily. "I've thought about that," I sighed. "But, look at where all of us are. What we've done that brought us here. If we didn't have this responsibility - regardless of how frightening it is - we'd surely be separated and locked up for the rest of our lives. Prison or mental institution, I don't care. I'd rather fight for something worthwhile." To my surprise, I had articulated a truth that I had not, until now, fully realized. And even if, maybe, we hadn't been chosen, and our lives could have gone entirely different - what did that matter now? What could we change?
     Uma winced. "That is a very respectful way to think about this," she murmured softly. "Yet I still wish things could have gone differently. I don't understand why it must happen like this."
     I shrugged. "There's nothing we can do. And it seems there's nothing else you can do, either. My life is the only life I've ever known. I can't possibly desire one I've never lived."
     She offered me a small smile, sad but also proud. "I am glad to see that I have chosen a very wise and strong man."
     I was filled with warmth by the sudden praise. But, now that the shock of meeting her was dying down, I was able to think more clearly, and what had been happening at ShadowWood came to my mind with immense force. The danger Calypso felt; the confusing answers the other Gods had given; the arrival of Gregory Allen; and today, that rotting, disfigured corpse that had come out of the river - that enveloped my thoughts entirely. Was that what Uma had meant when she said unexpected things were happening? Will I learn now what is after us? Though I had spent many sleepless nights ready for this day to come, and for me to finally get some answers, I now dreaded them. But I had to know. There was no other choice. Without answers, we couldn't help these Gods, or know how to stay away from whatever was after us. And possibly how we could defeat it, if we needed to.
     "Uma..." I started hesitantly, my tone weak and afraid. "The other Gods... They haven't been totally clear about some things, and... Well, I was wondering if you could be a little more straightforward?"
     She nodded once. I thought I might have seen a little hesitation in the action, and I hoped it was only my imagination. I wouldn't know how to feel if my fate was in the hands of someone who would keep something so important from me.
     But, finally, after a long moment of silence, she said, "Of course. I have a feeling that I know what you wish to discuss."
     My heart skipped a beat. My mouth was dry. It was hard to speak under the force of her stare. It was kind, but also incredibly strong; I could feel it piercing through my skull and driving needles into my brain.
     I swallowed my fear. "What's after us? What does it want?" I asked quietly.
She moved closer to me, floating, graceful and stunning. Her proximity exhausted me as well as sent euphoria throughout me at the same time. She studied me with a blatant respect that made my head spin. "I want to apologize for our lack of answers. We had suspicions on who this person may be, and without being able to overlook Earth as we had once been able to, we couldn't confirm or deny anything. But... We're pretty positive now."
"So you know?" I asked nervously. "Is it who... who Melany's God was talking about? Some old friend?"
Uma nodded. She lowered her voice to a conspiratorial whisper, as if there was someone else that could hear us in the vast emptiness of space. "I do not want to speak of him more than I have to. But, I do believe you and your friends deserve to know at least enough to understand what you're dealing with."
"Yeah," I sighed heavily. "I mean, at first, I thought maybe everyone was just jumpy, but... I feel it now. In the air. Like how it feels right before a storm is about to break. There's zombies in the river now and everything. Why weren't we warned about that?" I could hear an anger creeping into my tone that stunned me. I shouldn't be talking to a God like this! I thought briefly.
But Uma seemed to not have cared. My annoyance paled in comparison to the rage in her wide eyes. As I watched, they turned from the darkest shade of black into two orbs of the brightest white light. Her gaze was full of a pale fire that sent a painful wave through my veins. I wanted to distance myself from the force of her sudden anger, but it was impossible to resist her pull, which seemed to be the only thing keeping me afloat. The force of it was torturous and beautiful all at once.
She talked through clenched teeth, in a low and controlled tone. It was somehow more terrifying than if she would have been screaming instead. "Zombies? What are you talking about? What was in this river?"
"It was...uh..." I cleared my throat. Speaking had become a foreign act to me; my own voice wasn't even recognizable. I swallowed my doubt and tried again. All of a sudden I felt as if my time here with Uma was growing short. I was becoming too exhausted to handle the supernatural strength coming from her. "A dead body. I mean, he wasn't dead but he was rotting and... He came after me... Kai had to kick him back down..."
"Shh..." Uma muttered. It was impossible not to oblige. "This thing... It tried to attack you?"
I nodded.
"He's closer than I thought," she hissed. "I thought I could feel him, but I didn't want to believe it was true."
"Who is he?" I asked, unable to pull my gaze from her blazing one even though it burned my eyes, as if I was staring directly into the Sun.
"Terrat." She said the name with so much hate that the breath was knocked out of me. I gasped and clutched at my chest like it would calm my racing heart. "Do not speak his name outside of that derelict house on your school's property. He may hear."
"How strong is this guy?" I gasped. "Why does he want to hurt us? And how do you know him?"
There was a long moment of silence before Uma answered. She was no longer looking at me but through me, studying something I knew I would not be able to see. I had a feeling that she was reminiscing on something that was causing the intense fury and anguish now coming from her in bursts. I had no idea if it was possible for me to read her mind and see what she was thinking of, but I didn't dare try.
"He was once one of us," she muttered, her gaze still cloudy. I felt my heart sink like a heavy stone into my stomach, where it continued to beat rapidly. "But he left us and the tribe behind. He spread stories of his greatness, and excluded us. We stayed with our tribe, part of us dying off with the last of them. While he persevered.
"I have no clue how strong he is now, but he's stronger than us. People have faith in him - I don't know how many. But no one knows about us. Well, not except for all of you."
"He's scared, though," I whispered, hardly realizing I had planned to speak at all.
"What?" Uma explained. Her stare cleared and she was once again examining me inquisitively. Almost as if she had forgotten for a moment that I was there at all.
"I mean, you obviously wouldn't have warned someone who betrayed you about what you've been planning to do here." The epiphany seemed to have replaced some of my fear with confidence. I desperately held onto that feeling as I continued. "That means you've already grown powerful enough to get his attention. Just because we know about you."
The light in her eyes turned into a warmer yellow shade - like a campfire beneath a clear night sky full of stars - before fading and revealing the dark color of her irises as they had been at first. She was staring at me now with a mixture of shock and an awe that utterly confused me. It was as if she was facing an equal, instead of her being an ageless God with abilities and knowledge that could shatter entire galaxies and I just being a lucky young adult. A stunning smile spread across her gorgeous face.
"You're right," Uma said, almost blissfully. "I hadn't even realized. In my worry of everything wrong that could happen with this... You believed in us the moment that Achiq told you of our existence, and you were determined to fight for us before you even met us. Even though you were doubtful and afraid. You have faith in us!" She seemed to grow taller; her aura appeared to glow. "What a wonderful feeling. I cannot thank all of you enough."
I was taken aback by her gratitude. My voice came out trembling, even sort of pathetic. But at the moment I didn't even care. "I should be thanking you. You've given me more purpose than I've ever felt in my life."
I paused, having to swallow the sudden gorge climbing up my throat. My stomach churned. My body grew terribly heavy. "I don't feel too good," I groaned.