The next couple of days were hectic to say the least. Around a hundred representatives were forced to attend presentations, one after the other, since their arrival three days ago. The presentations were primarily focused on the policies the government was set to enact in the upcoming years and the rapidly intensifying list of consequences that would fall upon one, should they dare to rebel.
Contrary to her nightmarish expectations, none of the officials she had encountered resembled anyone familiar. Definitely not anyone from that wretched school which was the origin of all her troubles. But it brought no relief to her anxiety ridden mind. The premonition of the inevitable had seeped deep into her flesh, a poison inflecting her blood, streaming down her veins without a spot left untouched.
With every passing day, her blinding apprehension augmented in strength. Even after three days of uneventfulness, her intuition screamed at her that the worst was yet to come. This was just the calm before the storm.
And it was.
*********
It was a wonderful winter morning, possessing a mysterious beauty that enshrouded the danger luring behind the glittering exterior. The cold breeze that struck her was any other yet it carried with it a sense of trepidation and brought an uncontrollable chill down her spine.
She would have loved to lie in bed all day, escape this foreboding of the inevitable.
But destiny had other plans.
*******
Chaos was a fantastical thing to behold, especially when it was orchestrated in this scale. Panic painted the pale faces of the crowd with a disgusting texture, reminiscent of a nasty red stain on a plain white dress. Their features were marred with debilitating anxiety, overriding their fragile self-control.
The words that had inflicted such catastrophe seemed to reverberate across the conference even though the speaker was long gone.
A fragment. Frozen in time.
"Representatives, you will be pleased to know that all of you gathered here would have the utmost honor of meeting the Supreme Leader and his cabinet of ministers today. It is a privilege not experienced by many. Consider yourselves lucky. They should be here any moment now. Please assemble here in ten minutes after a brief break."
After the first wave of shock, receding footsteps were soon to be heard, every representative grappling with their neighbour to reach the door first. The fight was pitiless, leaving no rules unbroken. Moans and groans echoed in the darkened room as nobody could make progress in this perpetual struggle.
In the field of mayhem, there stood a lone observer.
Her deep blue eyes staring ahead, staring past all that unfolded before her. So elusive, so free of revolting mess of survival instincts that had overwhelmed everyone but her.
Her posture, nonchalant as she stood, observing the view like a queen upon her throne. Amusement was plastered in her smirk, as if she was glancing at a bunch of ants crawling all over a leftover crumble.
She couldn't bring herself to care.
But sadly, for them.
Time was trickling down fast.
Ten minutes was barely a heartbeat's worth, when trapped in such a pointless struggle.
It was then the door on the upper floor snapped open.
Everyone held their breath as stunned gasps resounded across the room. All heads turned to the corridor, leading to the stairs, like honeybees transfixed at the sight of a fragrant flower.
This is it.
They were finally going to meet the Supreme Leader.
This is my chance to make it in life.
I will make a great first impression and impress him.
He will be dazzled by me. That's for sure.
The scent of greed emitted by everyone on the room was pungent, full of selfish motives. But much to their disappointment, the speaker who had made the announcement earlier stepped out, with displeasure evident, clear as the day in his shrunken face.
Boos soon followed. The mass hardly looked like the civilized group they had appeared to be on the first day.
"Settle down."
The man uttered those words with such frightening authority that the noise died down, along with the arrogance in the hearts of the mob.
The speaker had been nothing but polite the whole day, now had a life-threatening glare upon his face.
They assembled back into formation like obedient sheep, heeding to the guidance of their shepherd, all while a fox remained right where she was, fading skillfully in the flock of sheep. She still remained rooted in her place near the door as the others moved past her, towards the stairs that lead to the upper floor.
Within seconds, the much-awaited footsteps were heard. Whoever they were, they were a large group, marching towards them in a striking precision. Every step, in beat with every other, the uniformity of it all would have been awfully frightening if not for the anomaly in the symphony of the strides.
The anomaly stood out starkly. A leader walked ahead in the front, commanding and guiding the herd where he wanted them to be, controlling the others to match up with his rhythm like a conductor in the orchestra. The strength behind his stride was enough to bury every other that followed into oblivion.
His power could be felt without being seen. That kind that was almost supernatural, impenetrable to those who exist to submit to him. The others followed his wordless instructions like they were born to do exactly that.
While the sound of those footsteps struck paralyzing fear upon the representatives, to her, it brought forth an unbearable heartache. Tears began to pool in her blue oceans, inevitably pouring down. She was unable to retain them in the face of a familiarity that brought along with it, memories of a "happily forever" that had turned into a formidable curse.
Before she knew it, tall figures appeared out of the door, their faces blurry from the vast distance between them.
But it was impossible to mistake him for someone else.
Golden brown eyes gazed down upon her from across the gigantic conference room. Eyes that were all too familiar. Eyes that can stop her entire existence with a glance. Space and time crumbled down in the face of those dark pools, which suddenly became the centre of her universe.
Two enormous black holes sucking everything into them, reducing it to oblivion. A circular swirl of light, disguising the severity of being caught in its gravitational pull.
The rest of his face, hidden by a crimson red mask which adorned his face perfectly. He was wrapped in a maroon red suit, with a white undershirt.
The faces behind him blurred and non-existent in her little world which revolved around him. Only him. He was all she could see. Could possible see.
A nostalgic tsunami of emotions loomed over her, making her lose strength in her knees. Golden brown still clashed against her deep blue in a fateful combat that surely promised doom and disaster.
There wasn't an inch of love in those brown pools for all she could see. There wasn't anything at all. Only a darkness. A darkness so expansive that it threatened to engulf her whole, never to resurface again.
And it was her fate.
It was her fate to drown in the darkness.
His darkness
That was her last thought before her knees finally gave out. And she did fell face first into the darkness.
*******
Author Notes:
Hey everyone. I know. I know. I am so damn late.
To be honest, I found it hard to write their meeting because I had such high expectations for it and the fact that I moved from my home to another city did not help.
This is not my best work (tbh this chapter is pretty crappy) but I felt like if I don't post this chapter now, I will never do. It will get better I guess.
Next chapter I promise a proper conversation and hopefully in a few days. I am thinking of updating every Wednesday but it is sooo hard :(
Thank you for all the love and support. Thank you for reading.