The Chronicles of Time - Book 1: The Prince of Time [Complete]

Chapter XLVII: Rage Between Brothers [Special Upload #1]

Chapter XLVII: Rage Between Brothers

My breath felt cold. My body trembled. My mind turned blank. What was I looking at?

It was a black wall of darkness on the other side of the door frame. I was aware that it isn't normal darkness. It is darkness that I felt before - darkness at its purest and hungriest form. The Darkness.

I took a step back. Two steps. Three. Then a cold voice from the darkness said, "Come little one. Do you not wish to know the truth?" The voice was that of a trap - alluring and hard to resist. I stopped stepping backward and stood stock still. "Come, little one. Come and know the truth."

Then in one motion, I found myself leaping towards the vast dark wall against my will. I instinctively shut my eyes as I came through. I didn't feel anything much; it only felt like a wave of coldness was washing over me. I opened my eyes again. Then it was the image I was expecting. It was a frozen picture of a room with three people in it. One was a man I don't know, another was a woman I also didn't recognize and last was a man I definitely knew.

It was my dad, Alfrey Trace, and he was weilding a long spatial blade the size of a light post, barely transparent. His eyes was that of a lion - eyes of one who would kill under hunger. A dark cloud veiled his whole appearance, almost burying his whole body.

"Anthony?" A voice broke my thoughts.

I turned around and saw the present Bernard and Cyrus. Their faces showed astonishment. But it didn't stay like that for long. Cyrus' face changed into a gasp as if expecting another man to be in my father's position. Bernard did the same.

"W-what is this?" Cyrus quickly glared at me like he knew that I know the answer. But I didn't know the answer.

"Alfrey...h-he killed-?" Bernard started but he was interrupted by Cyrus.

"No! Alfrey wouldn't do that! It wasn't him!" Cyrus defended. "It was a woman, not Alfrey!"

I looked back again. The man standing in front of us is definitely my dad. And he was clearly a man. He wasn't wearing a wig or a dress or anything that would confuse him as a female.

"Why would he do this?" Bernard asked in a trance, ignoring Cyrus.

"I don't know," I finally said after a moment of regaining my posture. My voice came out as a croak, which didn't suprise me for some reason. "Maybe the dark aura around him can explain. Maybe he's in a spell, or-"

"Dark aura?" Cyrus and Bernard simoultaneously asked behind me.

"Yeah, right all over his body." I looked at them for a moment then cocked my head back at my time-frozen father. I motioned around his body, outlining the darkness veiling him.

"Anthony, we don't see anything."

The statement first struck me as normal. I continued to point out the black cloud around him. Then Cyrus repeated, "Anthony, we don't see anything."

Then I stopped and whirled around them, adapting my best what-the-heck-there-is-something-there look. They only shifted their gaze from my face to presumably my dad behind me. But for some reason their expressions transformed into a look of unbelief, then desperation, and then finally...alarm.

"Don't move," a familiar voice whispered behind me. I felt a cold sensation press against my chin. I rolled down my eyes to see a Spatial blade hovering a few inches or less away from my face. I gulped.

"Alfrey...?" Cyrus said, his hand reaching for his timepiece. Bernard did the same except he was reaching for his aqua-blue blade.

"Weild your weapons and this young boy will perish. Show me your palms," my dad said in a more stern voice. Somehow, it sounded normal, but there was an edge to it, like it was another person speaking and he was only using a voice changer or something. And that voice changer was set to an almost-accurate depiction of my dad.