Faery Island

Illusion or Not?

Chapter XII - Illusions Or Not?

Anthony

It wasn’t him, the fourteen year old boy who stood at the ocean’s edge watching Leenah in the darkness. The moon hadn’t reached where he stood, the stillness of him was creepy. Young Leenah hadn’t noticed him yet. She was shuffling through the sand, sobbing echoed down the beach, carried off by the wind.

Anthony ran for her, but though he should have been making progress he was always the same distance away. To far away.

He had to watch the clone of him start to approach. "Leenah," it said in the same cracky voice he use to have.

Her head popped up and she stepped back and rubbed her eyes, trying to hide the tears. "Anthony?" She said, her voice quiet and raspy from crying.

He held out his hands to her and she shook her head. "I thought you didn’t want me to come? You don’t need to do this. Please let me help you defeat Zelroth."

She was pleading, begging, She even threw the seal’s skin off to the side. "Please."

She threw herself apon the boy in to a hug, muttering but Anthony couldn’t understand it. There was something in the boy’s eyes that was unsettling, though from the distance Anthony couldn’t see what it was. Then it clicked.

"No!" He screamed but it does nothing. He watched as slithers of the darkness slithered over to Leenah, wrapping around her feet.

"I can’t let you do that." The Zelroth says and begans to morf in to his true form. He smiled down at Leenah, now trapped and tangled in the inky arms.

She screamed louder than Anthony remembered it. It sent him on to the ground. He wanted to get away from the scene. Close his eyes, run away, he couldn’t help her.

Zelroth’s mouth became larger, sharp jagged teeth grew through his gums. In one quick swipe, he bent down and tore in to her neck. Blood oozed down her back as she shook and then fell limp in his arms.

He tossed her to the side, her eyes dead to the world.

"Leenah!" A voice called from the woods, out ran Gyrin and the real, young Anthony.

They are three screamed together. He didn’t want to have seen it again, finding her, remembering her corpse was enough. But watching her die. . . It was to much.

He laid on the beach curled up, shivering, closing his eyes and mind to the world. That’s when it felt as if he was in water again, being carried down river and searching for air that wasn’t there.

He was on a ship. His face pressed against the wet wood and the waves sloshed around the boat. Sounds of the garbled conversations and curses could be heard, along with the pounding of feet. Anthony got up, looking around to find that he was on the Captain’s ship in the middle of the ocean.

"Yes sir," Anthony could hear the boy over all the other voices. He turned towards the front to see his back and Gyrin standing beside him, looking wildly around, frightened and like he had lost something.

The Captain, younger than he was when Anthony saw him last stood in front of the younger Anthony, looking down at him with kind eyes and smile. Leenah appeared from behind him. She wore baggy, torn up clothes that must have belonged to a man. There was a knife at her side and unlike Gyrin she looked comfortable on the ship.

"I can’t leave my crew, but I can send one to assists you on you’re trip. This is Leenah, a silkie." As the Captain said it he stretched his hand out, giving Anthony the seal’s skin. "She’s one of my best scouts, quick, smart, she’s a great fighter too. Give care of her, and Gyrin."

Boy Anthony was lost for words, he just nodded his head and starred at Leenah. Gyrin pulled on his shirt. ‘Can we get out of here?"

Like he was being sucked down, Anthony was pulled back on to a beach. For a moment he rolled, thrashed and fought with the sand as he was hurtled to oceans edge. "You did this. You’re the reason I died. If you hadn’t had pushed me away."

Leenah’s voice was a whisper in the wind, but he knew it didn’t come from her. He could smell the iron, and hear the waves hitting the ship. He knew what was coming.

"You were suppose to protect her!" The Captain shouted. Anthony shivered from the cold that lingered in the air, the wet sand was freezing in to ice.

"I- I thought-" Anthony’s voice wavered. He was sitting on the beach, the seal skin in his lap and the stone that held Zelroth trapped inside. He couldn’t see clearly, Anthony remembered that he couldn’t see the Captain’s face then.

But now he could. He was pale, his fist balled up tight, his lips pressed in to a thin line and the bright blue eyes were like fire. The Captain though, he was cold, not fiery. An Edur that could summon a snow storm on scales that no one would believe possible. There was something weird about his anger. Dark, smoky gray threads round around his feet, blue sparks like his eyes highlighted the gray.

It was darkness, a different kind of darkness that surrounded Zelroth and others. His crew hung back on the ship, not paying attention to them but the girl that hung by the Captain’s side. The Spring Sprite Ruza stood behind him. Pity and worry was the main emotion in her violet eyes and it wasn’t for Anthony, it was for the Captain.

"You need to leave. Hide the stone and never come back. You know what She told you. If fate doesn’t catch up to you if you return, I will."

That was his death threat. The Captain starred over him for a moment and breathed out. The darkness disappeared and the anger faded. He understood death and what Anthony was feeling, he was playing a role he wasn’t so comfortable with.

He was in a skin that he wasn’t used too yet and didn’t know how to control the darkness around him. Little it was, he might have not even been aware of it.

"You’re going to get yourself and the rest of them killed." The Captain’s voice, distant whispered in his head.

He was swept away again, this time he landed where he could smell sweetness of a unknown source, the sun beat down on him, and laughter filled his ears.

It was Dian’s laughter and Rick’s joined in with her. They ran across the beach in front of their house, Gyrin was with them too. Though, he was dressed in shorts and a shirt to big for him, he looked like a normal boy, not a faery.

"Gyrin come on!" Dian called while pushing Rick down, who just stumbled to the side and laughed again. They ran together up to the house.

But they didn’t reach the door, shadows collected over it and Zelroth appeared. He cocked his head to the side and looked them dead in the eye.

It didn’t take long till the screaming began. It was so quick Anthony didn’t have much time to process what was happening. One minute they were there and the next Zelroth was standing alone in the blood soaked sand.

Like lightning, something popped in his ears and his head. Like a massive bomb going on inside of him, his vision brightened to the point he couldn’t make anything out but white light and he couldn’t breathe.

He crawled out in to the nothingness for something to hold on too as it felt like the place was spinning out from beneath him. He needed air, he needed help.

He was going to die.