The Land of the Lithe (boyxboy and girlxboy)

Chapter 8- Fire Destroys Paper

A/N: I should have been studying but I couldn't stop writing this chapter, it was just too addictive. 

It's about to get intense!

Electra’s POV

           I waited until I was positive Kye had gone to bed before I snuck back into the infirmary. I had it all planned out. I had to sneak past the elves still in the infirmary beds, go into Kye’s office and steal the key from her desk, and then quietly unlock the padlock on Olian’s door. Piece of cake.

            I could hear the light breathing of the elves in the beds as I padded along the cool stone floor, carefully making my way to Kye’s office. Thankfully, the door was unlocked and I walked to her desk and took the gold key from the top drawer.

            When I turned to leave I tripped on a metal waste basket. The metal clanged noisily on the ground and the sound reverberated around the room. Crap, crap, crap. I peeked around the edge of the doorway. The elf closest to the office was stirring in her bed.

            My heart thudded painfully fast against my ribcage as I crept out of the office. I leaned against the adjacent wall, taking a deep breath to calm myself.

            The little golden key felt as if it gotten heavier in my clammy hands. Adrenaline infused my veins as I crept along the wall to Olian’s door. I grasped the golden padlock in my left hand and lifted the key, fitting it into the lock and turning. I heard the satisfying click indicating I had the right key as the padlock gave way. I had this eerie excited feeling deep in the pit of my stomach as I slowly swung the door open and walked inside.

            The room was lit only by the pink moon shining through the window. The iron bars fixed to the window frame created long dark shadows that stretched languorously throughout the room. There was a small figure asleep on a cot in corner of the room. I slowly walked over to the bed. This must be Olian.

            I have to admit, I was expecting a bit more. Kye made it sound like he was this dangerously crazed monster. As I gazed at the small elf on the cot I couldn’t find anything monstrous about him.

            He was a lot shorter than all of the elves I’ve met, and he has black hair that reaches his jawline. All he had on were some oversized black pants. With every rise of his bare chest, his pale skin stretched taut over his boney ribs. Small beads of sweat formed on his forehead as his eyebrows knit together in delirious frustration.

            What was the most strange of all was the mark Kye had mentioned. When she said ‘he’s marked with black heart on his chest,’ I was expecting a tattoo-like imprint of a heart on his chest, but that’s not what it was.

            Situated on his breast bone was an imprint of a black anatomically correct heart. Etched into his skin were black muscles and ventricles knitted flawlessly together to mimic the vital organ. It was slightly raised like a wound that didn’t heal properly, and looked as if it was burned into the poor creature’s skin with a branding iron that farmers use for cattle. It looked painful, and I couldn’t help but pity him.

            As I walked to the side of the bed, Olian’s eyes fluttered open and then closed, making my heart momentarily stop in fear. His little oval face contorted in pain and he lifted his hands to clutch at his chest.

            “I can’t fight it,” he whispered, as his skeletal fingers fluttered against the offending mark, before falling to his sides again.

            I kneeled at the side of the bed. I wanted to help him but was unsure how. I couldn’t keep my eyes off of the horrible emblem on his chest. Upon closer inspection I saw that the puckered edges looked raw and red, as if it really was burning. I lifted a hand to test the temperature, two inches above the mark and I could feel the heat radiating from it.