Checkmate || OUAT Fanfic || DISCONTINUED

Chapter 37; Poor, Misfortune Souls

"What if I travel so far away in my dreams that I can't get back in time to wake up?"

~ Ruth Ozeki

-

Alice's P.O.V

-

    "Where are the boys?"
    I look up from my book, pretending that I'd been paying attention to the words skillfully picked out and printed onto the pages. "Pardon?"
    "Where are the boys?" Peter repeats. "I haven't seen them since this morning."
    "They're with Ray," I say, keeping my reply as short as possible.

    "Are you going for the Harvest Festival tonight?" he asks.
    "No," I reply curly, looking back down at the book in my hands.
    "Why not? You still need to tell them about me."
    "Can we not do this now?" I ask, finally meeting his gaze.
    Peter shakes his head. "Put the book down, Alice. We both know that you haven't actually been reading it for the past ten minutes."

    I sigh, closing the book with a snap. "Why is it so important that I go?"
    "Because your friends need you, now more than ever."
   I get up to leave the room. "If you're referring to Jerome I already told you, he doesn't want to talk to us. He only ever shows up here he hears that we found something."

    "Not just Jerome-" He gets up to block my way. "-I'm talking about Cassie and the others too. Lewis and Will are worried. Even the twins can tell that you've been acting off."
   "If they're so worried why don't they say anything?"
   "They do. You're just too oblivious to their attempts to reach you," Peter tells me. "You haven't told them about your dreams, have you?"

   I blink, and a hoard of images flash before my eyes. I can see Will lying on the floor, half-conscious and bleeding. The next one is an image of Ares standing over a body, his clothes drenched in a dark, red liquid that can only be blood and his face is scrunched up in disgust. Many other images pass by but the only one that really stands out to me is an image of two figures standing near a pentagram drawn with blood.

    The two shadows stand in a barren field, one of them stands inside the pentagram whist the other kneels in front of it, as if awaiting its orders. The shadow inside the pentagram looks a bit like the outline of a person with fiery hair. On the creature's neck is a pendent, the pattern etched on it looks like a circle in the middle of an upside-down horseshoe with a jagged cross at the bottom.

    It says something in an ancient tongue to the hooded figure at the foot of the pentagram. The person under the hood replies back in the same strange language. The shadow must've not liked whatever the hooded figure said as the pentagram then caught on fire, causing the hooded figure to jump back in fright. The shadow then starts yelling at the figure, not giving the person a chance to speak.

    It continues screaming in a rabid manner. The fire slowly dies down as the shadow lowers its voice. Its eyes burn into the hooded figure as if looking into the person's soul and it surprises me with what it does next. It points a bony finger at the person as it speaks up again.

    "You vill do as vour told," it commands icily -in English this time- with a thickly accented voice. "Unvless you vant to see the person vou've been trying so hard to keep alive die once more."

    It disappears in a cloud of smoke, leaving the hooded figure staring at the pentagram. The hooded figure screams in frustration now that the shadow in the pentagram is gone. The person rips something off their neck, throwing it into the dying embers in anger. The necklace flies out of the figure's hands, bouncing off the ground before hitting the small pile of ashes.