Games of Myseri

Chapter 2: When Darkness Calls

    The tornado was enormous. Like, I've seen tornadoes before. I live in Oklahoma City, so I've seen my fair share of tornadoes. Once, when I was five, I even saw an F5. But this thing... this thing was like an F11. It was massive.

    It tore through the streets, hurling cars, dirt, and chunks of pavement flying in every possible direction. I looked back at Dr. Edward. He looked surprised, but not immediately alarmed. He caught me staring at him, and quickly masked his expression with a look of fear and concern. He ordered all of the students into the halls and to run like hell to the school's tornado shelter. Then, apparently satisfied we'd follow his orders, he dashed out the nearest fire exit. I called after him, but he couldn't hear me over the sounds of screaming students and the tornado wreaking havoc.

    "Cherry!", Jessie was calling for me, "Come on! We'll get caught up in the storm!"

    We ran crazily down the flight of stairs. We were on the third floor of the school, and the shelter was in the basement floor. At the time, I had never wondered how inconvenient that was for the two of us.

    "How... how did that thing... sneak up on us?" Jessie asked through ragged breaths of air. "Why didn't we get a warning?"

    She had a point. In Oklahoma, we get tornado warnings whenever a tornado is about to form, so we can get into the shelters, but there wasn't one. A tornado of this size should've been seen days ago, but no warning was provided.

    "I dunno," I said, also gasping for air, "but we'll worry about that once were inside the shelter. Let's just run!"

    We almost made it. We were on the last flight of stairs before the entire wall was ripped away. The tornado was right outside the hole. Jessie and I screamed as we were both picked up and sucked straight into the tornado.

    "Take my hand!" I screamed.

    She took it and together we speeded towards the swirling monstrosity.

    It's hard to describe what happened next. One moment I was being dragged into a tornado at the speed of sound, screaming at the top of my lungs, holding Jessie's hand tighter than I would've held my copy of Legend of Zelda: Spirit Tracks. Then... everything vanished. Completely. I didn't even see it happen. Suddenly I was sitting in utter darkness. Seeing nothing, hearing nothing, feeling nothing. Even Jes disappeared. For a second I thought that the tornado had ripped me apart and I had died, but I was still breathing.

    The darkness was imposing. It was the only thing could see, and somehow it felt like there was more to it than what I saw. It seemed to have some sort of lifelike quality to it. Like, you think it isn't alive, but you could see it being alive. I shook my head. Its just darkness, not a living creature. That's what I was thinking when the darkness decided to prove me wrong.

    Once again, I can't fully explain what happened next. I felt the darkness stir, as if it had just become aware of my presence. Then I felt something probing my brain, listening to my thoughts like the NSA. I could feel it asking questions that I couldn't hear, searching for something in the deepest parts of my mind. Then I felt the search stop, as if the darkness found what it was looking for. It withdrew from my brain, leaving me confused and violated, especially because I had no idea what it had found.

    Then I heard voices. Well, maybe not heard, more like felt. Whatever the voices said felt like a headache, then was instantly translated into words. There were two speakers.

    I never thought I would ever see this..., said the first voice. It was deep, quiet, and ominous, like the darkness itself.

   Nor did I. Myseri sending a champion to the Games? I was wondering how long it would take her. This is her castle after all. That was the second one. The voice a nightmare listening to. Every word had a different pitch and every sentence changed tone halfway though. Not only that, but it would pause or speed up in a totally irregular pattern. If you could make the word chaos talk, that's what it would sound like.

   Shh!, the first one said, Be careful, my lord. The girl can hear us.

   Can she? The voice paused. So she can. Interesting... she must be very powerful.

   Well, she is the one Myseri has requested to use as her pawn. Myseri's no low-rank goddess.

   No, I mean more than just that. She seems more powerful now than most are when they've been trained. She may be just as powerful as your pawn, Despar.

   Impossible. The one called Despar said. My champion was the best of his time. He's the most powerful in the Games. He—

   Could hear us when we accepted him. The other one interrupted. It put a slight emphasis on the word accepted. Although the speech pattern made it a little difficult to tell. The voice continued: If I recall correctly, which I always do, no other pawn that I've accepted (there was that emphasis again) has been able to do that. In fact, I detect a sort of potential from this one, like I did with yours. She could be useful to me.

   Or dangerous. Despar's voice had a note of warning to it.

   DANGEROUS?! The chaotic voice boomed, which made me wince. To you, Despar, she could give a little trouble. But to ME? The voice laughed a laugh even worse than its speech pattern. The girl is nothing. However, I'd love to see Myseri's pawn in action. Despar, give her the same test you gave yours.

   Yes... my lord. Despar said, emotionless.

   Suddenly I woke up on the ground in front of the school. The tornado was still raising hell, but for some reason it was wasn't raising me. Or Dr. Edward, who was standing over me with his always-questioning face pulled back in surprise.

   "Cheryl?" He asked.

   "That's me," I groaned.

   "I can't believe you're still here," he said. "When the tornado picked you up, I thought you were gone."

   "So did I," I said.

   I got to my feet. "Why isn't that tornado picking us up?"

   "Oh, it wouldn't pick me up. I'm a teacher. As for you... well, it did pick you up, although why you're still here is beyond me. I've never known Sarah to drop potential champions before."

   "Potential... champions?" I remembered that the voices in the tornado had used that term too. "What does that mean? Why did you call that tornado 'Sarah'? And how come you're a teacher means the tornado would leave you alone?"

   Dr. Edward cocked his head. "Don't you know? I guess you wouldn't. If Despar didn't take you, then there wouldn't be anyone but me to teach you, would there?" He scratched his beard and looked up. Then he gasped.

   I turned around. There, hovering fifteen feet in the air in front of me was a ghostly knight, holding a massive buster sword and with a desire for blood in its eyes.

   And it was staring right at me.