The Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

I dug my fist into the fox’s soft, thick fur and let her lead me, completely trusting her. She held her head up as if she feared nothing and I followed her example.

With one last glimpse towards me, she stepped out of the lift and sniffed the air. In the meantime I had a chance to look around.

We were standing in a huge cave-like room, with different entrances and a huge ceiling. At the top, light shined through, but after that it grew dark for a while until the bottom of the room where illuminated the floor and wall. Sarah nodded to a hole on the other side of the room and began to trot towards it.

Her paws made no sound on the stone floor, which made my steps sound even louder.

“We’re alone.” I Sarah’s voice suddenly, it was loud and clear in my head. I gave her a quizzical look, but she didn’t look up.

“Where are they? At least someone should normally be here. I can smell them, but I can’t track down the direction it’s coming from. “

Again Sarah’s voice. Now with a slight undercurrent of anxiety. Then I understood. Wasn’t her talking to me, these were her thoughts.

“Sarah?” I stopped and let go of her, but she was so engulfed in searching for the source of the smell that she didn’t notice.

A shiver ran down my spine all of a sudden and again I said. “Sarah?” Now slightly louder.

She stopped in mid-step, turned her ears in my direction and then let her eyes follow. She gave me a curious look, as if she didn’t understand why I had stopped her, when she felt her it herself.

“We’re being watched.” I thought, trying to direct it towards her. When her eyes widened I knew she understood me. Her whiskers quivered and her ears straightened.

An icy feeling started to take over me, as if I was freezing from the inside.

“Person. Not animal, no worries.” Sarah thought, this time it was purposefully directed at me. I nodded then let my gaze wonder, trying to see if I could find a human anywhere in the room.

Without turning around I felt someone step out of the darkness. Sarah sniffed the air and picked up the scent, but the smell didn’t seem to be familiar to her. I could feel her confusion as if it were mine.

“Hello Rae, Sarah, welcome to the realm. How can I help you?” A deep familiar voice said, I could hear the smile before I could see it.

“Nicholas?” I turned around to see him standing only a few metres away. Sarah padded up to me and gave him a hardly visible nod. He smiled at her coolly.

“That’s me!” He answered, averting his eyes to my face.

“I’ve come to get you.” He explained, now scratching his head, reminding me of his old, lanky self. Sarah pushed her head under my hand as if to say: “It’s ok, c’mon.” I let my palm rest on the space between her ears and nodded.

“Ok then, where do you want us to go?” I asked. Nicholas seemed irritated.

“Not the fox. Just you.” He said, giving Sarah a hard look. I looked down at Sarah, who was looking down at the floor. I could feel that she was used to this.

“Anyway. She needs to leave, her part is done.” He snarled and turned around, starting to walk in the direction of an entrance.

“But…but I need you, Sarah. I can’t do face all this on my own.” I whispered, feeling tears starting to burn in my eyes. She looked up at me, with her warm, loving gaze and licked my fingers.

“You’ll be fine. There’s no need to worry. We’ll see each other soon, I promise.” Again she licked my fingers and then she started to go, she simply left and made her way back to the lift.

“No! No, Sarah, please don’t leave me! I can’t go through this on my own!” I shouted after her, starting to sob and falling to my knees.

“This is just too much!” I curled up, pulling my knees to myself, feeling the little stones and dust on my cheek.

“Rae? Hey Rae, c’mon! Get up it’s ok.” Nicholas said, but when he tried to touch me I let out a weird sound and he took a step back.