Shadow Flame

Chapter 3

"Make sure she's tied down when she wakes." That's what I heard when I first opened my eyes. I was in a room, with two windows, a couch, a huge monitor and about 6 guys surrounding a desk. They had their backs to me, so I looked down at myself, to see if I could get out. 'Just my luck' I thought. My hands were tied behind a chair, and my legs to the legs of the chair. It was an old chair; I could feel my legs getting stabbed by wood splinters. Anytime I tried to move, one more dug into my skin. I resolved to not moving. These men appeared to be having a conversation with the desk. But what I hadn't noticed was that a cloaked figure was sitting at the desk. He didn't look much taller than the desk, but he was definitely not a midget. His head was too big for a midgets. I scooted over to get a better glance at who he was so I could denounce him to the police once I got out. As I moved, I tried to ignore the stabbing pain in my legs. The cloaked figure then stood up. He stared dead at me. His gaze burned deep into my soul. His eyes were pitch black, like looking into a deep abyss. I could feel him inside my head, looking at who I was, what I've done, and what I feel. The feeling of having someone in your head is indescribable. It's like a silent fly in your head. You know it's there, when it bumps into something in your head.

I didn't want him there, he was invading my privacy. So I yelled inside my head, "GET OUT!". I saw that he actually tripped backwards for a second, then straightened up.. He was slowly removing his cloak, while taking steps towards me. The room had gone dead silent. All that could be heard was the static from the monitor. To me it seemed to be singing a soft, cursed lullaby. For every step the cloaked figure took, my heart sped up. I didn't want to know what to expect. When he was about 2 feet away from me, he had taken the whole cloak off, and a gust of wind hit my face, messing up my hair, making some strands stay in the front of my face, over my eyes blocking my view of him. I tried to move the strands away, by leaning my head to the side... until I felt something very warm.

I'd forgotten that I had Al's pendant on... It started burning against my chest again. 'Why does it keep doing that?!'. The cloaked figure reached to where the warmness kept on growing. As he went to touch it, I saw the emerald eyes turn bright blue, and started expanding a light around my body. Where the light ended was about the place where I could reach my hand out in front of me, and see exactly where it ended. The cloaked figure just kept coming towards me, but hesitated when the light had gotten past my fingertips. It seemed to move its head in an upwards motion, and the cloak fell off. 'What... the...' My eyes opened wide in shock at the sight in front of me.

Instead of a face there was a black serpents head with blood-red eyes staring out from nowhere. It looked as if the eyes were nothing more than rubies floating in midair while in the background in the pitch black wall of nothingness. It took a swipe at me, and a hiss from the head showed its frustration. 'Is it angry? Disappointed? I couldn't tell but there was a much higher, ear-stabbing piercing hiss that was bounced around all around me. I kept looking at it and the head smoked as well as the light that surrounded me. It had started to turn a deep shade of purple. Like that which reminds you of poison inside a wound.

The other men had a devilish grin on their face until they heard the hissing. One of them stepped up to the serpent and pulled it backwards, collecting its cloak and putting it around its shoulders. Once again he looked somewhat like a human. He turned towards the other men and he sliced a tall mans palm and...licked it? 'This just keeps getting weirder and weirder'. I looked around and the light was still around me. I felt safe enough to smirk at the henchmen. I tried once again to free my hands, with no success. I felt around my chair to see if there was something I could use to cut out of the bindings. To my luck, I found a very jagged edge that was near the middle of my back on the chair. I had to bend my arms more than they were supposed to in order to even reach it. Once I did I yelled in pain as my elbows both cracked painfully. I had managed to get it into the jagged edge and I tried to move my body up and down to cut the bindings since my arms now seemed to have completely given up on me.

The man/serpent thing still had its back to me but I saw one of the actual males staring at me and smiling a bit. 'You can't seriously be checking me out right now.' I spit as far as I could and it landed right at his feet. He lost the smile faster than it had come on. The creatures head snapped up when the man lost his smile and then turned to me again. He slowly put his cloak down and shut my eyes tightly to not see that monstrosity again. I was expecting to hear a hiss, so when I heard a smooth voice speaking, I fluttered my eyes open. In front of me standing was someone that looked a LOT like Al but with silver hair and bright green eyes. He came close to me, with his hands up in a surrendering position. My heartbeat calmed down and I sat there confused. "Hey. I'm not going to hurt you. I simply want to talk to you... there is something that you should know about yourself that I am sure no one else in your life has mentioned before. " He said.

I was intrigued. I raised my eyebrows and eyed the bindings and he told one of the men to try to untie me. "Simply let the shield down.. and he will get you released..". He spoke to me and I wondered if he knew at all what was going on because I sure didn't. "Why would I do that? You tried to attack me just a minute ago." I told him in a loud and confident voice. 'Wow, I didn't know I had that much of an ability to act. Score.' I smiled to myself and stared them down. The Al doubleganger blinked and stared at me as if he was trying to see into my soul. He gave up and turned around. "Fine. I'm sure you are completely content with loosing feeling in both of your arms permanently." He laughed as he spoke and walked back to his desk.

My hands were starting to go numb from being pushed out farther than they should have been when I was trying to free myself.