Pity and guilt swirl in my belly but I ignore it. I look at all the girls and they were all afraid of me but hid it behind a face of loyalty. They were worthy of so much more.
I look back at Kera and she looks at me with pleading eyes as if she knew I was the faceless one.
She wraps her arms around her, “They keep doing that whenever I ask them. I can’t take it.” She moans, “They’re all brainwashed I know but it hurts to know their being treated this way like cattle to the slaughter.”
I left as soon as she fell asleep cuddled under warm thick blankets. I rushed to my father’s room that night and cried beside him.
Begging that I could not take another face again. So lost in a cloud of tears, that I had not noticed that my father was as blue as his royal robes.
My king was dead.
I ran away, the monster couldn’t be found with the King.
That night was when I truly began to hate myself; creating the excuse that due to my father’s death I had to continue taking faces. I told myself that my father would want me to have a face to rule Eydollon.
I sigh, staring at the spot where the girl had fallen, dead without a face.
I had never known what to do with Kera after that night, knowing she was an unwilling sacrifice.
I had other servants doing what was needed so I had made her my personal servant for I do have a heart although a selfish one.
Perhaps I liked her. A conscious I wished I would listen to.
Using my magic to renew my face took its toll but I use my abilities at times to listen to her thoughts and feelings.
I knew she yearned to go back to her quarters. She seemed to believe she was sent on a mission to save the girls. At first I thought she was a spy.
Until I had seen images in her mind of strange places I have not seen in Eydollon.
I had seen a jungle with tribal men and women living barely clothed, but there was also of a place in her mind that had objects made of metal that played images on its surface and doors that opened into lighted storage filled with food covered in colourful paper and words. I could not ask her about it for she had never spoken about it.
However she had called out a name, Misty, one night, but Misty never came.
Breaking out of my thought I beckon for Kera’s attention.
“Kera, do you read?” I ask.
She nods as her face reddens. “Look at me Kera,” I demand.
She raises her head and I see fire in her eyes and look down at her balled hands.
“You are mad, why?”
“How can you ask that when you just killed someone moments ago!” She stomps.
I wince but hide it. I turn to my bookstand beside my table, which was littered with letters from the different lords of my kingdom. I would have to get started on replying those soon enough.
I pass her a book, it’s a story illustrated by the enchantress, my stepmother. It was a book about the Shinkami.
In the far corners, it looks like the shadows were swirling up like tendrils of smoke. I’m not sure if I’m imagining it.
I could feel goosebumps on my arms.
I brush off the tingling feeling that something is about to happen.
Wallace, a close friend, sits beside me starts rubbing his arms.
’It’s getting cold real fast.’
The cinema screen begins to glitch. Dark silhouettes flash on the screen. They grow larger with each flash. In between the flashes, there are images of a city street.
With one last burst, the cinema falls into darkness.
’Wallace?’
I reach for his arm, but he’s gone. Just an empty seat beside me. The blood in my ears roars along with a buzzing sound. My throat feels itchy, but I can’t swallow.
I head for the exit, but I begin to rise off the floor. I grab for the seat, but my fingers slip off. I can feel my scream clawing to get out, burning my throat but my lips are shut tight.
I’m floating in the dark screaming inside my head. Then I hear someone shouting my name. The voice is getting louder trying to get to me. It sounds angry and hungry.
I curl up into a ball; whatever that was in the dark knows who I am.
Then all at once, it was quiet. A barren space of sound and entity. I move slightly to wrap my arms tighter, but my arms go through me.
I can feel something heading my way at a great speed. It was not a sound but a feeling of a heavy rumbling massive force reeling towards me.
Slowly I feel myself fading and disintegrating into the abyss. I could no longer feel, and I could not recall who I am.
In a sudden lurch, I was back.
‘Cassie? Are you ok?’
The sounds in the cinema crash down on me. I wince in pain and cover my ears. A piercing sound erupts in my head. I hold the armrest of my seat tightly fighting the pain. I fight the rise of bile in my throat.
‘I need to go home.’
’i’ll bring you.’
’What happened?’
You got so pale all of a sudden and passed out.’
’Oh. Did you?’ I look at him, but he did not look as haggard as I felt.
’Did I faint like a damsel in distress? No, I’m the one to save you.’
’In your dreams Wallace.’
Wallace calls a taxi and accompanies me home. ‘You sure you don’t want to see a doctor?’ he asks.
I drunkenly shake my head. “No, I’m fine. I think I need to sleep it off. Thanks, Wallace.’
He bows deeply, ‘For Lady Cassie, anything. Farewell, and be well!’ he says in a horrid fake British accent.
I can’t help but smile and wave goodbye like royalty.
I live on top of a shopping centre. An apartment I share with a few others.
I unlock my main door, and it was quiet. Thankfully. I had nothing against the other tenants but I prefer the silence.
My ears were still throbbing haunted by the piercing sound like my eardrums were being sliced to pieces.
The hallway smells like fried chicken and mould. It makes my stomach gurgle, still urging me to release the bile and acid.
I enter my square-like room and turn on my lights but it doesn’t work. I couldn’t see at all.
Not again please.
With the dim light, I pass the back of my closet. The post-its I stuck at the back of it brush my left arm.
In front of me, the bathroom door was open, lights were flickering from the inside. I take a peek inside slowly. All the candles inside are lit. I turn to the rest of my room and find the other candles are lit too. What was happening?
Everything else looks normal in the room. The bed against the back wall in the centre was messy. The blankets were scrunched up, half of it falling off the edge.
At the right side of the bed was my mini bookshelf under the window. The shelves looked ready to cave in.
The curtains rustle and I could smell a hint of seaweed in the air. Which was weird considering the sea was miles away.
I drop my bag on the floor by the bookshelf and open the curtains.
It doesn’t make sense.
I close my eyes and open them again to be sure. I see it still.
The next door condominium with its noisy pool was not there.
I’m somewhere else.
I’m looking at a beautiful seashore. The moon was in the distance but more massive than I have ever seen. It was so large it made it look like day.
I slide the window wide open, and a blast of salty air hits me.
Like it was an entity of its own, it gushes into my room tossing around the mess that was already my room — swirling all around blowing out some of my candles.
Sticking my head out, I look down expecting to see the dark alley that’s supposed to be there, but there was nothing but waves of sand ready to fall in through the window.
I quickly rush to my door. I slam it open expecting the smell of fried chicken, but there was only more sand slipping into my room and around my feet.
I like this better.
’Whatever this is, whoever is doing this mental shit on me. I prefer it, no more shadows and dark, scary emptiness please.’
I get no reply.
It’s different this time, whatever this strange teleportation was. A dream, an illusion. My dizziness was gone, and there was no sign of the dark slithery shadows.
I walk out into the desert. The sand stretches out further into the distance.
There was a white glow in the sky a mile away. It looks like a city.
The sky was deep and endless. From the day-like glow of the moon setting in the ocean, a merge of colours meets halfway to a million specks of stars that seem to be dancing in place. I catch a few shooting stars some blazing across in blues and reds.
I pinch my self, and it hurts.
A wind blows in from the ocean rustling my clothes; I look down and realise I’m suddenly wearing a thick long white dress with ribbons sewn across my chest down the sleeves of my arms to leave short tendrils hanging at the ends.
I can’t help but laugh at all this madness. Adrenaline flowed through my body and with the high I twirled.
No one was watching. I was alone in a beautiful Neverland. What was I to do? Cry my eyes out or live it up?
Barefoot I go to the water’s edge. There were plenty of beautiful shells and a vast array of colourful stones. It was like a giant chest of jewels were dumped onto the shore, and the waves have been dragging it into the ocean.
I enter the warm, clear water; I can see my toes. There was something under my foot that fades in and out with the light.
It looks like moonlight made substantial.
I pick it up; it was clear as glass with a cloudy core, and at different angles, it glows in different colours.
At one moment it was an emerald stone, in another it was a ruby, and it changes continuously. It was mesmerising.
I feel my senses calm down as the gentle waves rock me gently. My fatigue starts slipping back, adrenaline leaving my system.
I head back up to dry land and find a large ruby red blanket spread out on the dry sand with temptingly soft pillows.
I chuckle to myself, I’d be worried, but it’s not like I can just fly back home.
I step into it and curl up into a ball. I stop fighting my weariness and keeping my eyes open.
In the last flickers of my lashes, I catch a man’s silhouette walking towards me. Instead of fear, I feel a calmness overtake me. Happiness like meeting someone I haven’t seen for so long.
I wake up to a car’s backfire. The noise of the horns and racing motorcycles outside my window easing me back into reality. I open my eyes to see the galaxy stickers on my ceiling.
It was all a dream after all. I sit up and look around; sadly, everything looks the same. An ordinary girl in a regular room in an ordinary world. I slip off the bed to stretch, and the moonstone falls and thuds on the floor. It was then I notice there is sand all over my carpet.
‘Oh donkeys.’
End of Betwixt Chapter I (Find out what happens next week to ordinary Cassie. Every Thursday, Betwixt!)
