Red's Revenge || n.h.

13. Substantial {Niall}

13. Substantial {Niall}

►► “Bullet from a Gun” by The Script

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I was standing on a huge chessboard inside a brightly-lit room.

Lance was standing there, right behind the white chess pieces, wearing all white with a Queen’s crown, a cape and silver staff to pair it all with. He was sitting lazily on a white throne, though it looked like it had dried red liquid stains and in mere seconds of studying them, it was mortifyingly blood thrown and stained on them. There was a sinister grin on his face and a maddening look in his eyes.

“Have you come to play?” he asked, leaning in as if taunting me. As if on cue in his words, the white chess pieces in front of him took sudden human-like figures and were cricking their necks, as though they had a very bad position during sleeping. However, I noticed that there was one piece missing behind all the pawns — the queen.

When I looked beside me, I turned out to be in one of the knights’ — the one in the left — position, but none of the black pieces have come to life like Lance’s. My heart thudded in my chest, making me feel extra sweaty especially in all this armour — and I haven’t even noticed until now that I was wearing one — with a sword on one hand and a frozen, black marble horse I was riding on. It felt as though I might slip anytime.

“I have to warn you, though,” he said, climbing down his throne with his crown getting a lopsided on his head, but it didn’t come off. “I always win.”

 

I closed my eyes, and in a mere second, I was engulfed in darkness and it felt as though I was falling in an eternal abyss — my heart leapt to my throat, still beating erratically — I have to open my eyes, it’ll end that way — I tried to reach for anything that I could hold on to, but there was nothing — wind whistled in my ears, as the armour I’m wearing seem to have multiplied the gravitational pull — I have to open my eyes —

 

Finally, I opened them and found out that I was lying flat on a hard ground. I sat up, a bit disoriented and looked around. It might just have been the chess board from earlier . . . but it didn’t look this destroyed from earlier. The marble alternating black and white floor was chunked at sides, with cracks running down on them; there even seemed to be a huge hole in the middle, like it was blasted. The roof of the room had gone off, like someone had in a wrecking ball through it and made sure it was completely gone; only bits of debris were standing from what seemed to have been the walls. The chess pieces around me were in half, the marble bodies chunked at sides — the other black knight even had its’ horse’s head dissembled from the rest of its body.

I looked up at the shadow towering over me, and Lance was standing right in front of me. All of his other white chess pieces have disappeared, but he looked unscathed compared to the situation of the room and his all white. This time, though, he wasn’t wearing the ridiculous white crown, cape and holding the silver staff anymore. But the sinister smile and mad look in his eyes didn’t disappear.

I sat frozen on the ground, in front of him. I don’t know what to do next — is he going to kill me?

My heart was pounding in my ears, quickly rushing blood to my brain and making me feel as though it was going to explode. Lance slowly crouched down to half-kneel in front of me, smirking.