Blood Inked

Chapter 9.. Friends and Foes

To live or not to live.

To kill or not to kill.

Without pain, joy does not exist.

Therefore, know this...

If you seek dreams, you must know nightmares

If you must know love, you must live in despair

If you must have victory, you must suffer loss

If you must have courage, you must understand fear.

If you desire to truly live, You must seek death first!

Adria threw her hands in defense and opened her eyes. She still felt the presence of the voice that had spoken. Usually, the nightmares left her after a few nights of torture, but it seemed to have intensified. It came every night and terrified her till she awoke. She feared going to bed. She desired to visit the quarters of the head physician to ask for a sleeping tonic, but she feared trouble will come to her from asking for help.

She felt a chill breeze blow around her and she shivered. She took a closer look at her surroundings and wanted to faint in fear.

"Please," she begged, "not again."

For the third time that week, Adria stood in a strange hallway with a shawl draped around her shoulders. She never knew how she got to the places she sleep walked to and had to spend hours finding her way back to her room, trying to avoid getting discovered.

A faint glow of red moonlight seeped in from a small window. Statues of Knights and Warriors stood along the hallway, but what terrified her the most were the gargoyles. They seemed alive in the moon's red glow. Their eyes staring her down in an accusatory glare.

She felt a strong desire to continue down the hallway and find out what was at the end. She was naturally not a curious person, but the desire to find out was almost consuming.

"Adria?" She turned at the sound of her name. It was so faint, it was a whisper.

"Who... who's there?" She responded shakily, terrified of what was to come.

A figure stepped forward from the darkness.

Selene!

Adria released a breathe of relief. "What are you doing?" Selene asked in an outraged whisper, "where are you going to?"

They stared at each other in silence, "I followed you." Selene spoke softly, "I was curious about where you left to almost every night."

Adria contemplated lying to her, but she really needed a friend and a confidante. The places she found herself in the mornings were getting scarier and scarier and her dreams were a living nightmare. She couldn't sleep without being terrified of where she will wake up next.

"I don't know how I got here." Adria said honestly.

Selene stared at her, "You are a sleep walker?" she asked. Adria stared at her feet in shame. Sleep walking was a foreshadowing of many things. A sleepwalker was one with a weak spirit, they were susceptible to evil and their mere presence brought the downfall of others. Tainted souls they were called.

Selene looked at her mistress, the one she had been committed to serve for the rest of her life. Nothing was normal about this one. No one had wanted to serve the new princess, and Selene had been the unlucky one to draw the shortest straw of the set.

Her mother had always said that her luck was to bring misfortune, a witch had also said that her death will come early, It was just her luck that her master was one with a weak spirit. One who could cause evil unknowingly, because their will wasn't theirs to own. The purpose of the existence of a sleepwalker was to serve as a vessel.