Killed Killers (NaNoWriMo 2015)

Chapter Eight

    An hour later, Ere was dressed, made up, and ready to face her doom. She had just sat through forty five minutes of painful facial beautifying, which Ere never bothered to do on her own. Plus, their family had never had enough money for her to be able to afford the makeup and tools that she would need. When she looked into the mirror, Ere could hardly recognize herself. Her hair had been put up in a complex bun, and her eyelids had been covered in a smoky shade of greyish blue. Her eyelashes were darkened, and her silver eyes somehow looked brighter than usual. Her lips were also colored a dark shade of red and her face didn't even look like her own.

    "What is on my face?" She asked Cara, wide eyed.

    "I just did a little bit of makeup." Cara shrugged innocently. "I didn't even do a foundation or anything, not that you need it."

    Ere glanced back to herself in the mirror, still dumbfounded with the face she found staring back at her.

    "Well, it's time to go," Cara said from behind her. She was tapping the screen of her smartphone furiously. "You have no idea how many times Rian has texted me telling me to hurry up." Ere headed towards the door, waiting besides it so that Cara could lead her to where ever it was she was headed.

    Cara headed down the staircase, not even checking to see if Ere was following her. Ere found that she had to pick up the hem of her skirt to avoid tripping when she was going down the staircase. She didn't even want to think about coming back up it. That was going to be whole new experience.

She managed to make it down the stairs without falling on her face and dying, and Cara led the way back down the hallway a little ways, before turning off to their left into another hallway. Ere followed, losing herself in the maze of right and left turns. They passed through what Ere assumed was a ballroom, but aside from that, she didn't remember any specific checkmarks along the way. Finally, they reached a hallway where Cara turned and opened one of the hundred doors on the right side of the hallway. It opened up to reveal a stone staircase that looked almost as though someone had just carved it out of a rock that the castle seemed to be sitting on. Without hesitation, Cara began her descent down the second spiral staircase of their trip.

Ere followed cautiously, still attempting not to fall on her face. She was going to have to figure out this whole full skirt thing if this was going to be a normal occurrence. They reached the bottom of the stairs much quicker than Ere was expecting, and she found herself in a tiny hallway. At the other end of the hallway, she could see a little bit of light around Cara's form which was blocking her view.

As soon as they reached the end of the little hallway, Ere's mouth fell open in shock. Before them was a gaping chasm,  bigger even than the entrance hall. Opposite where they were standing, a wide staircase led up about ten steps to a landing, on which stood a huge fountain. It looked like the water sprouted naturally from the rocks where it was trickling, and it ran down the wall of the cave to where a rock jutted out just enough for some tropical plants to take root and flourish, creating a tiny little rainforest paradise in the middle of the cave. On either side of the landing, the stairs continued up to a thin balcony stretching along the length of the cavern back until both of them met over Ere's head. Doors lined the balcony, although Ere was not focused on them, she was instead focused on the ceiling. It looked like they were underground, and the roof of dirt had been cut  out in places and replaced instead with glass, allowing the sun's natural light inside. She looked back down to find that the walls had periodical light fixtures placed so that there would be light at night if needed. When she looked back up to the landing, where two people now stood, on either side of the fountain.

On the left stood a woman with vibrant red hair that cascaded down her shoulders and eyes so silver Ere could see them from that far away. She was wearing an orange gown with a single strap, a paisley pattern framing her waistline and continuing up the middle of her chest up to create the strap over her right shoulder and then back down to meet the waist pattern again.