Dark Faïz ( Book 1 ) [ COMPLETED]

Chapters 5-6

Arriving at the Mattews' villa, I was relieved that the evening was already well advanced. Considering the quietness in the house, I deduce that Charles and Lily were already asleep. The marble floor in the entrance hall refreshed my feet, which immediately relieved me. I went upstairs with Victoria, stopping in front of her bedroom door. She hugged me affectionately. This almost made me cry, but I managed to control myself without knowing how.

— "Good night, Zoe. Tomorrow is another day," she tried to comfort me, as I did for her when she needed it.

— "Good night, Vic." My voice shook in spite of myself. You're right.

I forced myself to smile at her and went to my room. Once inside, I gently closed the door. This room suddenly seemed much too big for me. I didn't turn on the light. The darkness was my only comfort. That was when I allowed my tears to run down my cheeks. Standing in front of the bay window, I observed the vast ocean, calm and peaceful. My head rested against the window and I closed my eyes. I missed Paris. At that moment I felt the need to be with my father and grandmother. My sorrow made me regret leaving, traveling so far away. God, I wished I'd never met him.

Unfortunately, after all I had discovered recently, it was now impossible for me to leave. My grandmother's words came back to me: "Love, Zoe, with all your heart. Love until it hurts you. Then you can say you were alive." That was an understatement! Love hurt, and there was no cure for it.

I turned off my phone, that had been vibrating every two seconds since I'd left the party. I suspected that the girls were worried about my condition, but I didn't have the courage to answer them now. It would wait until tomorrow. I prepared to go to bed. My heavy eyelids closed without difficulty, and I fell into a deep sleep. I sank into the abyss of nothingness.

**

Where was I? Everything was black around me, and a feeling of cold enveloped me. The echo of my footsteps broke the religious silence. Gradually, my eyes got used to the darkness. A halo of light in the distance seemed to show me the way forward.

— "Is there anyone there?" I called, terrified.

My voice echoed in this place, which was unknown to me. When the silence returned, I suddenly heard barely audible whispers all around me. My first reflex was to turn around to determine their origin, but I saw no one. My heart was pounding, so I concentrated on what those low voices were saying, but I didn't recognize the language.

— "What do you want from me?" I screamed, losing my temper.

My breathing was suffocating. The lack of oxygen made my head spin. A heavy noise of footsteps, chains, and metal came to my ears. Someone was walking towards me, but I couldn't see anything. A deep and rocky breath became stronger and stronger, an infallible sign that what was standing in the shadows was getting closer to me. I tried to pierce the darkness as far away as possible in order to see something, but I couldn't. Then silence set in again. Only the sound of that breath indicated to me that the thing was right next to me, more precisely behind me. A scream of fear came out of my mouth, I immediately turned around without seeing anything. My only certainty was that I was not alone. Someone or something was right there, right next to me, lurking in the shadows.

— "How do you like the darkness, Zoe?" whispered a voice, a few centimeters from me.

My blood froze. The timbre of this one was imbued with absolute evil, inhuman, impossible to describe.

— "Who are you?" I mumbled with a jerky breath.

A demonic sneer pierced the heavy silence. I was paralyzed by fear. The devil himself would have disappeared without asking for his rest when he heard this.

— "I am the one whose name no one dares to say. I come from dark places to teach fear. I am said to have been begotten by darkness, and today I come to introduce myself to you. If you only knew how long I've been looking for you. I was so eager to get to know the Emerald. You know, I was also once a man made of flesh and blood, a long time ago, I grant you that. It was a different time. Know that when you are born without a soul, your thirst for cruelty is insatiable."

— "What do you want from me?"

My head buzzed. I felt so sore all of a sudden.

— "I have already told you, I have come to introduce myself, to see the creation of the Lord Creator. Feel the purest spirits in you. You cannot imagine the curiosity you arouse in the afterlife, you immutable thing that nothing corrupts. You are the talisman that can send me back to where I came from and close the doors of evil forever."

His tone increased gradually as he spoke to me. He continued,

— "I will make you burn with a fire more powerful than the fire of Hell. This Earth will soon be my home, my palace. Demons and fallen angels will replace humanity. This world is populated by your species, which I consider weak and futile."

Beast growls accompanied his words.

— "You are The Maestro," I realized when I heard the barking of an animal beside him, hidden in the darkness.

My body weakened. I let myself fall to my knees.

— "The common man calls me that. I am in every respect a remarkable conductor, I do not deny that."

— "The world is still spinning, and it will continue to do so. You didn't succeed the first time, and this time won't be any different. The lost souls will pierce the fog in which they have been astray. I believe in human beings and in the good. If it is I who must burn you in your own fire, then I will do this task without backing down. I will give my life to save humanity, or what is left of it."

The beast that accompanied him started barking and raging in the dark. The steps of this demon resounded again. His silhouette gradually took shape in the vague clarity that surrounded me. He came closer until I could see him completely. Still on my knees, my head on the verge of implosion, I literally fell to the ground when he and his dark dog finally appeared to me.