The Rogue

Chapter Seven

January 4th, 2016 (Cont'd)

Andréa's eyes fluttered open as everything around her slowly began to appear clearer in her eyes. Her eyes widen as though she had been shocked back to life, only to come face to jaw with Axel's snarling beast of a dog. He was sniffing her to see whether she was alive. Andréa watched as his thick drew hung from its mouth and shuffled backwards to avoid that it would land on her face and mess up her cardigan. This resulted in Dog braking relentlessly at her, as if daring her to move another inch.

Axel who was scanning the perimeter turned to face her upon hearing the movement and the incessant barking of his frightening four-legged companion.

'Finally, you've joined us' he said in her head looking at her a little irritated that she had fainted before they made it to their final destination. Upon hearing his voice clear in her head, Andrea snapped her head in his direction, almost giving herself whiplash.

"I told you to stop doing that!" she exclaimed staring daggers at him. Noticing that they were no longer in the cemetery where she had met him after nearly being mauled to death by his dog, but instead in an open desert bare of vegetation and life, only wastes as the bones of animals whose death could have been as a result of the merciless rays of the scalding desert sun.

"Where are we?" she asks bewildered, while Dog remains tense, watching her every move. Axel on the other hand regards her question with an indifferent expression in his face.

"Well, since you couldn't remain conscious for a few more moments, I had to stop the chant, if not, you would have been lost and I would have to burden myself with the task of locating you" he says while looking at his wrist watch. For someone with his old-fashioned taste in clothes, Andrea had assumed that he would probably be carrying around an old fashion pocket watch or possible have the ability to tell time on his own.

"Get up. We have already wasted enough time in this place," he said while turning away from her. She got on her feet but staggered feeling a bit woozy. Axel began his incantation again and a sand storm began to form, yet the sand didn't hurt them instead it created some sort of portal which Axel began to walk through. Andréa looked around baffled at what she was seeing and considered turning to run, 'but where to' she thought as Dog walked behind her trapping her between the two. Knowing that even if she did run, she wouldn't know where to. She could be in the middle of the Sahara desert in Egypt for all she knew, thousands of miles away from London.

Silently, she followed him through the dense wall made of sand. Once again, she felt the ground beneath her slip from beneath her feet, finding that she was unable to move herself. It almost felt like she was stuck in zero gravity. A few moments later, they appear in a dreary looking place.

As she looked around, taking in her environment she felt a strong connection to the place. It was almost as if she had been here before. She used her eyes to scan the perimeter, but nothing she saw held any significance to her.

Axel approached a huge house, not much like a mansion but rather large to just be termed as a house. Apart from it size nothing else was impressive about the structure. It looked as though it had barely survived a hurricane, yet as Axel stepped on its vestibule, the screeching sound of worn out wood was not heard.

'Maybe it's stronger than it looks,' Andrea had said to herself while she watched him to see what he would do next. She watched as he punched through the glass of the door, resulting in Andrea flinching as she took a step back, only to be scared half-to-death by Dog who barked, giving her a warning. She continued to watch him as he reached down to open the door from the inside.

He withdrew his arm from the hole he had created in the door and opened it, holding it open for her to enter.

"Stay" he said to Dog, who obeyed immediately and without complaint. Walking into the house he shut the door behind them, and everything went black.