Below the Fear

Chapter Two

Fear of Fire

Day Three

We had been walking for what seemed like decades while it only turned out to be three days. Food and water were sparse as there were many dining rooms in this large castle. Even after spending seventy-two hours with Valkyrie and Faye, I knew very little of their lives. Heck, I knew very little of my life. Memories were thrown out of my brain the minute I hit the hard cobblestone floor. The three of us barely spoke. Part of it was because we were afraid Darkwood might hear us and the other part was we didn’t know what to say.

Everything in this dark place looked just as similar as the room before it. We were confused as to where we were headed and sometimes even forgot the main mission of this walk. Finally, Faye had gotten tired and she leaned against the wall and slid down until her jean covered butt hit the floor. She hung her head and let her blue curls come out from behind her ears.

“There’s no hope,” she finally choked out, “We don’t even know where we’re going.” I could hear her voice cracking as she let sobs escape her mouth. I sat next to her and started to rub her back in comfort.

“There are plenty of traps and hidden doorways; we just need to keep our eyes peeled for anything suspicious. Darkwood is always like that.” Valkyrie said as she leaned down to reach Faye’s level.

Suddenly footsteps were present. As if someone was jogging. Faye perked up and Valkyrie turned her body to face the sound. In the past three days, silence was all we had heard. No one had passed and we hadn’t seen a face. As the footsteps got closer, we could hear panting and soon a small figure was running towards us.

Once in our sight of vision, we could see it was a small boy, around the age of nine or ten. He had blonde hair that was combed over to the right and he was wearing a tattered striped shirt with jean shorts. He still hadn’t seen us as he stopped and turned around. He slowly, then, began to walk towards us until Valkyrie walked up to him with her hands toying with something in her pocket.

“Speak up, kid,” she said forcefully. The boy turned around to face her and looked up in awe. He then looked behind her to see Faye and I watching him from the floor.

“What are you doing here?” Faye asked with courage, even though I could see the façade she had.

“My name’s Billy, I’ve been here for as long as I can remember…” he paused, “which isn’t much. I miss my family and friends. I’m tired of running from Darkwood.”

Faye stood up and walked over to him. Studying him carefully. She looked him up and down. Billy was obviously concerned by this because he swiftly took a step to hide behind Valkyrie. She grabbed him by his shoulders to calm him down but was quickly cut off by the sound of crackling and things breaking.

All four of us turned around to a blinding orange light. We would have stood there longer, wondering what it was, if it wasn’t for Billy who shouted, “FIRE!”