Inheritance

Part 2. Chapter 57: Insanity

He forced his feet to move him forward toward the bend in the hall which the chittering creature had disappeared behind.

Sweat coated his hands.

He rounded the corner and threw a glance down the bleak path ahead.

Thunder rang; it seemed to light up the hallway with a blinding pulse light. Or was it his imagination?

Eory heard a door open and close ahead of him followed by an echoing chittering that got louder with every reverberation.

Eory suddenly felt very sick—like he had become bloodless—like a pile of flesh without a soul.

He looked at the bracelet Maruka had clamped on his wrist with double-vision. He clawed at it—trying to tear it off—until his wrist bled.

When the bracelet wouldn't come off, he forced himself to bear the pain of having it.

He opened the same door the chittering creature had gone through with his stomach lurching in fear.

There was nothing but another dark hall on the other side.

Thunder cracked.

Eory managed to fight his impulse to clap his hands to his ears.

He made his way through the fortress until he stumbled upon a small, lit room--barely big enough for one person--with scrolls sprawled across a wooden desk in the center of the room.

Eory was relieved to find a lit room and took the opportunity to look through Moonpool.

He pored over every page.

He was spurred on by nothing but a feeling in his gut that the book held the answer to destroying the doppelgangers. After looking through it, however, he confirmed that there was nothing in it.

He growled.

I know this is it. I know it! He thought to himself as he clutched in head in frustration.

He looked up at the ceiling with his hands clasped together--appealing to the fairy goddesses to show him a sign.

Everything looks different when it's under the light of the moon... Kori's voice invaded his mind.

Eory's eyes widened.

He climbed to his shaky, tired legs and intended to make his way to the battlements despite his pounding heart.

Around every corner, some kind of creature from the underworld seemed to be mocking him with its high-pitched laughter.

Periodically, thunder—which he had never gotten over his fear of—boomed nearby. The combination of ravenous hunger from missing dinner and fear from the thunder made him feel like he only had a stomach, but nothing else.

The chittering worsened; he swore he saw horned, yellow-skinned beasts popping up in the blackest corners of the hallways.

I must refrain from fear and weeping!

He thought of Pollyanna and how she had been stabbed several times when she had come to rescue him from the tower, and barely even gritted her teeth at the wounds inflicted upon her. But there was something else as well.

A buried memory surface; his eyes widened.

He remembered his father executing a group of peasants without mercy or hesitation for instigating a rebellion.

He felt a return of power and stability to his veins and muscles—he ran faster, and the chittering faded away as he attempted to grab hold of sanity and logic.