Bride of the Destiny

IX: Crepuscule

U N E D I T E D

CHAPTER 9:

Crepuscule

黒

 "Are you dreaming again?" The ground under me shook with anger, the spells were broken and my concentration was gone. Pieces of half-burned charms faded into the endless darkness.

"I was trying to,"

"And you failed again." His laugh echoed through the soundless realm only to be returned as an echo. Shadows ran away hiding from the ugly sound, wanting nothing but for it to vanish.

"You're scaring them, stop." His laugh was silenced by a strong force of power, invisible chains surrounded his body, closing around him, barely leaving him any space to move. Shadows started to grow back to their original places, replacing their fear with uncertainty. "We would like you to be gone, maybe for another hundred years."

"Oh no, Shadow," He began, twitching his arms slightly and breaking my chains. "I did not mean anything. I just wanted to check up on you. You know after that happened?" The ground shook again as he neared me, his large feet could have crashed the ground if it wasn't protected by the spirits. "Speaking of which, how is the little lady?"

"Lady?"

"Oh don't play dumb and mysterious on me now. The little mouse that got out of your own cage." He knew, everyone discovered the news. I thought I could hide this fact for a few years before anyone could catch up on it, but I underestimated their powers.

I raised my hand up, bringing a small light to the splattered darkness, and moved it in a circular motion. "She went to the edge." An image was displayed of a fallen human, slowly being swallowed up by nothingness.

I closed my eyes as I tried taking all the screaming sounds coming from her inner soul. Rage, anger, and frustration but between all that there was a hint of hope. Hope that she might find her own way in all these mixed and suffocating realms.

A scoff made me realize how close he had gotten to me. I could feel his claws touching my arm, almost covering it up from how big he was. His breaths were short and the feeling of wanting to crash his mouth shut filled me.

"Your food seemed to have gotten away." That small remark made me turn my gaze to him, giving him a small dry smile.

"Otto," I began. His claws stopped moving and his red eyes flashed as I continued staring up at him. I didn't feel intimidated by his presence, and absolutely not by his words. But he annoyed me, he made my spirits hungry for a bite of him. "You have gotten fatter." I narrowed my eyes. "Really fat."

黒

"It is too dark here." A light gasp and a chuckle followed my words. I sighed, preparing myself for the upcoming words.

"I have never thought I would ever hear you say that. " Light grazed my hand as a glowing ball kept dancing around me. "Are you losing your power? Are you dying already?" I tried ignoring the obvious happiness that was glazing the edges of Sunny's voice.

My hand grazed over her tail before grabbing it, stopping her from making any further move. She kept shaking as if trying to get out of my grasp. I raised her so I was facing a blank light, and my shadows started whispering to me to get away from the light. "Sunny, just do your job."

"Ah..Y-yah! Of-of course!" Her words came out as a stutter. I let go of her and waited as she kept on moving to light up the path. Even to me, the path was filled with filth and darkness. I felt it calling me and telling me to join it, to be a part of the huge family it was making.

It was the place where all the realms tossed away their own garbage in. This different realm that was made by all the realms was the worst place anyone could be in.

But she was here. And she was currently lost in those piles of hunger and rage.

"We are getting closer," I whispered to Sunny as I felt my necklace move a little bit. Sunny stopped for a moment before proceeding.

The smoke was getting thicker in these parts and I could feel my spirits clinging to me. "Why did you do it?"

"Hmm?"

"Why did you bring her here?" Hesitation filled her voice, and she looked like she wanted to take her words back. For a while I weighed my words, telling her wouldn't do me any good but at the same time, I wouldn't lose anything.

So a white lie was the perfect answer.

"I was bored."

Sunny didn't need facial expressions to make me know that she wanted to say more. She wanted to know more about all of this, she was feeling skeptical and I couldn't risk exposing all my plans to her. She would be the first one to run to the king and tell him.

My mind began swimming into different thoughts and plans as I tried ignoring the weird sensation that filled my body. This plan had to success and it had to work or else everything I had done would be wasted.

Humans called these uncertain thoughts fears, but I liked to call them taking caution. We didn't have feelings. We are different. We are the ones who create these feelings, we cannot fall into our own magic and lies.

"Shadow," Sunny whispered as she stopped moving. The darkness dimmed her light a little bit as she tried hiding bits of herself in the tails of shadows that came from me as if the nothingness that surrounded me could give her warmth.

I didn't need her to call me to notice what was going on around us. My mind and body already set different alarms, telling me that we were running out of time and we needed to get out of here fast.

"It is changing shapes again." She stated facts. With no words, I raised my hand letting my shadows swirl in circles around me, covering both of me and Sunny from the outer world. I took a step ahead of her and walked, leaving her behind. "Hey! Don't leave me here." Not a second later, she was by my side. Her light gave away her nervous thoughts.

"How long can you keep up?" I noticed how faint her light had gotten.

"If we stayed here? Barely,"

"Pathetic." She bit down her words.

"What are these?"

"These are the other realms' creations."

"What?"

"This is the realms' junkyard, remember?" I could feel my necklace shake as I felt a small force of power. "And apparently this garbage thought that if they merged together they could form something stronger." The force got stronger, and I had to close my eyes to make sure where it was coming from.

"So-"

"Prepare yourself. We are here," I cut her off. My hand touched my face, feeling a thick material building up and the shadows that surrounded us slowly returned to me, happy to be back. I grabbed the light ball beside me again, ignoring the fact that I hated the feeling.

Sunny made a few weird sounds before spitting out spells, chanting different words that only creatures from her realm could understand.

Her light got stronger making my shadows howl with pleads as they told me to get away, I silently shut them off, watching as she changed her form. I was the shadow and she was the light, yet I found her light so fascinating and annoying at the same time.

"This is way better." Long hair barely hidden by a black hood and a body that didn't even reach the lines of my shoulder replaced the small light ball that followed me here. Her yellow eyes gave me a weird look as a smile covered her face. "What? Are you charmed?"

"No, I'm just trying to block the horrific image I'm seeing now."   

黒