The Melody Of Moonlight Castle

Chapter 6: A Facade Made To Kill

  As I stood there, in the silence of my mind...while Hope and Jack seemed like they were screaming at me. So...this is what Jack felt just now? I...I...I feel helpless. My brain slowly started to shut down, I could feel myself starting to pass out, I would've joined Kenji on that cold, rock floor if it Hope hadn't done what she had done, I started to be able to hear again at this point.

"Ber-!!  ...STO- STANDIN- THERE!!! BERG!!!" She was screaming at the top of her lungs, she was clearly losing her voice...she got up from beside Kenji as she hit me across the face as hard as she could, I fell off to the side as I was back into the real world again...

  I quickly managed to get up as I hazily helped drag Kenji inside the door, I laid him on a smooth wall upright as I stumbled back to grab my bag that I dropped when i fell.

"Wait...where'd the...door...?" I was probably confused and turned the wrong way, but I turned around...the path to the door was not that side either, the way I took was correct! I turned back, it was the caves rock walls...the more I checked, the more my breathing started to escalate.

  The door was gone...somehow this wall had took its place, I decided to try and calm my nerves...there's no way, I'm just hallucinating yeah. Of course I would be, I'm exhausted...not surprising.

  I quickly took a few steps back from the wall, and walked back to where Hope and Jack were.

  They weren't there.

"Hope...Jack...where are you guys? Did you take the stairs up? Kenji's still...d-d-down here g-g-guys!" Stuttering, it meant I was unsure of what was even coming out my mouth, I always stuttered when I said something unsure...which is why I hardly say anything if I wasn't completely sure about it.

  No response...

  I just hurried back and turned a left corner where I laid Kenji down, I knew I couldn't do anything for him...I only knew basic first aid, Hope was the expert in this field...

"W-w-wha-? No...NO...HOW DID THIS HAPPEN?! This..." Blood...it was everywhere, it smelled like the bodies had already rotted, the blood wasn't even red...it was a sickly green, I felt my stomach trying to force everything up my throat.

"Don't be so surprised..."

"Who's that?!"

"Just, me...that's all"

"What did you do to my friends!?"

"Friends? Who...them? You did that to them. Just look at what you're holding."

  I was wielding my survival axe...the edge was splattered with blood...blood with a green hue.

"No...no...y-y-YOU DID THIS!! Not me!"

"I did this? Why would you accuse yourself?"

He stepped out of the shadows, a stallion...with a b-blue c-c-oat?? And g-glasses...

"You see Berg? You can't pin the crime on anyone else now...I'm you, just you, with no strings attached. You know it's true, you're a monster...I've seen what I can do, and it's also what you can do." I said...with a sociopathic smile plastered on my face.

"Who...are you?!" I was grasping at straws, there was no way this could be happening...but even I couldn't come up with a scientific explanation for this to calm myself down.

"Now now...stop asking questions you already did, why not ask the exciting ones? Like...how good it felt to finally get rid of the dead weight...now that they're finally...DEAD weight." I replied to myself, even with my own sarcastic joke humor.

"Why...did you do this?!" I shouted at myself, demanding for a straight answer.

"You did this...and yet I did it...funny, isn't it? To be talking to yourself, I'm your mirror, but I'm your mirror that allows you to be who you actually are." I replied to myself, my eyes turning a weird red, almost feral color.

"This...is just an illusion, isn't it!?"

"Well, the contestant finally guessed it right...but, where's the fun in that? You're stuck here, and I get to toy around with you all...I...want"

I held the axe in my right wing as I slid it across my right cheek, cutting a small wound into it as it started bleeding. As I did that, my other self started to bleed as well...I snapped myself out of the loop using pain, I could refer to him as a doppelgänger, and not myself anymore.

"You little punk...that hurt...but not as much as I'm going to hurt you"

"Try me..." I replied...getting into a low stance as I wait for an attack.

"Silly little me...I'm you, meaning I can just do this!" He held up the axe to his neck, the blade glinting off light from a nearby hole in the cave, unwillingly forcing my wing to move as well...I was unfazed.

"You...don't get it do you? You've simply been using my rattled emotions to affect me...but now, I've regained my focus, and you'll just disappear at the click of my hoof...sorry, but...you're not me. You're someone trying act like me, I'll hand it to you...you got even the smallest details down, but you lost because, in the battle of wits, the cunning win." I immediately opened the wound even more as the pain grew to unbearable levels.

"What?!!...you little!!" He quickly drew the axe blade across my neck, but before it could cut me...the mirror image dissipated into the air particles as the world started shifting back to normal and I dropped to the floor, my world fading to black as I passed out.

"Pain...it tells you that you're still alive...still alive, and kicking till the end."