Chapter Twenty Three
Alan . . .
I opened my eyes only to shield them with my hand, for a blinding white light was shining down from above.
Alan . . .
That voice . . . It sounded familiar.
Alan . . .
It was deep and gruff. It was unmistakable.
It was the voice of my dead father.
Alan . . .
“Dad?” I sat up and rubbed my eyes, feeling utterly confused. “What’s going on . . . ?” The next time I opened my eyes I found myself in my own room. Everything looked in place until I noticed that something was off. There, in front of the mirror, was me. I was looking at myself inspect the cuts on my back and the bruises on my torso – the ones I knew my father had given me.
There was a knock at the door. I saw myself hastily put on my white, baggy shirt. “Come in,” I saw myself say in a croaked voice.
Alan . . .
I saw my mother walk into the room, and I felt my own heart race. Mother. She took a couple of steps towards me, and I thought she was coming to comfort me, or maybe to give me the usual “your father shows his love in different ways” speech. But before she could even utter a word, my father barged into the room with a knife.
“No!” I watched myself scream.
I tried to shut my eyes against what I knew was about to happen, but I couldn’t blink. In fact, I didn’t even have a body. My body was over there, in front of the mirror, so I had no choice but to watch my father stab my mother in the neck.
I watched myself weep and fall to the ground as my father continued to stab my mother. Even after she had fallen to the ground, he continued to drive the knife into her now-dead body.
“Stop!” I shrieked.
The scene suddenly changed. It was dark and it smelled like blood. I was now inside my body, and I could feel myself gripping something.
It was a knife, covered in blood.
I was yet again in the black void, the white light beaming down from above. Only this time it was different. When I looked down, right at my toes, was my father’s lifeless body.
“Dad . . .” I whispered, my voice echoing indefinitely like I was in some great hall.
Suddenly his hand lifted and reached for me. He grabbed my wrist, causing me to drop the knife and pulled me close to him. “Alan.” His voice echoed as well, only it lasted for a shorter period of time. Not only that, but he was talking as if he had no injuries to speak of, despite the pool of blood he was laying in.
“What?” I asked.
He struggled to keep his head up, but he said in the strongest voice I had ever heard, “Thanks.”
His head fell down and he lay there, motionless. The void began to swallow him and the knife into darkness. “No,” I said, trying to pull him free of the void’s grasp. But the darkness was too strong, and it soon overcame my father’s body and swallowed him until he had completely disappeared.
And I sat there, crying, wondering where I was and what was happening.
Alan . . .
The disembodied voice was no longer my father’s, but a female’s. It too sounded familiar.
Alan . . .
I looked up and found that it had been coming from the white light from above, pulsating with every syllable of my name that emitted from it.
Alan . . .
“Mariam?” I called, suddenly recognizing the voice.
The light began to grow, the periods in which it called out my name increasing until it came to a point where it sounded like a million voices were saying my name, some whispering, some shouting, some hissing angrily. The light consumed me, just like how the darkness had consumed my father.
Alan!
Alan . . .
A . . . lan . . .
It came to a point where I saw nothing but the brilliant light and I heard nothing but the millions of voices, all of which were Mariam’s, saying my name.
Alan!
ALAN!
Alan . . .
A . . . lan . . .
My eyes snapped open.
YOU ARE READING
Salamander
FantasyTaking place in the midst of the War of Cybernetics, the young and feeble Alan finds himself in a grim situation. A situation that causes him to leave his hometown with a group of the King's army known as The Collectors - people whose soul purpose i...
