Heir of Darkness

Chapter Five

"You need to get home-" he said but before he could continue I interrupted him, "I cant, they'll look there. They'll kill my parents."

"Come to mine." He suggested.

"I cant...there's somewhere else I have to go." I spoke hesitantly.

"Where?"

"The Forbidden Forest."

"Are you crazy? The only people who go in there willingly have a death wish." Parker raged, although he kept his vice quiet not wanting to project out location. I pressed my hands against his chest and rubbed my thumbs against his shirt soothingly like I always did when I tried calming him down.

"The Teller told me I had to, there's something he asked me to do and although it's dangerous a part of me is screaming that it's the right thing to do." I explained. Though the dangers of beasts and creatures haunted my mind when The Teller told me find the prince and kill the Evil Queen there was something deep inside me that was screaming to run into the Forbidden Forest and follow his request.

What he was asking me to do placed an amazing amount of pressure on me and an extraordinary amount of danger in my path and I felt fearful for what could happen to me. But at the back of my mind fluttered a small amount of hope; the thought that I could do this; I could restore light to the Kingdom.

But I was only one person.

"The Teller is a crazy old fool who doesn't know anything!" Parker argued. I pulled my hands back down to my sides.

"He knew about how you felt towards me." I retaliated, my voice soft.

Parker didn't reply.

"I'm going," I said confidently as I turned to leave the rubbish littered path, "I just have to." But before I could leave the solitude of the shadows Parker caught my arm and turned me to him.

He looked torn for a moment before he finally said, his voice ragged with pain, "Why do you have to do this? Why do you have to go in there?"

"I just know that it's what I'm meant to do and if I don't it will haunt me for the rest of my life."

Parker hesitated before sighing, "Well I'm not letting you go alone."

Instead of heading back into the dangerous streets of town where I was being hunted, Parker pulled me further down the small path and deeper into the darkness. The cobblestone floor was replaced by a river of mud and dirt and I felt the ground sludge beneath my foot with every step. Choking down my disgust I held tighter onto Parker's hand as he pulled me through the enveloping darkness.

The only sound echoing in the night was the sound of foot meeting mud; that eerie squelching sound which made my stomach turn.

My breath fanned out in front of me like a puff of smoke, blown away by the soft breeze in the night air. I looked around me. The small path was squashed in between the sides of tall shack houses, silent in the darkness. From one window I heard the laugh of a woman and the light of a candle radiated from the closed shutters of another. I wanted to be those people tucked away in their beds, people at their homes, where they feel safe, where they are safe.

Parker and I emerged from the dirt path, our feet hitting patched grass and wild flowers, as we reached the edge of our tiny village. Parker came to a sudden halt, sending me smacking into his back. He stood as rigid as a statue, his muscles tensing under my hands as I pushed myself from his back.

I looked upon his stony, emotionless face with worry and confusion. After a moment I turned to see where his gaze led.

The trees on the edge of the ForbiddenForest stood tall and intimidating a few meters from where Parker and I stood. Their thick trunks were black in the moonlit night and the wild flowers twisting around them a cluster of deep hues of purple and midnight blues. An eerie grey mist swirled around the bottom of the trunks, sneaking around the stems of the murky green ivy that climbed the crumbling bark. It seeped from the forest, travelling over the tips of the pointed grass to our feet, twisting and twirling around our ankles.