[256 hours]
[Dusk]
"Are you alright?"
I breathed in and out heavily, dragging in ragged breaths. My clenched fists wouldn't relax, even with my hands now empty and my exhaustion pulling at my will to keep upright. I wanted to reply, but I needed a moment to catch my breath. He seemed to realize this as I sort of stumbled over to a wall and sat down, away from the dummy I'd previously been attacking.
Dad was gone, thank Raegnaik. Off doing something, maybe still playing his part to keep us undercover. A relief, really - training for three hours straight was not fun in the slightest.
The small spirit floated above me, innocent, yellow-orange eyes staring at me from a young face. Unkempt brown hair fluffed up around his face and fell into his eyes, partially contained in the hood of a neutral orange hoodie underneath some battered denim overalls.
I finally found the words to speak. "I'm alright, I'm just... tired."
"He's not here. Can't you just take a break?"
"What, and risk him getting mad at me?" I said. I got back up, finding my breath and ignoring the agonized screaming of my arms. Anyone else might be used to this sort of heavy training by now, but me? Nope. That'd be too easy. Instead my underdeveloped muscles are struggling to catch up. I was only fourteen, after all.
"What says he'd find out?" The spirit asked. "He doesn't know everything, right?"
I sighed. Briefly I focused on my hands, forming a long staff with a curved blade at the end with a little bit of difficulty. I wasn't gonna let exhaustion get me in trouble, but damn did it make this harder.
"You'd be surprised, Milo. He knows when I've been getting lazy."
Milo just watched me as I started to attack the already beaten dummy with the scythe in my hand. Most would be afraid of being in such close proximity to a highly dangerous weapon that I could lose control of at any point in time, but to him it wasn't a big deal, considering he couldn't die as a ghost.
Not surprisingly, I needed another break pretty quickly. The scythe disappeared with my energy too depleted to keep it in a physical form, and instead of sitting against the wall I sat in a chair that was not far across the room. There was a small table next to it, where my dark green hoodie was sitting in a cloth lump out of the way.
Milo frowned at me, sitting in the air next to me as if there was another chair underneath him.
"You need a break, Dusk. Surely your dad can't expect you to keep training if you can't anymore."
Surely. But I knew him - he was my father, after all. Not like I grew up with him as a parent my whole life.
Sometimes I wondered if Mom was any better. Maybe she was. But she was back home. I haven't seen her since we left home, and I was only about five years old then. I have a vague remembrance of her face, her voice, maybe, but she wasn't a clear image in my head. All I had was Dad now.
I used to have a brother... but he's not here anymore.
"Honestly, Milo, you'd be surprised." He was so innocent. He didn't understand how ruthless Dad really was. If he had seen him kill that poor human like he did the other day... maybe he'd understand. But that would be mortifying to him, I can't let him see something like that.
"Here, come on. You can get back to training later if you want," Milo said. "You need to rest."
My head wanted to refuse, but the rest of my body gave in and followed the spirit out of the training room. I grabbed my hoodie and down the hall we walked, me stumbling a little out of pure exhaustion. It was a fairly large hallway, the walls made of an old, ancient stone that could've been here for centuries before. It'd been cleaned up a little before we got here, but not too much. I think one of the humans, Lionel, was putting some work into cleaning the place up. The basement, I guess, just wasn't something he had gotten to.
Near the stairwell back to the building above, there were two devices set aside on the ground, in the shape of short cylinders. Both of them lit up as I came near, and as I stepped on the one on the right the surroundings abruptly changed. Suddenly, instead of an old church basement, I stood in the hallway of a very different structure. The walls were still grey, but were made of smooth, sleek metal, as was both the floor and ceiling. My shoes on the floor made a hollow, echoing sound in the empty hall as I stepped forwards.
Milo, who was holding on to my shoulder in order to teleport with me, let go of me, and urged me to go and sit in my room. I obliged, and ended up crashing on the bottom bunk of an empty bunk bed. Only my bed was made. The top bunk was an empty mattress.
"See? You need rest," Milo pointed out at my exhaustion.
"I feel like we know that by now," I sighed, verbally accepting defeat at last. My hoodie, which was originally held in my hand, had fallen onto the ground. I didn't feel like picking it up.
"Seriously. Why are you so reluctant to take a break every now and then?"
"Look, I would if I could, it's just..." I sighed again. "It's... hard to explain. Dad's just... hard to please. So I try to please him any way I can, and that's part of it. Not taking a break or giving up."
Both of us knew I was lying. I couldn't care less if he was pleased with what I was doing so long as he wasn't mad at me.
"You know... you could always leave," Milo suggested.
"Hm?" I wasn't quite sure if I'd heard him right.
"Leave," Milo repeated. "Run away. Your dad doesn't know this planet. If you disappeared, and went far enough away, he might not find you."
I scoffed. "Yeah. Right. When Valanor walks with the living again."
"Huh?"
I shook my head. "Nevermind. Essentially, no. I can't do that. He'd find me."
"No he wouldn't! That's the thing!" Milo exclaimed. "He'd never find you if you flew off to, like... I don't know, somewhere else!"
"You don't know him like I do," I glared at him with a side-eye. "Besides. I wouldn't last a day out there, and if 'you' went missing, all of your friends would get suspicious. You don't have any family or caretakers besides Lionel, so it'd be weird if you just up and left, right?"
Milo slowly nodded, getting my point. "Okay, yeah, I... guess that makes sense. But wouldn't that just help them find out about your dad?"
"Yeah. Then he'd kill them and be more pissed that his big plans were foiled."
"...oh." Milo seemed disappointed. The little red X on his forehead pulsed a glowing hue, the way it does when he's annoyed. "There's gotta be some way to get you away from him!"
"Believe me. If I could... I wouldn't hesitate. But for now I can't leave, so I'll follow what he says."
"And where did that get Twilight?"
I froze, not expecting the name to be spoken. I stared at Milo in disbelief, biting back words that were trying to claw their way up my throat and attack Milo for something he obviously didn't mean to do. The ghost seemed almost angry for a moment before immediately realizing what he'd done. He covered his mouth with his hand, accompanied by a slight gasp.
"Sorry," he squeaked, his hand slightly falling from his face.
I took a deep breath and exhaled, letting out the emotion that was building in my head. "It's... it's fine. I get it, you're... you're right, but..."
I couldn't quite find any more words to speak, so I just exhaled again. Milo, frowning, stared at the ground silently for a moment before asking me,
"Do you need some time alone?"
I sighed. "No. Stay if you want. It's alright."
As much as I hate it when Twilight is brought up in any context, I didn't want the only person I felt I could open up to leave. It may seem crazy to some people, since he's a spirit of the dead, but it's true. Noah doesn't know the truth about me, and if I told him I'd risk both my safety and Dad's anger. As for Dad... well, he doesn't really care. And if I showed remorse about what happened, he would just reprimand me for being weak, because obviously that shows that I'm the stronger sibling when in reality it should've been him that was.
At least then I'd be free.
Milo, seeming upset still, thought for a moment before he seemed to have an idea, and quickly floated out the door. Minutes later he showed back up and tossed me an object, which I failed to catch and was forced to reach down and grab it from the bedside floor. It was a textbook about the systems in the human body.
I stared at it, perplexed. "...is this Malachi's?"
Milo nodded with a goofy grin. "Yup. And we're gonna see how long it takes him to wake up and realize it's missing, and then how long it'll take for him to find it."
I stared at him for a moment before laughing a little, a smile coming back to my face. "Yeah. Okay. Let's go mess with him."
Happy that I had cheered up a little, Milo floated out the door, me close behind him. And in that moment I forgot about the conversation we just had. Now all I thought about was finding Noah and a good place to hide the textbook in my hand.
At least I have someone to escape my life with occasionally.
-
[Dilla]
"Hey, Lionel?"
Lionel looked over his glasses at me, away from the book he was reading. It was a book I didn't know, and he didn't seem eager to reveal it to me, either. He wasn't really into fiction like I was, so I wasn't quite interested either.
"Yes?" Lionel was one of the few people who didn't always jump out of their skin when I walked up to them. I really don't see why I scare people. All I do is approach and say hi. Guess I'm just quiet.
Lionel was sitting on the steps of the church with his book, seeming quite in the zone as he read. There was a light breeze to the air, bringing a subtle chill to the warm, late March air. I had pulled my jacket over my bare shoulder instead of letting it hang loose like I usually do, deeming it unfit weather for the black tank top I always wore alone.
"Have you seen the kids anywhere?" I queried, arms crossed and my weight shifted onto one foot out of mere habit.
"Milo said he went to do something, not sure where he went off to do it, though," Lionel replied, adding the second clause of the sentence with a low mutter. "Noah should be around, though. Have you asked Malachi?"
"He's the one that sent me."
"Hm," Lionel contemplated this for a few moments before replying, "Feel free to check in the church. I'm sure he might be in there goofing off like kids his age seem to do."
"Alright," I shrugged. I walked up the steps past him as he went back to his book, opened the large wooden doors and stepped inside.
The sun was just about peaking in the sky, so the colorful windows weren't catching the rays of light like they usually do. They still glowed, however, in comparison to the dim, unlit sanctuary. At first glance there was no one inside, but I proceeded anyway, looking around anyway.
I was searching for Milo and Noah for Malachi. I'd run into him as I was taking a walk to clear my head. Apparently they took his textbook or something while he was sleeping and wanted it back (no surprise there, the guy really needs some sleep), and I happened to be the first person he ran into. So he told me to keep an eye out for them, and, needing something to distract me temporarily, I took off to go find them.
Letting my hands brush the old wooden pews as I strode down the aisle, I glanced around the sanctuary and walked towards the altar. If they were hiding around here, they were doing a damn good job at keeping quiet, unlike their usual fits of giggling when they know they're close to being caught. I decided, however, to check up on the altar, just in case.
The altar itself was as ancient as the rest of the church. There was a large reredos behind it, paint faded and stone crumbling with age and wear. It probably used to be some representation of Christ on the cross with a few other figures next to it, noting other sculptures I've seen behind altars. From the ceiling was a gold-colored metal chandelier looking object, only it had one candle holder that had a very new-looking candle in a red, cylindrical glass jar. It wasn't lit, though it looked like it had been some time in the recent past. The tattered green cloth over the altar had what I guess must be the Bible sitting on it.
There seemed to be no one there. I went to turn around, deeming my search here completed, when something caught the corner of my eye. There was a door to the basement of the church on the wall to the right of the reredo, not visible from the pews and the aisle. The door was slightly left ajar, still barely moving as if someone had just opened it... or maybe it was the slight draft of the outside breeze drifting through the few broken windows. The latter to me was the more likely answer.
The stairwell descended into a darkness deeper than the dim sunlight here in the sanctuary. There were less lights down there. I don't think even Lionel messes around with the church basement much. Not much to be down there, anyway. Probably some sort of catacombs, if I had to guess. The perfect place to find two overly curious teenage boys hiding from trouble.
Might as well check.
I grabbed my phone, turning on the flashlight as I stepped into the basement stairwell. The walls changed from old wood to damp stone, moss creeping across the rough, rectangular rocks arranged like the end of a well-played game of Tetris. There was no railing, but the walls themselves were close enough to be used as such until I reached the bottom.
The damp, musty smell had reached my nose rather quickly, however now it was at its strongest. The thick basement air was almost overwhelming my senses, for it'd been trapped down here for who knows how long. The stairs opened up to a decently sized room, the entire place completely bare of anything. I guessed Lionel must've cleaned it out at some point. There were two halls, one leading forwards and one leading right. There was, however, light, much to my surprise. What I guessed was some sort of odd lamp I'd never seen before was hanging from the ceiling, almost looking like a sort of cyberpunk bug trap. Not sure what bugs would be down here, or flying ones, at least, so I was curious as to its purpose. However I decided, instead of pondering more, to proceed forward, my phone's flashlight now off as I continued down the apparently also lit corridor.
The place obviously used to be some sort of catacombs. There were a few rooms branching off that contained nothing but skeletons laid on stone pedestals like awaiting sacrifices, skinless hands set atop empty rib cages that had dusty spider web blankets thicker than novels draped over top of them. The air was just as thick with old dust that had been still for what must be centuries before I came along and disturbed it. A lot more dust than I would've thought, considering I had only been here a few minutes. Has someone else been down here recently? Lionel, if I had to guess. But what was he doing down here?
The only thing of interest I found in that hall was another oddly empty room. This one, however, instead of being completely barren, had what seemed to be some dummies set up on one side. Three in total. All of them seemed lacerated like blades had been brought across them repeatedly.
Now this is getting... weird, almost.
Wary, I made my way back down the corridor to the main room, immediately taking a left to go down the second hall. The hall wasn't too much different. A long, dusty corridor with nothing in most of the rooms but more eternally sleeping skeletons of those who died long ago. However, much like the other hallway, some rooms contained interesting finds.
Specifically one room in particular.
This room was more cleaned up than the others. Aside from the lack of both decomposed cadavers and dusty cobwebs, the room was peculiar in a sense that it had a sort of... map on the wall. A neat, hand-drawn map on some sort of tough parchment that was not easily torn or degraded, drawn with what I guessed was varying shades of a soft B pencil. At first my mind, accustomed to easy-to-read GPS, didn't recognize the area shown on the map. Then I noticed the cluster of nearly sketched boxed near the middle. And the other box set aside not too far away that was in a suspiciously accurate proximity to the other boxes as the church was to our homes. All of it added up in my head until...
This is a map of the area, isn't it?
Off the bat I had no idea what a map of the property and surrounding forest could possibly be doing in the basement of the old church. I also had no idea who would have drawn it. Or how. Quite impressive line work and shading, I'll admit, but it's more of a feat that the artist had accurately captured the houses as well as a five mile radius around them.
"Here. Let me help you out here."
There was a whispery, echoing voice that brushed my ear and made me jump, my eyes darting around the room as a dry chill set into my skin and just as quickly dissipated. But immediately my thoughts were turned away from the disembodied voice as suddenly the map began to change.
Black shadows crept through the paper, bleeding like ink through it and forming shapes seeming to be drawn like with pen or pencil. There were names, our names, written on each house in very neat, yet unsteady handwriting, like taking count of who lived where. There was also a label on the church, as well as two X's out in the woodland areas. One of the X's had a label that read "ship," the other having nothing. One of the houses had a strike through it - Tyson's. Everyone else's was unmarked, all except for Blake's. For whatever reason, his home had been circled.
On the side of the map there was more writing. Almost like a legend, only instead of labeling symbols, it was just... two sentences of information.
"Eclipse" - April 4th. 2:02 P.M.
4 minutes of totality
I had no idea why this had anything to do with the eclipse, but judging by what I'd seen, this probably wasn't good. Could this possibly be the home of the thing that'd killed Tyson? Maybe it wasn't possession like I'd thought, but the thing had been hiding here the whole time...
I took a few pictures of the board, making sure to get a close-up of every important detail. I'd have to remember this. Maybe I could come back later and look for some more clues, it's possible I missed a thing or two.
"You shouldn't be here."
Another voice spoke, but this one was definitely less faint than the other. The voice was almost booming in the small room, unnecessarily aggressive and quite deep with a trace of some sort of accent I couldn't quite place because of how faint it was. Immediately I whipped around, my eyes following upwards a tall grey figure with piercing bright red pupils that tore into me with accusation.
I barely had enough time to process the sight before its hand grabbed the side of my head and my vision blacked out.
-
3507 words
A chapter of Filicide and a chapter of NTB?? In the same day????? Damn motivation is killing it today