The Melody Of Moonlight Castle

Chapter 10: The Protector Without Form

[An Hour Passes]

We spent an hour in one of the rooms, five down from the room where the body laid...in his own blood as we left him. We were all shaken up from the incident, and none of us wanted to talk about it, it seemed that it was only me and Kenji that were trying to not think about it...this is just getting worse and worse by the minute. I put Hope down on one of the beds, next to Jack...he was sitting on a chair next to the bed, muttering to himself and covering his face.

I step out of the room with Kenji as we started discussing how we are even going to continue.

"It...it isn't good...is it?" Kenji asked me.

"No, no it isn't. I doubt anyone is in any sort of mental or physical condition to continue, I wished I had a damned map of this place...then we'd at least know what it'll take for us to get to the tower, if not then we're just running blind and I don't think we want to be lost in a castle." I told him my concerns as we walked down the hallway.

"We need to get to that tower to signal for help, as long as that storm looms over us, we will never be able to do anything." Kenji talked as he grabbed a small bottle from his bag as he took a pill and swallowed it down, it was a painkiller.

"I think we should move a bit more before we settle down and rest, I...I don't think we should hang around the body." It was true, once the body decomposes...we shouldn't be around when it happens, the temperature was low so that meant the body would deteriorate slower, which would give us more time to make some distance through the castle.

"I'll try to get the others up, you help Hope and I'll see if Jack is fine...shouldn't we bury him? I mean...I find it disrespectful to leave him there." Kenji had a point, but we couldn't do anything at all in our situation.

"I think we should too, but where? There is no place we can bury him unless we go all the way back down the elevator and go out the door, unless we..." I had really hoped that Kenji wasn't implying what I was thinking.

"Do we want to leave his body here? In a place where no ones going to come anymore? We'll bury him at sea." Kenji walked away with his back turned to me, he simply glanced over his shoulder as he muttered. "I'll take his personal belongings, after we get back and I inform Princess Twilight, I'll find his family and tell them."

"Kenji!...you...I know you have a responsibility and a code of honor to stand by, but just because you are a knight doesn't mean you have to do something like this by yourself." I was taken back by his coldness to the situation, I was worried about his mental health and I could now tell he was pushing through the pain from the concussion.

"I...I know, and I have to do this, I can't afford to leave his family forever waiting for him to come back, I know what it feels like. You needn't worry about me, I chose to ignore this injury, you've got Hope to take care of." He coughed out a cold breath as he continued down the hallway. "You go join the others, I'll deal with his body."

  I was once more in cold sweat, Kenji already suffered a concussion and like this morning, he has a tendency to do things to charge through his pain, in fact...he's too good at not showing pain.

  I trotted back to the room where Hope and Jack were as I sat down on the stone floor in the corner next to the doorway and closed my eyes, just the act of blinking almost forced myself into sleeping, it was now about 9pm and everything outside started to go dark as the illuminated sky turned pitch black.

"Hey Jack, you got a light? I can't see anymore." I couldn't even be bothered to stand up, as I certainly wasn't going to go groping around in the dark to find Kenji.

  Soon I heard a creak echo through the hall outside the doorway, it was Kenji going through the wooden door, I could also feel something shuffling with him...he's carrying the body, I quickly darted my head to the chair where Jack was sitting, it was so dark I couldn't even see my hoof when I stuck it out forward to see if I could touch the bed frame in front of me. "Jack? Jack?? Wai-"