The Shaded

Chapter Twenty-Nine

CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

It was a while. I had been walking for what seemed like half a minute down that hallway, wreathed in darkness. That diminutive flame from the candle I held... it was all I had.

It would've felt as if I'd been walking into blackness for an infernal eternity if it weren't for a distant, orange glow at the end of the corridor lighting my way. I sauntered toward the menacing gleam as I heard fire crackling. I told myself to be brave.

I reached the end of the hall.

It was a room almost identical to her study, but quite larger, if I might add, a fireplace on the left side of the room, the light radiating from the flames producing a powerful, orange tint, and bookshelves on the opposing sides of said fireplace. A grandfather clock was set against the wall to the left, and the walls themselves had words I couldn't read scribbled on them along with torches set up in both corners of the side of the room from which I entered from.

There was something set onto the ground near the center of the floor. Some sort of small cauldron; the inside of it gave off a weak, white tinge. With my own eyes, I could see a perfectly straight row of dolls which were aligned in front of the kettle-like bowl, a row so long and drawn-out that those things were emerging from the mere darkness of shadow in the far right corner of the room's right side. The dolls' eyes were red and so astounding brighter than before as each one closest to the pot lifted itself up onto the rim and dove into it, disintegrating into the white glow inside of the kettle.

I heard cold whispers as if there were other people in the room, but I saw no one...

...until I saw one.

There she was. Across the room, I saw a figure clothed in a white gown, emerging from the shaded area of the right of the fireplace where light ceased to reach.

She was... floating toward me. I mean, her feet were, well, a few FEET clear off the ground! Her body appeared to be decaying, the skin upon her arms and legs peeling or, almost molting... Her limbs also appeared to be twigs; her remaining flesh was merely scabs and putrified tissue. You could begin to see her bones peel through her decomposed muscle. It seemed as if something was devouring her from the inside.

Her eyes welcomed me back as I felt the tiniest brush of air from the door shutting behind me, along with a sharp lock. She wanted me all to herself.

Well now, she had me.

I watched her body sway against the sinister air as she levitated toward me.

"Where are you hiding him?" I demanded.

"Is that why you came back, dear? To save him from something he can't avoid?"

"You know where he is," I stated, attempting to be bold in the face of someone bolder.

She tittered a bit. "Behind you..."

I turned over my shoulder, and barely, just barely, I saw him. His body was concealed in shade, but I could see rolls of his dead skin peeling off his stale cheeks and floating among the space above his head. He himself was, molting... falling apart into nothing...

"Dad..!" I called for him under my breath, but she and I knew it was no use. I saw the way his body was curled against the wall, begging for release. His arms were flatly laid in front of him, lifeless. He didn't move. He did nothing to save himself. He was gone. She ended him.