The Four Dimensions of Corey Emerson

Parliament Obsidian

            I knew something was going to happen. I took Knox and Bran. We said goodbye to the others and that was that.

            After what seemed like forever of silence, my feet had begun to blister in the tightly-bound shoes. It wasn’t just my shoes that were tight; my throat closed and my head started to hurt. Knox and Bran noticed me stumble onto a stone-pathway leading to a clearing. I felt something. Someone. A cold aura of a ghost holding my shoulders and pressing up against my back. The air smelled of honey-dew and cotton.

            I pushed past Bran and Knox who were trying to bring me to my feet, and I crawled toward a large area of light ahead. As soon as I walked through it, I stood up, marveling at an angelic castle that rang with a sense of demonic pleasure. Bran and Knox followed me over a white crystalized bridge that led us over a flowing river of a dark red liquid I could assume was blood. I felt vomit rising in my stomach, begging me for an exit. I held it in and pushed onward.

            Knox and Bran felt the tension rising as we reached a golden gate at the end of the bridge. I knew what I smelled but I couldn’t believe it. Bran didn’t seem to get why I wanted to rush right into the Vampirian Parliament, but I knew they were holding him. I could smell it and it was driving me crazy.

            “We shouldn’t have split up,” The raven muttered to Knox.

            I didn’t listen. There were only two guards at the gate and no one around to see if something… unfortunate happened. I continued to approach the guards over the long bridge; they didn’t seem to pay me much attention. They were tall and I could smell flesh on their breath from yards away. They had dark cloaks and hoods drawn but I could see the reds of their eyes and the whites of their fangs. The one on the left was grinning. The staves the guards were holding glowed at the tip. The one on the left hissed as my hands began to sting.

            “Alice, don’t you dare-!” Before Bran could finish, I could feel acid water boil in my veins. Lunging a good yard from the guards, I bared my long nails and shot acid from them, shooting both in the face.

            Anger drove me to roundhouse the right guard to the ground then dragged him to the blood river, with a good grip on his neck. I could feel the skin singing off his milky flesh. Apparently the left vampire came up from behind and tried to gut me, because Knox was on top of him, shooting fire in all directions.  Bran stood by as I knocked the right vampire’s head against a post of crystal attached to the bridge. I saw Bran perch on the guard’s head and sigh. I picked up the guard’s staff and infused it with acid, stabbing him with one big thrust. The vampire hissed and clawed at me until I took his staff and swung it at his head, knocking him out. Pulling the right vampire to the river, I kicked him into the blood and watched him flow downstream.

            Hearing grunts and hisses and shocking sounds from behind, I turned around to see Knox’s hand on the vampire’s face, singing it down to the bone.  I suddenly got a rush of adrenaline and stabbed the vampire in the back while he fell to the ground and dragged him to the river, as well. Knox did the honors of kicking the vampire off the stick, and the monster, also knocked out, flowed down the river.

            I fell to my knees and looked at Knox who could tell I was out of energy. He sighed and so did Bran. I picked myself up and leaned against the crystal post stained with the blood of the guards.

            “Tsk, Tsk,” Bran chuckled sarcastically.

            “Yeah,” I muttered, “whatever. I didn’t kill him.”

            “Oh, I know, you wouldn’t have had it in you!”

            “I-!”

            Suddenly, a loud cry echoed through the entire Vampirian Parliament. I heard  cries and screams and hisses from inside the Parliament and Bran, Knox and I pulled the gates open. They were surprisingly extremely heavy; I believed they were entirely made out of gold.

            There was a large cobble-stone area that opened up to us as soon as we trespassed onto Parliament property.

            “Alice, this isn’t smart!” Bran thought to me as he and Knox followed my half-crawling motions towards the entrance of the Parliament building. We ducked and dived behind large garden statues to avoid packs of cloaked vampires moving in single file towards a glowing light in the center of the area.

            “I can sense that bastard in here!” I thought back to him.

            “Emerson?!” Bran cawed quietly.

            Knox had stopped moving and began asking a million questions.  I ignored him and began to quarrel with Bran behind an obsidian statue of a young girl holding the hand of a tall, long armed, long clawed, creature.

            “If I find that son of a bitch that’s working with these… these… things!... I swear to God, Bran, I swear I’m going to kill him!” I couldn’t help but scream. It was the worst decision I’d made.

            Within a moment of seconds, the obsidian statue came to life and back handed me to the ground. Before I blacked out, I saw Bran and Knox grabbed by two vampires.