Samuel Herring: The Curse of Midnight

Samuel Herring: Chapter 2

Chapter 2-Felvarst’s Castle

The strange flash of light faded away. All senses were flooding back into my head like droplets of water.

            I looked up, amazed after the crazy teleportation.

            Dozens of airborne sprites with glowing bows and arrows were hovering around the castle, one of them coming straight at me. He hadn’t seen me yet, but he had started to come around the side, accompanied by what looked like a flaming creature made of heavy boulders. I shuddered, running around the side of the castle, but I almost bumped into a second group of magical creatures. One was a strangely muscular sprite. The other looked like a small serpent. I felt disbelief raging inside me. Yet these, surely, were real.

            They heard my footsteps on the dry grass below. Either that or they had heard my heart, and I wouldn’t have been surprised. I could feel it thumping furiously in my chest. I had been feeling slightly sleepy, seeing as in “Earth time” it was around midnight, but now I jolted to full alertness.

            “Who’s there?” hissed the snake.

            The other group heard the exclamation and ran faster forward. Meanwhile, the group in the front started doubling back, raising their lanterns.

            I was trapped. Desperately, I punched the force-field-surrounded wall. I felt a strange sickness in my gut, and to my utter amazement, I fell straight through. I could see the guards looking confused outside. They apparently hadn’t seen me. I had to move quickly. I tried to move further away as they left several seconds later, thinking that they had imagined it, but two strong hands clamped suddenly onto my shoulders.

            “Hey!”

            I turned. It was another rock golem (luckily it wasn’t flaming, but that didn’t seem to matter anymore). “Who you?!”

            I didn’t answer, I was too scared. My lips were trembling. This couldn’t be happening.

            The golem swung a massive fist. He hadn’t brought it out far, but he was still made of rock. Pain thundered through my head. The world was spinning.

            Then I collapsed on the spot, straight in enemy territory near a violent being made of hundreds of rocks. Then I was snoring.

It was damp. Very cold too. I was positioned on some sort of dirty, stone surface.

            I opened my eyes, and was only half surprised to find myself in a dark cell. I was better off here, I thought. If I had to deal with the giant golem, I’d have probably been stepped on by a gargantuan foot before the talk began.

            A droplet of some greenish liquid fell from the ceiling like a polluted raindrop and splashed against my arm. This instantly brought me to my attention. Admittedly, many worse things I’d had to touch in my experience with the orphanage. But the liquid hurt, stinging against my skin. I jerked it away, but the pain got worse. Within seconds, my skin was red raw. Finally I rubbed it off against my shirt. It sizzled before disappearing.

            Splash!

            There was a puddle of acid next to me. I took in my other surroundings. Three sides of the area were solid stone, the other a barred door barely discernable from the other metal rods. Aged wood bordered the edge of the ground, covering any holes. A heavy, silver lock hung from the bars. I had been imprisoned, obviously. The Council wanted me to “reap” somebody’s soul. I didn’t trust them, but I still had to escape. Or some other rock-man would come and finish me off.