The Veiled One

Part Three: From Ashes Come Flames

Chapter Twenty-Four

Waking up is hard to do

"Where am I?" I groan, feeling my skin scrape against the cool, smooth marble of a floor somewhere. I force my eyes open past the seal formed by sleep. I am lying on the flat black floor of an endless hallway that is lined with pillars that look out into a never-ending velvety blackness.

I glance down at my body. I'm naked, my skin pale and white against the perfect ebony that surrounds me. I manage to get to my knees, balancing on the balls of my feet and the tips of my fingers. The marble sucks the heat right from my hands. From my crouching position, I stagger to my feet and try to take a step, but my legs are too weak. I collapse on the ground, falling flat on my face once more. The darkness taunts me, an infinity that I don't recognize or know. I decide to crawl towards the blackness. I need to determine what's out there.

My progress is agonizingly slow, and each second my body is in contact with the floor, it feels like the life is being sucked straight out of me. By the time I make it the three or so feet to the pillars, my breath is coming out in clouds of mist before my face and my fingers have gone red with cold.

I have my hand extended, trembling, just about to brush the darkness, when a voice echoes down the hallway.

"Stop," it commands, tone eerily smooth. I curl in on myself, trying to shield my nakedness from whoever it is that just spoke.

I look up. At the end of the hallway stands a man, or perhaps a boy. He's disturbingly young to be in this place I think, barely seventeen like me. He strides down the floor, his bare feet making no noise. He's wearing black leather pants and a loose white shirt that flows in a non-existent breeze.

"Sylas," the boy says, incredulous now. This close up, I can see his face. He is young, with dark eyes that cut like fire and a smooth, clean jaw. He scrapes his dark hair back from his face and narrows those eyes at me.

The name he called me... Sylas. It strikes a chord deep within me, some inner sense of knowing. That's my name. I'm Sylas. But I don't know who he is, or where I am, or what's happened. My mind is as blank as the darkness in front of me.

"Sylas... That's me," I manage to get out. The boy looks me over, then snaps his fingers. I'm suddenly clad in a loose white toga-style shift that stretches to the floor. A black silk sash drapes over my shoulders. "Where am I?"

"You're in my mansion in the Otherworld."

A sudden thought strikes me. The Otherworld. There's only one reason why I'd be here.

"Am... Am I dead?"

The boy looks away, confirming it. A sense of panic fills me, rushing up my throat like bile, but I push through it and struggle to my feet. This time, I'm able to take a few halting steps forward. I stagger towards the darkness, but the boy swiftly intervenes.

"You can't go out there," he says firmly, standing in front of me and crossing his arms. It makes me irritated that he's taller than I am, though I can't say why.

"And why not?" I retort.

"Because that's the land of the dead. You can't imagine how long it took me to find your soul out of all the other shades wandering around out there. And as for Endor's..."

The knowledge hits me in a flash. Otherworld, palace, death... "You're Mor."

The god inclines his head. "That I am."