Whispers from the Dark

14. Memories

As silent as we could we ran through the long halls. Every moving shadow causing me a heart attack. Every minute I was scared someone might see us. And I didn't want to think about what kind of punishment an escaped prisoner would get. The long corridors looked all the same to me. Dreadful, cold and dark. Sometimes decorated with statues of creatures in pain or paintings with scary looking places full of mist and yellow eyes. It felt as if those yellow eyes followed our every movement. Running through the halls it seemed as if there was no end. We passed many doors and now and then we had to hide behind a pillar or statue if one of the doors opened. Finally, after what seemed like hours we reached a bigger door. Ash halted in front of the door and looked stricken back at me. "Whatever you do, don't follow the sounds." I looked confused at him. "Promise me!" he urged me. I nodded, and he pushed the door open. Behind the door lay a huge garden. In the front was a decorated pavement with a small table and some chairs. The stones on the ground were old and broken, overgrown with yellowish grass. Here and there a dead tree groaned in the wind. Its limbs hanging exhausted towards the ground like long fingers trying to dig themselves out of the poisoned earth. There were some tombstones, but the inscription had long faded away, leaving only strange scratches on the surface. Ash led me outside, closing the door behind us. It fell close with a loud thumb. All three of us froze, listening to our surrounding. It was quiet for a few minutes. But then high hollow sounds started to rise up. Shivers went up my spine. This was something beyond any crying sound I'd ever heard. High female crying sounds, whispering, begging. I couldn't understand what they were saying. The sound came from out of the garden. I felt Ash's hand grab my wrist and he pulled me closer. With his other hand on my shoulder, he moved me forwards. "Don't follow the voices," he whispered in my ear. Artemis' hairs stood up and he growled low, approaching a hole in the ground. It was closed with a lid made of iron bars. The sound crawled its way up the sides of the pit towards us. Something strangely familiar is in there. But they are tortured and mutilated. Don't listen to what they're saying, Artemis resounded in my head.

But I couldn't understand what they were saying. How can I follow the voices when I don't understand...

"Be aware, for what evil our Fiend will bring. Your beloved world will have no king!"

My heart stopped. It was as if these voices were inside my head. As if these creatures down there had found their way inside my head. "Seeking for answers, little one?"

"Answers is what we have." "Come closer..." "Closer..."

The voices clouded my rational thinking and I felt myself being drawn towards these holes in the ground. There were more holes spread throughout the entire garden. Ash felt me slipping away and his grip tightened while he kept pushing me forwards towards the end of the garden. Artemis looked at me with penetrating eyes. Somewhere, vaguely, I heard him speak. But no words reached my mind. For I was taken away by the voices to a place that was not familiar to me.

I was in a cell. Bare walls, cold and wet. No windows but a big wooden door with a small opening at the top, secured with iron bars. There was a heap of dirty straw in the corner and a used bowl with some debris of food. There was a young woman curled up in the far corner close to the heap of dirty straw. "Hello?" I tried to say, but my voice disappeared into nothingness. I looked at my arms and realised I was transparent. I could not move and was mere a watcher from an event. Suddenly I heard a voice yelling in the hall. "Let me go! Please! I've done nothing! I beg you!" The woman looked up and I could see her face. My breath got stuck in my throat. I knew this woman. Her dark brown hair looked blueish in the shadows as she looked scared at the door. She looked sad, as always. Her dark brown eyes, tinged with a little green, hidden in the shadows of her hair. It didn't look as beautiful combed as usual. She still wore her tiara. A wooden tiara, decorated with tiny blue and green jewels, woven in the golden branches of an apricot tree. Her skin was even paler then in my memories. The green stripes on her face were darker and she looked thin. Very thin. I don't know how long she must have been here, but it was longer than a year. Maybe even a few years. She was wearing an old warriors' uniform, completely ragged and torn in a few places. But still I could see the elvish marks on her leather upper body. Her hands were bloody and scratched. The protective bracers were gone, and she had no weapons. Her shoulder plates were broken and scratched.