Chapter 85 - Deja vu

Mayry

Things weren’t looking good for Mayry. It had been two weeks since she had been taken.

Things had become hazy, but she remembered watching Mason leave town. She had been trying to sort out her feelings for him as she watched him go when, suddenly, a hand grabbed her shoulder, and an instant later, she was standing in what she recognised as Mason’s Inn Room. A sudden wave of dizziness hit her, and she felt herself start to slip into unconsciousness.

When she opened her eyes again, she found herself lying in a dimly lit room that resembled a prison cell. Apart from the bed she was on, the only other things in the room were a small table and a chair. The only way in or out was a large, thick wooden door.

She heard a man’s voice on the other side of the door. “We have no more use for you. Stay here and shut up.”

Mayry glared at him, feeling a mix of fear and anger. "Who are you?" she demanded.

He gave her a devilish smile and answered. "You can call me Aiden.”

With that, she heard him as he walked away. Mayry sat up, feeling trapped and helpless. She didn't know where she was or what Aiden was going to do with her, but despite that, somehow, she knew Mason would come for her. It was strange as she hadn’t known him that long, but she was absolutely certain he would come. A pulse of pain shot through her head, bringing with it an almost overwhelming sense of deja vu. Hadn’t this happened before?

***

She examined the room thoroughly, looking for anything she could use to escape. The lone window in the room was far too high for her to reach. The door wouldn’t budge an inch no matter what she did, and for whatever reason, her abilities still refused to work.

After checking every nook and cranny of the room, she sat on the bed and wondered what Mason was doing.

In the first few days of her capture, she was confident she wouldn’t be there long. She made several escape attempts, none of which were at all successful; in fact, each attempt was more disastrous than the last, but despite that, she still hadn’t given up hope.

By the end of the first week, the attempts stopped as she found herself lacking the energy, mentally and physically, to keep trying. All she could do was cling to the hope that Mason was coming to save her. By the time the second week started, she’d even given up on that.

In the first few days she’d been there, she had managed to pick up snippets of conversation between Aiden and another but never managed to glean much of what was said, only that they argued a lot, but that felt like it was forever ago.

The third week started, and mostly, she was just tired of it all. She was alone, exhausted, and just ready to be done. She had started seeing things just out of the corner of her eye. Every so often, a flicker in the air or a slight movement caught her attention. The first few times it had happened, it had given her something to focus on, but eventually, she just ignored them, pegging the occurrences as a symptom of her rapidly declining sanity.

She was lying on the bed, doing her best to zone everything out, when she heard the voice.

“If… hear me…. know nothing…. Seeing…. real! …kill the monster… you!” it was echoey and distorted but it was the first voice she had heard in weeks.It hadn’t been so long that she didn’t recognise the voice as Mason’s but she barely reacted. She knew he wasn’t coming for her. She had been naive to believe he would. Nobody was coming. She was going to rot away in this bed. “Just hold on!” the voice added. Unlike the rest of the rest of what the voice had said, the last few words came through crystal clear, as if the words were spoken into her soul. It was enough that a small portion of the parts of her that had slowly faded away during the long, empty days, woke up. Her analytical mind repeated the words, trying to figure out what they were trying to tell her.

The first part, “If… hear me…” she thought, was most likely meant to be “If you can hear me,” or “I don’t know if you can hear me.” The next bit was trickier: "Know nothing….” What could he have been trying to say? She strained her mind, trying to come up with something, but her newly awoken brain was just not up to the task. It was infuriating, as she usually prided herself on her intelligence.

For the briefest of moments, everything around her shifted. She wasn’t lying on a bed she was huddled in the corner of an empty room and was absolutely covered in demon fire. In a blink, she was back on the bed. It happened so fast that she could almost bring herself to believe she had imagined it, but with the hallucination having been broken once, memories started slowly clawing their way back into her head.

Mason had saved her when she’d been kidnapped; she’d only been there for two days, not nearly three weeks! Everything else came back, and she started to see the inconsistencies of the world around her. Despite not having been fed in weeks, she wasn’t hungry or thirsty. She hadn’t slept at all and couldn’t really say why she had thought she had spent weeks there.

It was all fake… the shack! She must still be in the shack; something really messed up had happened. Mason was on the outside, trying to fix it all.

“If you can hear me”, she muttered out loud, her voice hoarse, “Know nothing you’re seeing is real!” that made sense, or knowing Mason, the rest of it was probably, I’m just going to kill the monster, and then I’ll save you!” or something like that.

More and more, her mind was clearing. Just like that, she blinked, blinked again, and everything around her had changed. It was intensely disappointing that after what seemed like weeks of being in a small, dank room, she woke up to realise none of it was real, only to find that she really was in a small, dank room. The room she was in now wasn’t the same one, but still.

Disorientated and confused, it took her a few seconds to realise that she was currently in her full demon form and absolutely radiating demon fire. The walls, ceiling and floor all around her were black and melted away to such a degree that she was amazed that the house’s magic had been enough to keep the whole place from being completely destroyed. She was awake, and while she had regained all of her memories, she was still felt overwhelmed. She knew that, eventually, she would need time to process what had happened and try to accept that none of it wasn’t real, but right now, all she could think of was that she needed to find Mason. If she was going to have a breakdown, she knew she was going to need him with her.

This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

She shakily got to her feet, stumbling before finding her footing. Physically, she felt fine, but reliving a messed-up version of her capture had really screwed with her mentally. Her only goal now was to find Mason and get out of this nightmarish place. The moment she stepped out of the room, she knew finding him wouldn’t be difficult; the trail of destruction was impossible to miss.

She followed the wreckage through the narrow hallway, furniture and broken glass crunched under her feet. Her heart pounded as she pushed forward, her eyes scanning for any sign of Mason. The farther she went, the more the destruction intensified—walls scorched, deep gashes torn through the wood, as if something large had been repeatedly smashed into it.

She turned a corner and froze. Mason was there, leaning against the wall, breathing heavily. His shirt was torn and smeared with blood, though she couldn't tell if it belonged to him or whatever it was he had fought.

“Mason? Is that really you?” she whispered, her voice shaky.

He looked up, eyes filled with exhaustion, but there was relief in them, too. “Are you okay?” he said, his voice rough.

She took a second and considered lying, but when tears filled her eyes, all she could do was shake her head. Without another word, he rushed over and pulled her into a tight hug. She sobbed into his shoulder, trying to speak, to explain what had happened. Her words tumbled out between gasps, jumbled and hysterical. She wanted to tell him everything—the hallucination, the fear, how real it had all felt—but the more she tried, the more her sobs made her an incoherent mess.

Mason held her tighter, his hand gently running through her hair to calm her. "Shh, it’s okay. You don’t have to explain right now," he whispered, though the worry in his eyes was clear. He couldn’t understand her words, but he didn’t need to. He just held her and let her cry. Though he’d never admit it, there might have been a tear or two on Mason’s face as well.

****

Once they had both calmed down a bit, they started exchanging stories. Mayry told Mason about her hallucination, describing how vivid and terrifying it had been. Mason listened intently, his expression shifting from concern to understanding.

When it was Mason’s turn, he recounted the fight he’d had. "During the fight," he began, “One thing I couldn’t get out of my head… this place, my system said it was used for storage, but compared to where we found Aiden, there’s pretty much nothing here.”

Mayry nodded. "Yeah, I doubt the two Others outside would have been so desperate to get in if this is all there is. It feels like we’re missing something."

Mason frowned, thinking. “Exactly! I don’t know; maybe there’s a secret area hidden somewhere.”

“Yeah, maybe," Mayry said. "It would explain why this place is here in the middle of nowhere. I hope we find something… at least then everything that happened would be somewhat worth it.” Her eyes were unfocused, and her expression became grim before returning to normal. “We should definitely have a look around, but could we maybe stay together and search?”

He gave her a sympathetic look and replied. “Of course, We’ll search together. We’ll figure this out." He knew she had been through something horrible but he had no idea as to how to help her work through it. For now, he decided, he would act as if everything was normal, hoping that it would put her at ease. They stood for a moment, letting the silence settle between them.

Mayry looked around the room, her eyes narrowing as if she was already scanning the room, planning on where to start. "Let’s check the walls and floor first. Maybe there’s a hidden door or something."

“That is a great idea, but I actually want to try something that might save us some time if it works.” Mason raised both his arms and a flood of Mana left him; it had a consistency similar to water but was a deep blue and glowed as it started to pool in the room.

As it got closer to her, Mayry braced herself, expecting the odd liquid-like Mana to get her feet wet. Instead, it circled around her, leaving about a foot around her completely untouched.

“Err, what are you doing?” She asked, not wanting to interrupt but too intrigued not to ask.

With a look of intense concentration on his face, he explained. “My Mana kind of works like an extension of myself. I’m hoping if I push it out enough, I’ll be able to feel it if any of the Mana finds its way into a hidden space.” There was a long pause where the seemingly neverending amount of Mana poured out of him. “And… there!” pointing out of the room, he walked out, with Mayry following close behind. As she walked, The Mana on the floor moved out of the way of her feet. It amazed her that he had such great control over his ability so fast. When she had started learning her elemental abilities, it had taken years for her to gain even a fraction of the control he seemed to have.

They made a few turns until they stood just in front of the entrance. To her eyes, everything looked as it had before, but Mason knelt, inspecting the wooden floorboards intensely. All at once, the Mana that covered the floor surged, as if responding to his focus."Right here," Mason muttered, tapping on the floor. "There’s something under this spot."

Mayry knelt beside him, staring at the seemingly ordinary floorboards. "Are you sure?"

Mason nodded, his hand pressing down as if testing the weight of the boards. "I can feel it—there’s a space beneath.”

“Okay, great. Now we just need to figure out how to access it." She glanced around, scanning for any kind of latch or opening, but nothing stood out. "It’s probably hidden really well," she murmured, running her fingers over the wood, hoping to find some kind of secret mechanism. After a few moments of looking around, she turned back to see Mason giving her a look.

“No, c’mon. You can’t just smash everything the moment you can’t figure something out. There’s gotta be another way in." She glanced at the nearby walls, hoping she’d instantly spot the solution and be able to rub it in his face.

“Ugh, fine. We can do it the boring way if that’s what you want.” Mason said before getting up and joining her in her search. “first person to find it gets first dibs on any loot!”

Mayry smiled at him, the act feeling slightly foreign to her after everything that had happened. She shook off the strange feeling and replied, “You’re on!”

Together, they moved through the space, scanning the walls for any irregularities. Mayry's fingers traced the edges of the dusty wooden panels, feeling for any cracks or gaps that might give away a hidden door or switch. Mason’s focus was on the corners of the room, looking for any sign of a mechanism that might reveal an entrance.

Five minutes of searching passed when Mayry exclaimed, “Aha! I think I found it!” her hand brushing against a slightly raised section of wood just inside a half-collapsed fireplace. It was very subtle and would be very easy to write off as just a mistake.

Mason walked over and crouched next to her. “Let’s have a look then.” He pressed his hand against the raised spot, and after a moment of silence, there was a faint click.

Both of them froze as a hum reverberated around the room. Slowly, the floor beneath the area Mason had been looking at earlier sank and then slid away to reveal a small hatch. “ Would you like to do the honours, my dear?” Mason asked, gesturing at the wooden panel.

She reached out and pulled it open, and a rush of stale air hit her face. She wrinkled her nose at the smell before peering into the inky blackness below.

“Well, that’s ominous,” Mason said dryly. All they could see was a ladder that descended a few feet before being swallowed by darkness.

The sight of the ladder leading into the unknown sent a chill down her spine, but she quickly pushed the feeling away. "So, are we going in?” She asked.

“Well, duh” he replied. He looked at her and then back to the hole. “Ladies first?”