Darkness' Vanity

Chapter five: Back to Abiss

Adeen woke up kicking and screaming. Her eyes were full of fear, and she was probably also perplexed about why there was a pre-teen drinking her blood. She kicked the kid so hard he fell backward. He wasn't too mad. He merely stood up and ran to the big sword he had abandoned.

I couldn't waste any time. I quickly scooped up Adeen and ran towards the way in which we came. Although the boy had renewed strength, the weeks of abuse had to have taken a significant toll on his body. He couldn't hold out much longer. He wasn't human, but he also wasn't immortal.

I Finally got back to the beginning of the room, our starting point. There was a lot of dust in the air, but I knew it was where we had come from because it looked pretty familiar, and there was cyclop's hand laying off to the side.

Adeen was still screaming and kicking. I had moved her to over my shoulder. I could feel her pounding on my back. I dropped her to the floor and screamed. Her flailing seemed to stop, and with the look on her face, I could tell she had started to grasp the situation we were in. "WHAT IS GOING ON!", she yelled at me as she stood up, and the panic set in.

"I'll fill you in later," I calmly replied. The truth was even I had not made out what all was happening, but I could take some guesses, and none of them were the least bit good. "We have to move fast, and that means cooperation," I followed up with. There was a slew of question building up inside Adeen. I could see them on her face. She wanted to know so many things, but it just wasn't the time or place for a game of 21 questions.

There was an eerie sound of metal grinding against stone. As the kid showed himself not to be dead. His arm seemed to be broken by the way he was dragging the huge sword behind him. He was covered in cuts and scrapes. He was also pretty bloodied, and one of his eyes was swollen shut. He yelled, "let's go" and he began to murmur, the same thing he did when we were transferred here. Whatever he was fighting was angry and heading towards us.

A circle of strange writing once again appeared around our feet, and the room started to slowly disappear. We emerged into the room we had once been in, the dungeon that had once housed the kid.

Adeen was on her hands and knees, on the ground. She had a look of pure terror on her face. She trembled, and shakily stood up. I quickly took in the surroundings. I asked the kid to make sure they couldn't follow us. He made quick work of scratching out the hidden shapes on the floor, crawling on all fours. Digging at the characters with his long sharp nails. Then for good measure, he started to hack at the ground with the sword.

I sighed and dropped to the floor. My exhaustion hit me, and my head erupted into numbing pain. I lose the sword I was holding and tried to concentrate on clearing my head.

When my vision finally cleared I looked for the boy. He was also sitting; starring at his arm mend itself, slowly, bones molding back to their original positions. It would be back to normal in a couple of hours, but he wasn't going to get much use out of it now.

Adeen was on the ground still shaking, but she was somehow making eye contact with me. I could tell that she was trying to talk, but the words wouldn't form. I slowed down to assess myself. I wasn't really hurt, but I hadn't fully recovered from starvation or the backstabbing soldiers.

My clothes were now riddled in holes, and I was covered in blood, most of which was not mine. I figured after a good meal I'd live, barely. I smiled at that thought. That I could have a good dinner and life. Not some dungeon but life.

I heard a bang from the front of the room. My heart sank as I remembered I had left the soldiers outside to their own devices. My hands instantly reached for the abandoned sword. My first thought was that hopefully they wouldn't be in for another hour and I'd heal enough for a fight, but luck was not on my side.