This Isn't Me

Chapter 12

Chapter 12:

I opened my eyes, my vision no longer blurred, everything normal looking, everyone asleep, despite the fact we were underground still. I groaned, sitting up straight, placing a hand on my forehead as I looked around. I took in a sharp breath, remembering the lava pool and my previous dream. Tears filled my eyes as I crawled to it, staring into the glowing, burning brightness of the liquid fire.

“Fuck…” I silently sobbed, tears evaporating instantly as they hit the molten surface. “What did he do to you? What did he do?” I questioned.

“Help me…” My instinct got the better of me as I swear I saw a hand, although I think my mind was playing tricks on me, because all that happened when I grabbed it was me receiving a hot as hell searing pain that ate at my skin like a rabid pack of wolves. It was too much pain to scream, so I just pulled my hand back and sat in a corner, even more tears falling from my face. My skin, however, decided it would instantly begin regenerating itself. What the hell. Sure. I can totally do that now too. I found the strength to stand, stumbling towards the lava pool, grabbing a hold of one of the floating boxes, slowly making my way to the staircase in front of all of them.

Crawling up the stairs, I got on top of the boxes, balancing nearly perfectly on my hands and knees knowing there was lava below. Sitting on one, I just let my legs dangle, staring into the vast, deep, glowing like dying embers lava… Is it getting hotter in here or have I just passed out again? Damn it. I felt something slithering around me, like a snake, like hands, the whispering voices echoing in my ears, sounding closer. I couldn’t make out any words, but somehow the voices made no sense and perfect sense at the same time. My body felt cold, searing. Something even colder still basically running circles around my body, as if taking in how I look, how tall I am, what age I’d be, what gender I am, all of that stuff. I felt weak, I felt tired, my throat felt hoarse, scratched, burned from the inside out. I felt many sharp points run along my now sensitively numb body, then, as if a person, things that felt somewhat like hands cup my cheeks. They weren’t quite hands, but I didn’t know what else they’d be.

“Deadlox…” The voices whispered, sounding everywhere at once. My wrist was grabbed, my wings and claws and tails and teeth all forming, scales beginning to form on my skin, starting from my hands, the skin there feeling warm, normal, as if protected, reaching my wrists and nowhere more. Slowly, I found the strength to open my eyes, just the slightest bit, and I completely wish I’d just kept them closed because the fucking blurred black mass in front of me, staring at me with what looked like tentacles running all over my body didn’t help me at all.

Waking up to my name being yelled, I fell backwards, pressing myself against the wall, Adam rushing to my side, sitting with me as I stared intently at the lava pool.

“Ty? Ty, can you hear me, are you alright?” Adam whispered; his voice cracking as he sounded very frantic. I lifted a finger and pointed at the lava pool.

“I think there’s something in there, I’m having nightmares every time I fall asleep.” I managed to say above a whisper. Adam shifted his vision to the lava, standing and approaching it. I didn’t move.

“There’s a magical barrier here… I think I can remove it, I’ve removed magical barriers before; the only question though, why is it here? In a ruin deep underground? What the hell is this place anyway?” Adam continued pointlessly, pulling off his amulet as his skin seemed to get paler instantly without it. He stood at the top of the stairs, then tossed the amulet in the middle of the circle of boxes, the amulet floating there. It eventually began shaking, distracting the magical barrier in a fashion that even I could see a weak point. Adam then took his sword and stabbed the weak point, causing the amulet to glow as it absorbed the magic. Adam caught the amulet before it fell into the now beginning to rapidly bubble lava below.