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So, I was writing Colma’s worst fear thing, but it turned out so long I’m going to post it in two sections.  Sorry! Here’s the first part:

“I am getting out of here, but you can follow if you may. Just don’t try any tricks, alright?”  As Ahab said this, Colma thought she saw Allen flying towards her with claws, looking like they belonged to the creature which had nearly killed them.  They seemed like they would make great knives.

Suddenly, the word started spiraling like she was caught in a blizzard of  colorful snow.  Colma, already unsteady on her feet, lost her balance and toppled to the ground.  It  began swirling so rapidly she wondered if she would be flung off the ground and into the air.  Colma curled into a ball and prayed for it to stop.

Abruptly, it did.  As quickly as it had started, it stopped.  She cracked open an eye and sat up.  The stone floor, different from the tile in the jungle-y place, was ice cold under her hands, and Colma’s breath billowed in silver plumes before her.  She appeared to be in a dark corridor with mirrors of all different shapes and sizes lining the walls regularly.  Their surfaces were musty and trimmed with cobwebs, though any spider which had once lived there was long gone.  It looked like a lifeless, cold, clammy place.

Not again, she lamented mentally.  Colma slowly stood up and revolved in a circle, her multitude of reflections copying her.  Her shuffling feet on the ground sounded unsettlingly loud, echoing down the hall.  She peered down it, but only saw darkness, like each direction only led to this place’s black, gaping mouth.  Colma gulped, but figured the only way to get out was to enter the beast’s maw.  She tentatively crept down one direction, glancing at the mirrors as she went.  Some were so small they could fit into Colma’s hands, while others were taller than she was.  On most of their surfaces black, flakey skin (or what looked like skin) slithered over it.  Her image seemed warped and unnatural on its face.  It gave her chills to look at it, like it was the evil version of her staring at her.  A thought that caused shivers to dance down her spine occurred to her.  Maybe it wasn’t the evil version of her, maybe it was the evil, the sin, in being mirrored.

Unsettled, she glanced away and continued hobbling down the hall, whose walls seemed to press closer and closer, until she couldn’t avoid seeing the mirrors.  Her reflection appeared to grin wickedly at her.  Colma’s breath began coming in shallow gasps.

Suddenly, the path veered into a sharp left.  In this wider hall, vines, thicker than her arms, slunk around cracked corners and the mirror’s exquisite frames.  She began limping faster, wishing to leave these hallways as soon as possible.

The corridor turned left again, but in this hall the walls, the ground, the ceiling–everything–was white, the exact color of bleached bones.  Black squares checkered the ground in a dizzying pattern.  The hairs on the back of her neck pointed straight up when she realized that it looked exactly like the kitchen in the castle, without the appliances and with many mirrors.  She fairly ran out of that hall,  unwanted memories jeering at her.  Colma skidded around a bend again.  Here, it was a duplicate of the royal dining room, where the monarchs had feasted so many times.  She dashed down the long stretch, her reflections in the mirror appearing to laugh at her.  Colma bolted around another twist, banging her shoulder into the wall as turned.

She stopped short.  It resembled Orson’s barn exactly.  The barn where he had died.  Colma froze, her wide ice-y eyes roving over every corner.  The gears in her mind creaked to a stop.  This was too much.  The castle was mocking her.

A fervent voice shattered the silence from behind the corner. Colma jumped out of her skin and spun around.  It sounded just like Queen Elora’s voice.  It was warm and musical, as if beckoning her to sit down and have a chat.  The sound grew closer like it was about to round the sharp wall.  Colma didn’t stop to think.  She dashed down the hall as quickly as she could with her leg.  Her footsteps clunked painfully loud, but she didn’t care.  As far as she could see, someone’s ghost who she had murdered was behind her.  A mansculine voice began singing in a deep bass tone from the way she had been running.  It was King Callum’s voice.

Colma swerved to stop, her heart thundering in her ears so loudly it nearly drowned out the chattering and singing.

Which way to go?  King Callum or Queen Elora?  Colma started stumbling against the wall, but was surprised when her back, instead of hitting it, kissed cool air.  She whirled around and observed a new tunnel, narrower and pitch-black, which she was sure hadn’t been there before.  But as they neared, so close that if there had been light Colma would’ve seen their shadows, she decided it was her best option.  Without a second thought, she plunged into it.  After going a few steps, the ground beneath her vanished.  For a split second her feet lamely nudged the empty air and got a tingling feeling like something vital was missing.  Then she tumbled down… down… down…. Colma cringed, expecting she would to smack the floor any minute, and that would be the end.

But when she peeked out of an eye, she was standing in a circular, dark room, with one beam of white light shining through a round hole in the ceiling far above.  Colma hesitantly lowered her shoulders then soaked in the brand new scene.

Suddenly, a sound which she thought she would never hear again, greeted her ears like a jingling bell.

Orson’s laugh.

 

Colma’s knees gave away.

 

********************

All of that probably sounded like nonsense, but it represented a lot from Colma’s past 😉