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And here we go!! I’m introducing the new character!!

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Something was watching me. Possibly several things. Their gazes crawled across my back, watching, judging, calculating.

The feeling was more familiar than it should have been but no less unsettling.

I tried to turn around, but it was dark everywhere, the mind-numbing darkness of something that wasn’t quite real.

I rolled my eyes, trying to supress the panic already clawing at me by making fun of the situation.

Which was it this time? Flashback, hallucination, nightmare, or some combination?

At least I wasn’t paralyzed in fear this time. At least, not completely. Lately my hand had been paralyzed even in my dreams. It scared me.

I reached out through the thick darkness, trying to find something, but there was only emptiness, all around me. I felt completely exposed, nowhere to run to, nowhere to hide. And something was watching me.

I took a step, then felt the ground slipping beneath me, like I was walking on a narrow ledge. I froze, trying to slow my breathing.

This wasn’t real. It would pass. It would go away and it wasn’t real. Don’t panic.

Who was I kidding, I was panicking. My heartrate was ridiculously high and I felt like I was going to be sick.

Think of something else, anything else.

She was the first thing that popped into my mind. She had always been, but as soon as I remembered she only amplified my fear, the memory of the last time I’d seen her overwhelming anything else.

The darkness smelled like smoke and something sickly sweet. I hated that smell.

Why was it always there? Couldn’t my dreams pick something else just for once? I was almost as annoyed as I was scared.

I took a step forward, knowing there was a ledge there. Or not. Depending on what was happening. I certainly didn’t know.

I slipped and reached sideways automatically, trying to hold on to something, only to remember that my right hand didn’t work. I fell hard, but not far. The shock of the fall hit through me and I felt like I’d fallen a good deal further.

Something was coming. I knew it was. I heard it. Or I didn’t. I knew it was there. Was it?

I scrambled up and took another step forward, the feeling that something was behind me was worse than the fear of not being able to see where I was going. I’d been stumbling through the dark most of my life and I’d fallen often. I didn’t have to be afraid of falling anymore. Nowhere to fall to once you’ve reached rock bottom.

Had it happened yet? Was I still waiting for it to be over? I wished it was. It smelled like smoke all around and I ran.

“Coward.”

I tried not to smell the smoke, tried not to see the darkness, but it was everywhere, it wouldn’t leave me. It wrapped around me, tangled in thick brambles I couldn’t break through.

Then the sounds began. Footsteps, echoing, retreating and coming closer. Right behind me. The feeling that something was coming was closer than ever.

Something screamed. It sounded like her. It was a shriek of fear like I’d seldom heard before and I knew it was her.

I turned the other direction and ran even faster. Away, away anywhere away.

“Traitor. You’re the most faithless person I’ve ever known.”

Not real. But it was. She’d said that. It wasn’t real. I’d heard it.

I was out of breath, trying to keep breathing. I couldn’t stop now, even with all the smoke. I had to keep going.

There was nowhere to run to. They would find me. There had never been a way out. They knew. They knew everything. I shouldn’t have tried to fool them, I wouldn’t get away with it. I hadn’t. I shouldn’t have tried.

Something was singing, his voice echoing off the stones. There was stone, like I was in a tunnel. The great emptiness had been replaced, getting narrower, leading straight toward something. It was waiting for me. Anticipating me.

I didn’t want to go there, but Kongar’s voice was drifting toward me. Where from? I tried to look over my shoulder. He couldn’t be singing. Not anymore.

He had hated me. Of course he had.

“Coward.”

I was. I was running and I didn’t know what from and I couldn’t stop.

My shoulder slammed against the wall and I gasped in pain, recoiling from it. It was so narrow I could barely fit now.

I was trapped. It was a dead end and there was nowhere to run to and this would never end. It would never get better. This would keep happening, over and over, a hundred variations, the ghosts of my past gathering together to terrorize me over and over until one day everything stopped. Would it be a relief? Had it been? I couldn’t remember.

There was a sudden wave of light, blinding, blocking everything out, making me close my eyes and recoil from it.

Flames, hot and furious, and so much blood and a voice reciting something in a different language and a girl’s voice joining him and it was all my fault.

The light faded, leaving only the faintest glow at the end of the tunnel. It suddenly seemed wider. I could fit.

The sounds faded, the smell of smoke was gone. It had all disappeared so quickly. I was quivering like a leaf, so out of breath I felt sick. I was easily in the worst condition I had been in my entire life. I used to be able to run half an hour without losing my breath. Maybe it had been more than that. Maybe I’d been standing still this entire time.

I carefully took a step forward, reaching out to touch a wall to make sure it was really there and I was really here. Not that it told me anything.

Perhaps I’d fallen from one dream straight into the next. That had happened, the initial relief disappearing into new horrors. I hated it when that happened.

I took another step forward, careful to keep my head down and stay in the shadows.

There were people, several of them. A man kneeling next to another, smaller one, with a third man with long black hair next to them. He was faintly glowing. Of course he was.

I rolled my eyes. This again. Another dream. Or whatever it had been.

And there was a large creature with bat wings and two men going up against it.

I watched with detatched interest. If my dreams followed their usual pattern, that beast would have been attacking me. For once, it wasn’t.

It was hard to keep thinking straight. It was all still blurred, muddy, the sounds mingling together, the rush of water, whatever sound the creature was making, talking people, it was all too loud and too close and too far away.

I raked my dark hair away from my face. It instantly fell back, but I couldn’t bring up the will to care.

My knees felt weak from whatever had happened and I leaned against the wall, trying to find some stability.

My instincts kicked in and I tried to slow my breathing so nobody would hear me, to stay in the shadows so they wouldn’t see me. I didn’t want to be here, I didn’t want to be noticed. Never be noticed.

And then I started coughing. It had happened often after the fire. Pain spread through my chest as I coughed, trying to stifle it, trying not to let them see me.

I couldn’t stop. It hurt and I couldn’t stop. I hated it. I hated feeling sick, I hated being out of breath so easily, I hated not being able to reach for weapons when I needed them, I hated reaching for something and remembering I couldn’t.

Why had she done it?

Someone looked up. Someone saw me. They noticed me.

I hunched my shoulders, in a reflex to appear smaller. The coughing finally stopped, but everyone had heard it by this time.

This was dangerous. I needed to get out of here.

I stiffened, taking in the people in the large cave. All men. Men with sharp eyes, scars and broad shoulders, all of them except the smallest one, who was still sitting against a rock.

I knew people like this, I’d been around them all my life. I had been one. Perhaps I was one. None of them reacted well to strangers or suprises. I was either a potential threat or a potential target. I had to make sure to be neither.

Don’t be agressive, don’t be weak. Don’t let them see you be weak. Never let them see you’re afraid.

I straightened my shoulders and shoved my hands into my pockets, partially because it looked confident and partially because it would hide the fact that my right hand was permanently curled in a fist. They would find out but not before I let them.

They probably couldn’t see me. I was still in the shadows. I let out a deep breath. I was still trembling but they couldn’t see that unless they came closer.

I took a step forward, into the faint light.

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Ooh, that was fun to write! That was everyone’s bit of absurdism for the day XD Before you ask, yes, it was mostly a dream. It was partially induced by the Castle (that was the presence he constantly sensed) but the rest was just kinda a nightmare. I think. XD

I spoiled so many things but all of them so dramatically out of context and vaguely I don’t even understand it XD

Sorry for the long post, I was having too much fun 🙂

I can’t wait to see how the others react to him!