Cross

Book 3 Chapter X - Seeing Red

Chapter 28 - Seeing Red

As Dani fell, she realised what the silhouettes were. They were chains, chains that were fastened to the walls somehow and served no purpose that she could see besides forming a vaguely spider's-web shape. And one of the chains was in exactly the right place for her to land on it!

Her eyes widened. She knew that if she hit anything right now, she'd definitely be badly hurt and probably killed. It was very difficult to move out of the way of anything when you were falling to your death, but somehow she managed it and moved far enough away from the chain to landing on it and possibly being cut in two.

Time seemed to slow down as she realised that even if she missed this chain, there were dozens more and she couldn't avoid them all. Even if she did, she'd be killed anyway when she hit the ground. And then she got an idea. There was no time to think it through, so she acted.

She grabbed the chain as she fell past it and was brought to an agonizing halt that almost jerked her arms out of their sockets and caused her so much pain that she bit her tongue till it bled, trying to keep herself from screaming. Then she was hanging onto the chain, with nothing else keeping her from falling and no clue what to do now.

At last, Dani reached a decision. She began to try to move along the chain as if it was a set of monkey bars in a play-park. There was, however, a world of a difference between a play-park, with the soft ground only a few inches beneath her, and this, with the ground thousands of feet beneath her, and she moved only a few centimetres before fear overwhelmed her and it was all she could do to just keep hanging on.

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Where was David when all this was happening? He hadn't fallen through the floor with Dani, and for a moment thought someone had grabbed her. Then he noticed the faint light shining through the floor and realised what happened.

He took his raven form and flew down through the hole in the floor. Not far down, he saw Dani lying on the ledge, though she didn't see him, and hesitated. As long as she stayed where she was she'd be fine. There was something strange about this place, something that would bear looking into, and if he brought her with him he'd just be putting her in unnecessary danger.

He ignored the voice at the back of his mind that was saying in no uncertain terms, "For god's sake, help her!" and continued flying downward.

The chains puzzled him; what use were they? This place was obviously used for something, but what on Earth could chains suspended from the ceiling be used for? That question was answered when he saw the "boxes" hanging from the chains. They were filled with some strange opaque green liquid which seemed to glow faintly. There were dozens of these.

If those are what I think they are... David didn't finish that thought. It was too awful to contemplate.

He reached the floor and turned back into his vampire form. He was in a large cavern lined as far as the eye could see with things that looked disturbingly like coffins. A glowing moss grew on the walls, providing the eerie green light that filled the place. He recognised that at once; it was a sort of moss that grew only on Maelaodh, a planet that was ruled by the Vampiruan crown and which, if he remembered correctly, was where Nightmare De Mon was born.

A distant scream pierced the air suddenly, making him jump.

That's Dani!

David looked up, but even though his eyesight was much better than a human's he was unable to see much. He didn't like what he could see, however. It looked as if Dani was hanging onto one of the chains!

He did some very quick thinking and jumped on top of one of the boxes. From this, he jumped to another one, higher up, and nearly fell off it when it started swaying back and forth. He regained his balance and jumped to another one, even higher up, and continued this until he was on a box attached to the chain Dani was hanging from.