Chapter 3 || Split Paintings
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- Kai's POV -
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Paintings were hung over all four walls of the room, no windows letting pale light into the cold stale air, the only source of heat errupting from the hole in the ground filled with sizzling lava that hurt to look at for too long. I'm not sure how I got here; nor do I want to be. I was shivering even standing so close to molten rock.
It wasn't so much the fact I was in a cold yet lava-occupied room that gave me a dull feeling of confusion, but more so that the paintings all around me were amazingly detailed and all of the same things. Faces - faces of people I'd never met, with names below them I'd never heard of before.
But half of them were phantom portraits - each image was split in two by an almost invisible line, each portraying different versions of the same person. The second picture . . . was always of the person with white eyes. Sometimes there were burning houses behind them, or a forest fire. Their faces were ghostly and empty, just like their eyes - I'd never seen of white eyes before, never read about them or heard them being mentioned in the conversation across from mine. They were cold and dead and hollow, staring through you like you were glass, and they were everywhere, reflecting nothing and seeing all, glaring at me from painted portraits.
I gained comfort in looking at their preceeding images. They were usually of the same people doing something typically ordinary, like reading a book or playing in a garden. They were smiling, with bright eyes and red-tinted cheeks, very much unlike their . . . other forms.
How they managed to change so dramatically and . . . strangly, I have no idea. Mum had told some weird stories but nothing like this - not people turning evil, their minds wiped and morals replaced. And she definitely did not mention white soulless eyes.
I tried re-tracing my steps, wondering how in the world I got into this position, being stared down by a whole bunch of painted strangers, but realised pretty quick I could not remember a single thing about how I ended up here. But that was probably just be being forgetful again; at least, I hoped.
While my gaze scattered around the room, occasionally picking up on a new name, a certain colour caught my eyes - an ocean blue.
I stepped forward, a little further away from the light of the lava, and narrowed my eyes curiously at the painting. It seemed like a newer one, the colours of the canvas brighter and harsher, almost like it were begging to sieze someone's attention. And thanks to the its modernity, the painted face's eye colour stood out like a becan against a blackly lit night sky.
The face was all too familiar. It was younger, sure, but there was absolutely no mistaking those striking blue eyes or that wide smile. It was Mum - hung up on the wall, like an object of a collection, a mismatched room full of unique faces, half of which were demonized. I tried tried tried not to glance at her reflection across the line, but my gaze traitorously trailed over towards it, and before I could stop myself all I could see was my mother white-eyed and pale, wearing a dress of red and an expression of pure ice, her hair dark in the red light of the background. The image looked warped, twisted, and I didn't know what to think - what had happened, what was this place, why my mum, why is she here on this wall, why are these people with her, why was any of this happening right now, why was I here?
My mind felt scattered and scared, and I read the plaque under her picture possibly out loud, I'm not sure - Nya Analove. 18. Wielder.
Words and faces starting flying at me randomly as I started to panic - I was trapped here, there was no way out, only paintings and paintings of humans and demons - Johan Lively, 28, Wielder, a man with brown bushy hair standing beside a wheat farm with a smile on his face, a sword and fire in the picture reflection beside it; David Harrison, 24, Wielder, blonde hair and tanned skin, turned pale in his demonic and white-eyed formation; Jones Parker, 45, Wielder, a shyly smiling older man with a woman sitting beside him, gazing at him happily - the same woman was dead beside him in the other image; Elaine McKinnon, 34, Wielder, a white-blonded woman holding a baby while gazing proudly at another child playing in the forest next to her. I don't think about what came of the same children after whatever happened to every other victim hung up on the walls of this room happened to their mother. But after a small-lasting calmness of the storm raging inside my head, I realised that the reason the woman struck me as important was her last name - McKinnon. As in Iris McKinnon, my best friend of fifteen years with eyes whose turquoise arcanely matched those of Elaine.
The world started whirling again, and I slowly gripped onto a hopeful reality that wherever I had found myself wasn't in fact reality. I tried remembering myself falling asleep, but my brain was filled with confused and panicked thoughts of claustraphobia, wielders, blue and white eyes.
More names were washed across my memory - Mikalea Wilkins, one of the oldest paintings I could see, a woman with brown hair and blue and later white eyes; John Karlet, a teenage-looking boy whose family lay dead over the line; Clare Jones, a raven-haired young girl - one of the newer paintings, and what was weird about this one was that when her image was doubled, rather then having an empty soulless gaze in the latter image, her eyes were blood red. The break in the pattern was enough to pull me back into an uncomfortable but controlled feeling of eeriness instead of a scared one.
When I concerntrated, calming myself down enough to do so, it occured to me that the word McKinnon actually occured a lot more often then just of that woman. I saw it twice, thrice, four, five times, all different people of the same family. Maybe it was a coincidence, but with the obvious traits each of them shared, it didn't seem that way. Iris, I thought. Seriously, what the hell is going on?
While I was reading an inscription on the bottom of another old picture, I heard two small clicks. I had grown so used to the silence of the dark room that I jumped around like I'd just been poked on the shoulder.
At first, I didn't notice anything different, but when I walked over to the wall, stepping around the lava, I realised there were specifically two differences - two new paintings, appearing out of seemingly thin air.
Although I was still a little shaken, not to mention worried about my mum and Iris and whatever weird demonic transformation thing they were stuck in (maybe stuck in, I thought; This is all probably just a big prank. Xavier's be messing with me while everyone else is sitting back and laughing and my gulibility. Or at least, I hope), I sanely managed to recognise that I was in deeper crap then I had previously thought.
Because of the two paintings, the one hung on the left was of me.
The writing below spelt Kai Dare, 15, Wielder, but instead of being a couple of portraits split down the middle, there was only one side to it. If anything, it was the painting next to it that startled me.
Iris McKinnon, it said. 15. Wielder.
Before I could figure out what was going on, the room, the paintings and the lava all became unsettlingly black and my mind switched off.
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I woke with a start, gasping for air, the black I'd been drowned in almost suffocating.
I looked around the room I was in; I was honestly expecting something apart from my own bedroom. I was upright in my bed, cold sweat on the back of my neck.
"Oh my Notch," I sighed, irritated with myself, but relieved at the same time, "It was a dream. I was that scared because of a dream." That is an awfully weak standard set, Kai. What the hell would Iris think about that.
I drifted back into memories of last night's dream - the paintings, McKinnon, mum's name, our names - and then fell back onto the bed, groaning. It was too early to be suffering through a confusing list of events, no matter what sort of reality they fit into.
"Kai! Get your ass out of bed and get ready for school, you idiot!" Tali yelled from the kitchen, followed by a clank of a plate onto the bench.
I groaned again, louder, and she returned the discord with "Now, Kai, or I'll come in there and rip the covers off you!"
"Alright, alright," I yelled back, my voice cracking with sleep, even though I probably didn't get much.
I slumped out of bed and got dressed, walking into the kitchen with the drive of a zombie.
Tali shot me a grin from the bench, bread in her hands. "Morning, sleepy head. You look awful."
"I feel it," I said, grabbing an apple and a seat. Dad was up, cleaning the opposite bench top, and I got a sudden urge to ask Mum about what the hell I'd dreamt about, even though the logical part of me registered that it had been a dream and therefore not real.
"Hey Dad, is Mum up yet?"
He turned around to face me, his blonde hair swaying across his face. Mum would constantly laugh and tell him he was too old to have hair that long, but he never changed it. His eyes were a strong brown-hazel, a colour not passed to either of his children. I had no idea where my amber ones came from.
He smiled. "You know how she is. She wouldn't get up early if the house were burning down."
I nodded. "True."
A few minutes later both Tali and I were strolling down the street, heading towards Iris, whose hair shone in the morning sun like a glowing blue torchlight. Once we caught up to her, Tali dropped off away from us and began walking towards her elementary school.
"You know, you could have at least tried to push your hair down this morning, idiot," she commented, raising her eyebrows. The silver buttons of her dark blue denim jacket caught on the sun and exploded with light that hurt made me glance away until the angle changed.
"I don't have time for that kinda stuff," I scoffed.
"True. Looks like it would take at least half an hour to even remotely tame."
I shrugged. "Could be worse. How're you doing, Rainbow?" I added with a sly grin, putting an arm around her shoulders.
She rolled her eyes. "Perfect until you came along to ruin it. You?"
"Haha, very funny," I said dryly. "And not good. I had an extremely strange and awfully realistic nightmare that gives huge-ass headaches to think about."
"Oh, you poor soul," she pretended to sympathise. "Do you need councelling during these troubling times?"
I glanced down at her - she hates it when I tease her for being shorter than me, but granted, I am above average - and said "Yes. I need to lie down on a couch while you take notes and wear glasses."
She smiled and breathed laughter. "You're an idiot, Dare," she said, before announcing "An idiot who is about to lose."
Then she brushed off my arm and starting sprinting towards the school standing tall in the distance, gripping onto her shoulder bag while yelling mild insults over her shoulder.
"Why is it everyone makes me run everywhere?" I groaned, before taking off after her.
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- Unknown POV -
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"What do you mean it won't work?" the General hissed, fists clenched and eyes narrowed dangerously. I hadn't seen her this angry since we brought her back from the Overworld the first time.
The Machia boy looked nervous. "I mean that you can't use the sword," he said tentatively, "because Herobrine still has control over it."
This only made the General madder, and she almost yelled "My brother is dead! He has no control over anything anymore!"
The boy almost flinched at the mention of her brother, but he kept his voice calm. "That isn't true. His Wielders still exist in this world - through bloodlines and through direct contact with the sword itself."
"You're lying," she accused, raising a hand threateningly, shimmering particles of Dark Energy falling from the open palm.
If his purple eyes could show emotion, it would have been fear. "No, I'm not. I have no reason to lie. I'm dead, remember?" He almsost spat the last part, as if bitter.
The General lowered her hand, and instead took on her usual icy conduct. "And if these obstacles die, then my goal can be achieved?" she inquired coldly.
Alex nodded his head. "Yes."
She snapped her fingers, the sharp sound echoing around the stillness of the End. "Then it shall be done. Who are these people?"
"Two familes who have Wielder blood in their veins are still alive and well. The Parkers and the McKinnons have carried Special Energies through generations, but it's almost impossible for any of them to awaken. It's only happened rarely. Then there are the two Analoves - well, Dares, I suppose - Nya and her son, Kai. Nya is the only once-awakened Wielder still living."
She looked thoughtful. "So she would be the most difficult to kill, then."
He nodded again in return. "Yes. Unlike the Parkers or McKinnons, she has complete reign over her Special Energy."
"Which is?"
"Fire."
She paused. Analysed. Continued.
"And her son?"
"I'm not sure. There is a posibility that his powers could awaken over time, since his mother has remained close to him since he was born and thus he has been exposed to her Energy for fifteen years. It hasn't really been tested before."
The General calculated her options for a short while, then turned to me.
"Lead an army and kill everyone of those two families. Leave none alive. I don't care how distantly related they are."
She turned and waved a hand, dismissing Machia in a shimmering cascade of purple particles, returning him into his temporary box prison. She didn't look back, and began walking towards the Dragon's Shaft. She would probably consult him about the newly learned information. She'd never do anything without his consent.
"I'll kill the Fire Wielder." she spoke firmly, her voice unscathed even from the years of solitude the End served her.
That's how she always had been. Strong, flawless and cold.
I wondered how the Fire Wielder would handle it.
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Eyyyyy, more plot ties! If you wanna you can go back and read 'Second Half' of HL.
Oh no, will Nya fall to this new enemy? Or will she fight back and be a total badass!? ONLY I KNOW BECAUSE I AM THE ONE CURRENTLY WRITING IT!!!
Heh. So, how'd ya guys find it? Hopefully not too boring. Iris is my bae.
QOTC: Who's your favourite artist? Or alternatively, what's your favourite song?
(incase any of you are remotely interested, fob is my life, and any of their songs qualify as my favourite. because. they are. all. beautiful.)
See ya guys next time. Which will hopefully be soon.
- Jazz