chased by darkness, following the light || ateez

7 || The spell's useless now

Alex POV

It was really late.

Later than what I'd wanted it to be by the time we finally reached the village. Everything was closed, everyone was asleep. In a stroke of good luck, a woman was still awake and offered us a place to sleep for the night, and all we would have to do in exchange for her is some chores in the morning.

I slept like a baby that night, feeling well-rested in the morning. Apparently so did Yuna and Felix, because we finished our chores quickly. The woman offered us something to eat before leaving, which we all gladly took the free food.

When it came time to purchase the two horses, there were none left. Even if there were, we didn't have enough money. The travelling merchant took pity on us, offering us a ride to help shorten our trip. He wasn't going to Angelbrook, but his journey would have placed us no more than a day and a half away from Angelbrook. We still had to pay him, but it was significantly cheaper than buying a horse.

Once he was ready to leave, we all got in the back of his wagon. Surprisingly there was a lot of room in the back, I asked him why and he said because he was going to pick some supplies up.

The rest of the day we all slept. Even though we got a good night's rest the night before, everyone was still mentally exhausted from everything. I found myself drifting away facing the sky. The green leaves from the trees passed by in the corner of my eyes, some birds flew by, the clouds shaped like anim...

—Darkness.

I thought that I had fallen asleep and that I was dreaming. But I saw nothing but pitch black for miles in each direction. And then I heard its voice again, chuckling. But it wasn't coming from my head, or from a specific spot like in the cave. It was coming from everywhere.

"Hello again, Alex," it snickered at me.

"You again," I shot back at the voice, "What do you want? Why can't you just leave me alone!" I fired out as many questions as I could before it could speak back, I wanted answers and I was going to get them, somehow.

"I think you already know the answers."

Is it reading my thoughts? My initial reaction would have been to think of something so stupid to get a reaction out of it, but I should stay serious.

Examining my surroundings, I looked for something that wasn't part of the void. Closing my eyes, I calmed myself and listened for something. And then I heard it: the muffled high-pitched squeak of a bat. It was faint, but something was there.

Doing a 360° one last time to see if I could see anything, I definitely was inside some enclosed area of rock. But it was daytime right now, so I should be seeing light creeping through a cave entrance.

However, there was nothing. Looking down at my feet, I lightly stamped the ground to confirm my suspicions.

Realizing that I hadn't spoken back to the voice, and it hadn't spoken to me yet, so maybe it couldn't read my mind. "So, are you going to do anything? Or can I wake up now?"

"Are you sure you want to reject my offer of power?"

I decided to play along with it for a while, maybe I'll get some answers if it's not willing to directly tell me anything. "What's the catch?"

"You'll be forever loyal to me, no one else."

"So I'll become your servant? Your errand boy?" That's a pretty lousy deal, being bound forever to some magical spirit to do its dirty work. It hissed at my statement and muttered something in a language I couldn't understand before calming down.