November 3

“Eh… I… What… Is…” The words just wouldn’t appear as if someone had stuck a steel rod into my windpipe. It hurt to speak.

My heart beat was louder than the atmosphere in the chamber and seemed to cut through it like a knife through butter. I can even hear my now nervous sweat bouncing off the marble floor as the silence started to overpower me.

The feeling felt all too familiar. Silence and suspense.

After truly taking in the sight before me, I managed to place my dagger back by my side in its rightful place.

“Denny…” The word kept ringing in my ears if on a record with a scratch, it continued.

“Denny…”

“Denny…”

I wanted to answer but I still couldn’t. I then felt a tug on the right side of my pant. I felt it, weakly but able enough to draw my attention.

“Denny… Is… that you?” I looked down to see one of the guards who came to get me before from the inn, lying on the ground with half of his body ripped to shreds.

His legs were hanging by two tendons in each. Both of his arms were against the rear wall, drenched in blood.

“Denny… Save Elsa. Save… them… from… ourselves.” The blood drained from his body enough to stop his cluttered words.

He then proceeded to look directly at a cylindrical object in close proximity to us. It was about the width of a pen. Maybe he wants me to get it for him.

I went along with it and grabbed the object. It was covered in splatters of already dried dark red pigment. He looked intensely at my movements and suggested that I place it in his now wide open mouth.

He started to use the pen-like object to write what seem to be instructions on the ground, or rather, locations?

He started to write, “Kyo…ko… Safe. Top… Floor, Second… Room. Elsa… Escaped… Lake. Julac… With… Kyo. Our… Own… Did… This. Save… them.”

He stopped writing and two seconds after collapsed, his body was stone cold. I put my fingers on his face and shut his eyelids closed.

“Rest in peace, my fellow warrior,” is what I would have liked to say but I was already out the door of the main chamber and headed for the stairs. More horror followed as scattered wounded or dead bodies lined the halls.

Who would do such horrible things?

“Kyo?!? Kyo?!? Are you all right?” I rounded the nearby doorway to see the number for the room the guard wrote on the wall next to a broken door, barely on its hinges. If it still was.

I heard very shallow breathing amidst my own, almost pained groans coming from inside.

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

Oh, please be all right. Please be fine.

“Kyo…?” My voice trailed off into the grim distance, almost uncertain of its location. But the groans faded out as I turned the corner into the room Kyoko should be.

As instinct took hold, I threw my hand onto my dagger’s handle.

“Den… Denny… They… They’re d…” I disregarded the rest of the room and ran towards Kyoko, putting my arms around her as she started to cry, gripping my back, almost drawing blood.

“Denny… Denny… He… Julac…” She started to grip even harder.

It doesn’t matter how I feel right now. She must be hurting ten times worse. Believe me; I have been shaking ever since I stepped into this death trap of a manor.

I took a quick look around the room, just to be sent into a trance as to not show my terror to Kyoko. Have you ever seen a person, mutilated like nothing? Now I can say I have. Just… nothing can prepare you.

While Kyoko was crying hysterically on my shoulder, the only words that I could say were, “It will be alright,” “We will get through it,” “He felt you were worth giving his life for.”

The next phrase must have hit her enough to bring her back down to reality.

“Everyone in this place gave up their life to protect you, Julac, and Elsa. There is a great chance that Elsa is still out there. Do you really want to sit here and do nothing?” I grabbed her shuttering shoulders with my hands that were shaking more than she was. I did not intend to say it the way that I did but I guess it was the right way to.

She shook her head and as quickly as I let go, she shot up and ran out of the door.

“Damn, going without me. I guess you are the leader now. Not like you weren’t to begin with.”

I walked over to Julac’s dead body, closed his eyes, and put my hand on his chest.

“Rest in peace, my friend. I wish you could have come with us but sadly, life had another plan for you.”

My eyes closed to the now dark town as if a field of haze road across the blue expanse of the sky. But sadly, there was no such field, no burden on the sun. Actually…

“Wait… where is the sun? It can’t be night; it’s ten in the morning. Today, or tonight should I say, is just getting worse and worse.” I began to stare up at the sky with full intent of finding out why.

It didn’t truly matter if I try to find out why now. All that matters is that I have to reach Kyo before anything bad happens to her.

With how things have been going, it only makes me worry more.