Divided Attention

Chapter 15: A Bittersweet Goodbye

I was very thankful for the dirt.

It was exactly like the dirt in the Flower Forest in the way of them you stepped on it, it would quickly turn back into it's normal state of dirt. Plus, none of it stuck on the soles of my feet, which was also very handy. Either way, the halls were confusing and usually fairly dark. Sometimes I would trip on plants or roots from giant flowers that sometimes grew in the halls. The ceilings were high enough to let them grow comfortably, but these ones always glowed in the darkness. They were the only lights when I was running through them.

The lights were eerie. They kept shinning a light blue as well as a light green, each of them reflecting off of the walls. The walls in the spots where there weren’t any lights shinning on them, were completely black, to the point where I thought that I was in another world rather than in a castle. Weird bugs would float around and collect the pollen from the flowers, but I wasn't going to take my chances with messing with them. The bugs were large and kept flying up into the ceiling, where I couldn’t see where any of them were staying, but I didn’t exactly want to know. Sometimes the pollen would fall down, and I would have to try my best not to sneeze loudly, for fear of the guards catching me.

Then, as I kept running and running through the twisting and winding halls, I noticed that there really were no guards. In fact, there didn't seem to be many people anywhere. I was starting to wonder if something happened with the black eyes again and if everyone had just disappeared like in the Human Kingdom. If so, that would make it that there were two kingdoms that were completely shut down. If that was the case, then if I got out of here, there would probably be a high chance of me getting hunted down by other kingdoms. Either way, I was going to be hunt down if I escaped.

But, both to my dismay and my relief, I heard voices coming from the other end of the hall from where I came. Heavy steps clomped onto the dirt so hard that I could hear armor rattle, and the steps didn’t sound happy. So I quickened my pace, and somehow found out that I was going up a hill, which was making me slower. The voices behind me were starting to get a little louder, and I heard that they were very masculine voices, and I was suspecting that they were trying to figure out where I was. So, with a lot more determination, I climbed my way up the hill.

The hill kept getting steeper and steeper, and with my wounds and aching bones, every step hurt so much that I simply wanted to collapse. Maybe if I were to give up and surrender then all of this would be so much better. But, at that moment, I realized that that wasn’t me. Giving up and breaking into tiny little pieces was not the kind of person that I was. Mizu was not a quitter. And I would be able to pull through this. Maki’s death would not be in vain. Instead, it would be avenged.

In one of the darkened hallways after I got up what was actually quite the long hill, there were doors all along the walls, but there was one that stood out to me. The other doors had wooden handles. This one had a golden handle. Something was telling me to go towards it, and though my mind didn't want to comply, my body did either way. My mind quickly changed it's opinion when they heard the rattling of armor. I lunged for the door, quickly opened it, and closed it as quickly as I could. There were heavy footsteps stomping past, and I gave a sigh of relief before I heard a voice.

"Mizu?"

I turned around to see Kitty in a dark room, sitting on her bed that was almost completely made of fine lace. Her headboard to her bed was deeply etched in and finely polished wood, giving it the feeling that it had been there since the dawn of time, but was probably installed just fairly recently. She had on a small nightgown and was completely washed up, while I was looking horribly. There was a picture in her hands, but she set it down and slid off of the bed. Two windows were next to her bed, both of them open and giving her fresh air to sweep in through her room. Curtains elegantly swayed, giving off some of the bright moonlight that shone in an almost blinding way through the window. Dressers with antiques and trinkets of all sorts sat on both sides of the wall, and it looked like there was a walk in closet on the right side with a bunch of fancy clothing slightly flowing in the breeze. Kitty's purple eyes seemed to shine even through the darkness, and they looked so hopefully at me that it was hard to stay mad.