Chapter Fifteen

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Kali was in a cave. She couldn't see anything at first; she never could, but she knew that her eyes would get used to the dark eventually. When they did, she knew what she would see. The rough walls of the cavern, a pitch tunnel that she never dared approach, and the man in chains. The same dream she had been having for as long as she could remember. It had changed with time; at first, she had been too afraid to even move. The first few years she started having this dream it had been a nightmare. The darkness had forced itself inside of her, swallowing her, and she had clung to the wall and screamed. It had not come to her often, but it stayed with her since that first visit.

As she grew older, it became more frequent. After a while, she managed to open her eyes in the dream and look at where she was. But she could not move, and all she saw was an empty abyss. Eventually, she managed to see that there was a structure, the abyss was a place. She felt the wall behind her and realised it was rock, realised that the emptiness was some sort of cavern. That cave tormented her conscious mind as much as it did her dreams, haunting her. Many nights she was afraid to sleep in case she was dragged back there.

It took some time for her to stand and step away from the wall. When she did, she was terrified of losing herself to the emptiness around her. The only reason she found the strength was because of the figure she had seen kneeling in the centre of the cavern. She had never seen him before, so preoccupied with not losing her mind in the hollow loneliness that consumed her when she was there. It was all encompassing. But, when she saw him, she could feel how hopeless he was. She knew that she could not abandon him to that place.

Kali had come a long way from that first tentative step away from the wall. She had approached the man with shackles on his wrists and sat with him in silence for what felt like hours at a time. She dreamt of him at least once every week now and it was almost as though he was calling out to her. There were parts of that place that still terrified her but as long as she sat with him she was not afraid; he would protect her. They never spoke but they understood each other without needing words.

It always felt so real but when she woke up and stepped out of the house into the world, the intensity of it all ebbed away. He still haunted her thoughts, but she knew he was just some figment of her imagination. She had seen a therapist, more than one, because of her 'issues' at her last schools and had mentioned the dreams once. The woman had told her that they were manifestations of her anxiety and her feelings of isolation, probably because of the loss of her father. Kali had tried to believe her, but the dreams were persistent, and they always felt so real.

Kali did not move; waiting for her sight to adjust; she still feared the consuming darkness. She had seen what lurked in the shadows, waiting for prey, once before and she did not want to encounter that particular beast. Not even in her dreams. This was the first night since before she had left for Camelot, before she had found out that the real world was a lie, that the man in shackles had called to her. So much had happened, things were so different, but he seemed so constant.

As soon as she could see the faint outline of him kneeling on the hard ground, where he always was, she moved to his side. She felt beings in the shadows around her but paid them no heed. She did not realise how uneasy she had been until she had arrived in that dark place. When she saw him, a weight lifted from her shoulders and she let go of a fear she had not known she was bearing.

It was that night that he spoke to her for the first time. His voice was barely a whisper and hoarse from so long without use, but it was oddly soothing when he murmured her name quietly. At the sound, she just looked at him blankly and a pained smile touched his lips. She could barely see, even accustomed as she was to the dark of that cave, but his silvery green eyes were bright as he looked upon her. He said her name again and she felt a tear spring unbidden to her eye, but she could not move.

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