Protecting Valentine

Chapter Two

He walked out of the door and looked out over the balcony, he hadn't seen this place before or been around it. If it was on the Main Street he surely would've known this place, but this place was very new, and Gabriel shuddered at the thought. Just how far was he from home?

After descending the stairs, to the ground level, he saw lots of cars parked around from other stayers of the motel. He went up to the reception and gave the receptionist his key. "Hey, can you tell me what time I came here last night?"

The receptionist turned to hang the key on the board with rows of hooks with the room number placed on top of each. "Hmm, let me see, room 38, about 1am. Don't remember anything aye?" He chuckled.

Gabriel nervously laughed, "Yeah, it's a bit hazy. Did I come alone?"

"No, the guy whose name it's booked under, asked for the key and dropped you off. I saw him leave just 15 minutes after of getting the key." The man's deep voice went along with the prominent double chin that wobbled with every mouth movement.

"What' the name the room was booked under?"

"On my register it says, Gabriel Valentine."

"But that's my name." He shuddered.

His eyes glistened just for a small moment before he replied. "We'll that's the name he gave me, I don't stop to ask paying customers their background information."

"Okay, thanks." He whispered, still a bit nervous, and turned to leave.

He went out to the footpath, it was bustling with all sorts of people, men, women and children all talked and walked. Cars also roamed around, like ants going back to their colony. Being caught up in the crowd he couldn't tell just where he was. The shade of green the grass was, was a bit too bright than that of the place he lived, the faces he saw were too different and the sun was showing off a bit too much in the crystal blue sky.

He decided to not think to intensely of his new surroundings and stopped a taxi that was traveling by. "92 Hollow Road," he said to the driver as he closed the door. The ride was quiet until he felt the notebook in his pocket. He began thinking about what the words on the page were supposed to mean. Cynder Lake. What did it mean. To Gabriel it sounded like a place, a lake probably.

But he thought it may be some sort of code word, it could even be an anagram, maybe it held a password to a safe filled with treasure! He was getting a bit too excited, until the car stopped in front of his house. The short ride meant that he wasn't too far from his house after all, by why did that guy purposely put me in that motel? It didn't really make much sense but he waved it off, paid the driver and quickly got into his house.

It felt like it was an eternity that he was away from home, but the inside of his house said otherwise. Everything was just as he had left it, dishes were still piled on the sink, papers and magazines lay scattered over the coffee table, upstairs, his bed was still the same mess as it was the night before and it was still decorated the same with his clothes. He sighed and sat down on his bed, he couldn't believe the fatigue he was feeling, especially since he hadn't done anything. Gabriel ended up napping for about an hour before fully feeling refreshed and getting back most of his energy.

Since he hadn't eaten since morning, he was starving, it was like his stomach was beginning to eat itself. That's how hungry he was. While chewing the half burnt toast smeared with peanut butter, he tried to remember what he had seen and what had happened last night, he also wanted some definition and explanation of the words he saw in the notebook.

He remembered the darkness and how empty the road had been, which was quite peculiar as it is pretty rare for that street to be empty to such extent. How he heard that man scream and him hiding behind the dumpster and then him running away from the cloaked person and the next thing he knew he woke up in a motel he had never seen before. Just what was happening to me? He wondered.

Gabriel didn't really feel like thinking about that night, it made his head hurt trying to remember all the small details that happened in between all the large details that he could. It was not really much use going through the night again in his head as he hadn't seen the cloaked person or what may have led to that man's murder, heck he didn't even see the guy being killed, just saw him lying there. Motionless. That thought made the hairs on his back stand up. He surely must've been dead, he thought, he wasn't moving or anything. Gabriel had never seen a dead person before and he never thought he would, just thinking that the man was killed and he happened to be there at his made his skin crawl.

He shivered at the thought of dead people, at least he hadn't seen any blood, that meant he hadn't gone fully insane yet. However if he had seen just a speck coming from the motionless guy, he probably would've signed into the psychiatric ward himself. Go to happy thoughts. Happy thoughts.

He tried to picture flowers, rabbits and other cute animals hopping about, alive. It felt like he entered a dream state, he was literally day dreaming. He saw a little fluffy bunny hopping about in a meadow filled with bright, pretty flowers. It stopped to stand on its hind legs and twitch its nose in the air before continuing with his little adventure. It scoured over the small rocks that served as a obstacle and kept moving. The meadow was empty except for the small, white rabbit making his way through it. All of a sudden, it stopped, again stood on its hind legs and twitched its nose in the air, but this time there seemed to be a worried look on his small, furry face. After the muscles in its face relaxed it kept going, but up until it had moved up to the entrance of the cave did Gabriel see what the rabbit was so tensed about. The cave's mouth was like a hungry lion waiting for its prey to walk into it, and the darkness was what the rabbit would see when it died entering the cave. Gabriel just wanted to command the rabbit to stop, just pick him up and take him out of there, but all he could do was daydream.

The rabbit hesitantly but surely continued its journey into the cave, then it was like Gabriel had magically transported into the body of the rabbit and he could see everything from its point of view, however he had no movement of his body, just his mind. He just padded along the dirt floor of the cave, deeper and deeper into darkness. Until up ahead he could make out some sort of light, out of curiosity, his small temporary body padded twice as quick to the glowing source. When he reached it, he could see that the light was shining on the cave wall, there were some doodles that you'd find in old caves, like animals and humans, there was even a small doodle of a stick figure stabbing this other one with a knife, but the attacking stick figure looked more scary and bigger than the victim. He scanned the picture and right at the bottom were two words that could his attention. It wasn't neat or perfectly written, just looked like a scrawl but two words were defined from it. Cynder Lake. A loud growl behind made him turn around to glowing red eyes that came closer at a rapid rate and it pounced at him with teeth bared, the flash of white was the last thing he saw before he woke up, breathing heavily.

What does it mean? What does it have to do with me? What is Cynder Lake?