Chapter 26: Not the coffee!

For the first time in forever I dreamt—not about hugs, kisses and roses, but of the damned jailor and his lagging footsteps chasing me through the streets of the abandoned city. I dreamt of faces staring lifelessly at me through windows lining the never-ending alleys, never helping despite my pleas. I dreamt of the first stumbler I killed, of Elana, Anna, my mother and brother…

I woke up with a startle. 

“You alright?” 

Yusuf looked down worryingly at me with his hand resting on my shoulder. 

“I- yeah. What are you doing here?” 

He smiled wryly. “You were talking loud enough that me and Nea could hear you from the hall.”

I got up, resting my weight on my elbow while rubbing my eyes. “Sorry. Bad dream.” 

He stared listlessly at the barred window. “I get them too. More often than not lately… Anyway, want some grub? We don’t have much, but it’s better than nothing.” 

“Coffee?”

He chuckled. “No. I’m afraid that it burned along with the library. Unless they were still sane enough to bring it, but I doubt it.” 

I smirked. “Lucky for you or I might have changed sides.” 

He put on an expression of artificial shock. “Is that how little we matter to you? After allt his?” He broke just after the fake outburst. We shared a hushed laugh, he patted me on the shoulder. “All right. You know where to find us.” 

I nodded. He looked to be feeling a lot better. A few hours of rest seemed to have done the trick. That meant my burden lightened considerably. I yawned and sat up straight. I didn’t mind having him lean on me, or that he needed help. It was a small price to pay for some camaraderie. It might’ve been a naive notion to trust him so after only a few days. But I needed something, or someone, to hinge my sanity on. And there was something about him that made it feel as if we’d known each other for years. I felt the same about Elana… but she wasn’t here anymore. 

I didn’t think she was dead. She was probably just off with the Slitherstitch creating chaos somewhere, maybe they were following us from a distance. None of us had been of a sound mind enough to cover our tracks. I’m sure we left some pretty noticeable ones in the layers of soot. 

My fingers cracked as I interlocked them and stretched my arms. I rolled my head from side to side and stood up from the bed. My shirt smelled of sweat and smoke, but it was the only one I had. I buttoned it fully, all the way to my chin. It had one of those mandarin collars, it framed my face nicely. I liked it, despite the smell. 

I hadn’t undressed before going to bed, only unbuttoned everything to get comfortable. I had this nagging feeling in the back of my mind that told me I might need to get up and flee at a moment's notice. And I for one didn’t want to run from a horde with my pants around my ankles. 

I walked out to the hall. Yusuf and Nea sat together, only the sound of their spoons scraping against the insides of metal cans filled the room. They both looked up as I approached. Nea’s eyes were red and puffy, she must have spent hours crying. 

“Morning,” I greeted her. Though I didn’t know whether or not it was morning. The light in this damned place never went out after all. Which I suppose I should’ve been thankful for. It was the only thing that could have made this whole thing any more terrible. 

She nodded and let her eyes wander across the floor to examine a crack a few steps away from me. “Morning,” she whispered meekly. 

I plopped down next to Yusuf, he handed me a can of porridge with a soft smile. The can was warm to the touch. Judging from the flickering lights coming from the kitchen area they seemed to have lit a small fire under the stove. 

“Thank you.”   

He nodded and chewed his food while digging up a spoon from his pocket. “Clean it after,” he mumbled with his mouth still full. 

We ate in relative silence. There was a lot to do. We had to move far and do some damage control, maybe even double back to get Elana and her posse off our track. Their agenda was a mystery, but letting us go without any resistance was far-fetched. 

I glanced over to John. His arms and feet were still hogtied. The way we left hi curled up in the corner of the room was almost comedic now that I had a better look. I didn’t pay any attention the day before, but you’d think his friends would in my place. 

After finishing the meal I looked over the condition of my threads binding him. Their lustre had grown dim. They wouldn’t last another day. I poked him in the cheek a few times to make sure he wasn’t playing possum. “Oi,” I called out and increased the intensity. Still nothing. 

“How’s Samara doing?” I asked while looping a new set of threads around his hands and feet, making sure to make things a little more sleep friendly. 

Nea snorted, it sounded wet, like a sniffle. “She’s fine. She stood watch for a long time before I relieved her.” 

I grunted in response. It was Samara who said that we needed to create distance to the horde. We couldn’t allow her to sleep in for much longer, even if she needed to. I felt a little bad. Sleep was sacred, and needed to be treated as such.

Deciding to give her a few more minutes, I climbed up the stairs to the second floor. Up top, more bedrooms awaited, along with a small living area containing a sofa, a wooden table and some armchairs placed in a circle. 

On the table there stood a board game with checkered boards and wooden pieces that reminded me of chess. Runes swirled to life and neatly lined themselves up vertically next to it. 

Commoner’s chess

Rank: Lost 

Type: Broken

Description: A once beloved game, adapted to fit the lowly standings of commoners. The two opposing sides depict the forces of the Silver Legion and the rebels. 

I grabbed a piece depicting a knight in shining armour. It held a shield tucked close to its body and a sword heroically stretched toward the sky. I scoffed, then used the piece to knock down one on the opposing side, this one a wretched being with the body of a lion and head of a goat—a chimera. 

The piece clattered against the wooden board. 

I smiled and moved along. The people that lived here must have had many children. All the rooms were filled with toys and trinkets. Most had held up surprisingly well despite the passage of time. Compared to the outside, the house felt entirely disconnected to the ravages of time. It looked just the same now as it must have when the inhabitants evacuated. 

The question of how long the city had been dead continued to elude me. I found nothing that told me how much time had passed since the fall. I assumed it was a very, very long time ago. Not even razed cities back home looked like this.

A ransacked bookcase leaned against one of the walls. A few books still sat proudly on the mostly empty shelves. I ran my fingers across their leather backs.

“Oh?” 

Most of the bookshelf was covered in dust and spider webs, but one of the books stood out as pristinely well-kept. I ran my finger over the embroidered back, mouthing the runes aloud. 

“The Seamstress and the Swanmaker.” 

I sighed, and mumbled, “I suppose I’ve got nothing better to do.” 

With a slight pull the book came loose out of the bookshelf. A metallic clanking followed. The bookcase rumbled and clicked a centimetre to the side, revealing a small gap in the wall behind it. 

A hidden room. Enough to give an almost grown man butterflies. I swallowed, pushed the bookshelf to the side and glanced inside. It was pitch black. Not the type of dark that you could almost see in, but the type of dark that swallowed everything. A dark that resembled the one Sera used to clothe herself. A dark that felt like the one the outsider used to force is magic inside me. 

In the far end of the room, something resplendent enough to cut through the viscous dark, shone like a bright fire. I called to me, beckoned me.  

I stepped inside. 

Clatter

I jerked around, dark mist already forming Silent Scream in my hand. The only source of natural light faded as the bookshelf groaned itself shut. 

I used burst and threw myself at the gap. Too late. 

It locked itself shut with a click. I couldn’t even make out my hands pushing against the damned thing, trying to force it open. I dragged them against the rough wooden surface, feeling it for any hidden mechanisms. Anything that would make it open. 

My pulse accelerated. There were no buttons, no handles. Normally I didn’t mind the dark. But this wasn’t normally, and not just any dark.

Not even Sera’s pouting reflection stared back at me as I glanced down at the dagger. Nothing did. 

I slammed my fist against the wall. “Someone, help! I’m locked behind the fucking bookshelf!” I screamed.

I kept banging against the shelf until I realized that it did me no good. “Fucking thing,” I muttered and took three steps back. 

With a grunt I activated burst and slammed my body against the trap door, it groaned a little in response to the full brunt of my enhanced might, but remained shut. 

I clutched my shoulder and wheezed while pushing myself to my knees. The desperate attempt hurt me more than I hurt the fucking door. I bit my cheek. “Shit.” 

Skitter 

Something pressed against my hand. I recoiled back and stabbed at it with Silent Scream. 

“Squeak!” 

“Oh, shit!” I whimpered.

I knew that sound. That was the squeak of a rat. I grimaced. What the fuck was a rat doing here, where nothing but mindless freaks lived? What the hell did it eat to survive? And did it have food to spare that we could take some? 

I pushed myself to my feet and flicked the dagger. The rat sailed through the thick dark for a moment before a splat declared that it struck against a wall. 

I tucked my charred knife hand close to my body and reached out with the other. I couldn’t see my fingertips, but I could still feel them. Ever so slowly—step by step, I walked toward the resplendent light. The closer I got, the more apparent it became that the light was the reason for the dark. A complete contradiction. 

Skitter

“Give it a rest already!” I snarled aloud to calm myself. I wished Sera was here with me. Although, I suppose she always was. We just couldn’t speak without my reflection. I bet she laughed her ass off at me groping around in the dark, fighting a family of rats. 

I let go of the breath I’d been unconsciously holding as I felt something press against my leg. I kicked at it mercilessly and felt the weight of it shift back. It smashed against something solid and sent pieces of something clattering against the floor. 

“Big fucking rat,” I muttered and shook it off. 

Everything would be all right so long as I reached the shiny thing. And if it didn’t then I’d just have to blow the fucking bookshelf up with my wand. 

A cold wind blew through the room. My skin pocked and stood on end. I pursed my lips and knit my brows together. “I’m not afraid,” I told myself. 

The shiny object was less than an arm’s reach away, but I still couldn’t quite make out what it was. I reached out to it. 

Just as I was about to touch it, it folded in on itself, and disappeared. The viscous dark retreated and revealed the contents of the room bit by bit. 

I swallowed—hard. 

The room was long and narrow. A small stain of blood adorned the pink wallpapers to my right. And next to it, a broken shelf told the tale of how clumps of hair had come to lay scattered haphazardly on the floor—but not the why. 

I trembled, and closed my eyes. 

“Why does it have to be dolls?”