Hush

Chapter Twenty-Seven

Once Hush had gotten Rune free from the chains, Rune immediately bounded forward and wrapped him in an almost suffocating hug.

"I was beginning to think you were dead! Kahnesi disappeared and I got lost and then I heard screaming and fell through the floor and-- I'm so relieved to see that you're okay."

Hush smiled and returned the hug, chuckling lightly. "I'm glad you're okay, too. We need to get out of here and find Kahnesi."

"No kidding," Rune replied, looking up. "That is one small hole."

Looking up as well, Hush saw that the hole had significantly shrunk in size. Of course. Damn this house.

"It has a liking for trapping people, huh?" Hush stated, shaking his head. "There's always another way out, though."

"How are you so sure?" Rune asks as Hush starts moving aroud the room, using his magic to see the walls, feeling them for any sort of abnormalty. At least... something more abnormal than it already was.

"Hush, you shouldn't be using so much of your magic," Rune warned, touching his shoulder. "You could faint again..."

"Oh, I won't. I, uh, discovered something while I was gone," he says and smiles. "It'll be fine. Trust me."

"What do you mean you discovered something? What did you find?" Rune asked, watching Hush.

"It's a long story. I'll tell you when we get out of here," Hush promised, guiding Rune to the wall. "Feel around the wall, try to find something... out of place."

Within five minutes, they had found at least three things that seemed out of place.

One was a key-shaped hole in the glass, another was a carving etched into the wood of the floor, and the last one was a small bowl made of marble, filled with red liquid and stones. They didn't want to know what it was for.

"Do you have a key, by any chance?" Rune asked Hush. Hush's initial rection was to say no, but then realized it was possible he did. The stone. Was that a key?

"I might," Hush stated, unwrapping the stone so that the top and bottom were exposed. And, conveniently enough, one end was ridged almost exactly like shape of the keyhole in front of them.

"Where in the world did you get that?" Rune asked, eyeing it as Hush pressed it into the hole. A satisfying click echoed through the room. "Hush, that's--"

Rune was cut off by a violent howling of wind, which soon turned into a terrifying gust of wind through the chamber, lifting the two of them up off their feet, screaming.

It soon became apparent that they were being blown out of the room, they were tumbling through darkness.
There were whispers and screams and the moans of those that were damned to stay in the house. Hush could just barely hear Rune yelling his name and desperately reached out for him, only to recieve a sharp snap across his hand. He quickly pulled it back against his chest, grasping the stone as tight as he could. It felt as if it was trying to be ripped from him.

And then, suddenly, there was brilliant light and he felt himself hit the ground, painfully rolling a meter before he stopped.

He blinked and blinked again. It wasn't cold, so it wasn't the North. Beside him, he heard Rune groan. There was a gentle breeze that went by.

He blinked a few more times and glanced around, feeling his heart skip a few beats before being able to speak, slowly sitting up. "Rune... we're outside."

He glanced over at Rune to find him looking around outside. It seemed as if they had been thrown out the window, the window that they'd had looked through before, the one that had seemed pitch black. Now they knew why.

"We got out... how long do you think we've been in there?" Rune asked.

"A few hours. A day at most. It twists time around," Hush stated.

"How long do we have?"

"One night," Hush promptly responded. One night to figure out how to rid it of the living darkness.

One night to save their kind.