"Amaris, is that you?"
The statement catches me by surprise. I cast a quick glance behind me, but merely see a closed door. I should have known that, since I just walked through it, but it hasn't been a great day for me so far. Clearly.
I look back at the man who posed the question, still looking expectantly at me. As I open my mouth to tell him that no, I am not this Amaris he speaks of, an outrageous thought strikes me.
What if I pretend to be this person for a while? She couldn't possibly be having a worse day than me, now could she? If nothing else, it will be fun to see exactly how far I can take this charade.
"Yes, yes it is!" I try to smile encouragingly, but my lips tremble awkwardly.
The man doesn't seem to notice, however, as he now eagerly approaches me. "Oh, we've been looking all over for you! Where did you go all of a sudden? You know how much we need you." He pauses to catch his breath, but before I can reply, he rattles on. "Now, let's go back, there's still plenty to do. Besides, it's way too dangerous for you out in the open."
He quickly looks around him, as if he is expecting some kind of dangerous creature to be lurking in the shadows between my little house and the next one. While the amount of magical beasts in the forests nearby has been increasing, no one has ever seen them get this close to human settlements.
Still, it seems like this Amaris is certainly living a less boring lifestyle than me, and so I don't protest as the man starts leading me towards some unknown destination.
The entire walk, we talk very little, and the man keeps looking over his shoulder at least once every minute. It seems to me that if this Amaris is really in any danger, behaving like that will certainly make it easier to spot us. Then again, I haven't even been Amaris for an hour yet, and so I keep my mouth shut.
Finally, we reach a particularly fancy-looking carriage, and soon we're trundling along a cobblestone road through the city, and not much later, its surrounding forests.
The silence that hangs in the carriage is deafening, made almost suffocating by the glances the man keeps casting in my direction. I start to wonder whether he is on to me or not, but at last, he settles for looking out the tiny windows instead.
Just when I start to think it might be time to reveal my true identity, the carriage comes to a sudden stop, nearly catapulting me out of my seat. The door swings open, and an elderly woman immediately starts ushering me outside.
"Come on now, Amaris, there is no time to waste!"
I nearly stumble over the uneven stones that make up the path I now find myself standing on. As I get tugged along, I take in my surroundings.
It quickly becomes clear that I have never been here before. The forest around me is dark, and only a few rays of sunshine ever seem to reach the forest floor. The trees look old, ancient almost, and the birdcalls that echo between them are among the strangest I have ever heard.
Up ahead, a tower rises into the steel gray skies, its white stones gleaming in what little light hits them.
The man and the woman are now flanking me, and they nudge me up the few stairs when we reach the bottom of the tower. As the woman then opens the glistening black door, my heart sinks.
A crowd of faces is staring at me, every single one of them with an eager look shining in their eyes. It starts to dawn on me that I might just have taken this game a bit too far.
I get led up a spiraling staircase etched along the edge of the perfect circle that is the inside of the tower, with hushed whispers sounding all around me.
At the top, we reach yet another black door, which opens to reveal a much smaller, yet still spacious room compared to the one containing the crowd. This one contains only four people, six when I include the two that accompanied me here.
They know how to hide their eager looks a bit better, but I can still recognize it under the stern looks they try to feign.
"Amaris," a younger woman, one of the four, addresses me, "We are ready for you."
I must look confused, as she soon continues speaking. "You haven't lost your memories when you disappeared, now have you?"
I shake my head, not daring to speak.
"Good. As the only known summoner, how else could we proceed? Now, let us summon this demon, and start our conquest of the realm."
As the echo of her words still rings in my ears, the realization hits me. If this Amaris truly is the only summoner, that might mean my little charade could just cost me my life. There is just no way people out to conquer an entire world are going to laugh it off and let me go.
On the other hand, if I magically appear to have summoned myself some summoning powers, that might just mean the demise of that same entire world.
It looks like my day actually could get worse.
Author's note: Written for contest #27 of the weekly contests by wallflower_r
