The door swung open, and Leo and Clarisa stepped in to see a huge mess of scattered toys. Kathryn stood in the midst of them with cuts and bruises all over her body.
“The toys attacked me!” she exclaimed even to her own disbelief.
“You fought them off?” Clarisa surveyed the floor.
“Yeah, I mean although they hurt, they weren't that scary,” she admitted. “I just freaked out when I couldn't teleport.”
Leo kicked the toys around with his shoes. “We can't either. It's the Darkness’ new trick.”
“I don't think we should split up anymore,” Kathryn said warily, and the other two agreed. They left the room to search the rest of the floor together.
“What I don't understand is what form the Darkness has taken, or what emotion it represents,” Kathryn voiced. “Like, what happened here that can explain toys coming alive?”
“I suppose it doesn't require a form anymore,” Clarisa hypothesised. “It takes whatever form it needs to attack us.”
“Is that it's goal now? To attack us?”
“Recently,” Leo answered cryptically. About a dozen more questions popped up in Kathryn's mind, and before she could decide which to ask next, a muffled female voice called from upstairs,
“Help me!”
Leo and Clarisa turned to each other in shock. “That sounds just like…” Clarisa began, and Leo dashed up the spiral staircase while reaching for his gun. She and Kathryn hurried after him, and standing on the fourth floor was a girl about twenty years old, with dark hair and wearing a red dress.
“Antonna?” Clarisa uttered.
“It's her,” Leo said, not hesitating to keep his aim on their deceased colleague. “She's that girl who tried to strangle me.”
The girl stepped forward and addressed Clarisa in a shaky voice, “What's going on?”
Clarisa backed away from the staircase. “You're not Antonna,” she said.
“What?” she exclaimed. “What are you talking about?”
Clarisa turned to Kathryn, who was watching the girl in confusion.
“Keep moving. Follow me.”
She led Kathryn down the castle corridors, and the impersonation of Antonna followed them wherever they went. Leo, armed with his gun, followed behind her.
“Why are all of you ignoring me?” she accused. “I'm your friend!”
“A dead friend,” Leo said grimly. “Leave us or I'll shoot you.”
“I don't understand what you're-”
Leo did as he promised on her left knee. The bullet had no effect on her mobility, and in retaliation, she lunged at Leo and sank her teeth into his neck. He fell backwards and thrust her to the side, but she kept coming at him. Clarisa saw that his neck was bleeding and attempted to pull the girl away. After several vigorous tugs, the girl finally let go of Leo and cornered her.
“You failed to save me, Clarisa,” she said in a quivering voice. “Didn't you?”
“Yes, I did,” Clarisa responded, and the girl moved towards her in quick, big steps.
“Your guilt,” the girl said. “I can feel your guilt.”
“Past guilt,” Clarisa corrected as she backed away, but the girl continued to advance on her.
“There's still some of it left,” the girl insisted. “I can feel it.”
Clarisa wasn't completely sure if the girl was wrong. So she admitted it.
“Guilt that I will move on from.”
The girl’s face twitched angrily and she pounced on her. The top of Clarisa's head slammed hard against a door and she lost consciousness upon impact. The door opened into a burning room; it was completely engulfed in black flames, which roared towards them now that it had found a new source of oxygen. The girl dragged Clarisa along the floor by her clothes and through the fire. They settled in the farthest corner of the room, right next to a blazing curtain. Unseen to anyone, the girl climbed on top of Clarisa's body and began to lick her face with her tongue.
Kathryn watched the scene play out in horror. She rushed over to Leo, who was sitting there dazedly on the floor. The whites of his eyes had turned a deep black, and he was mumbling sentences only audible to himself.
“Leo!” she cried. “Clarisa's in danger! What is wrong you?”
Leo ignored her and continued to act as if he was put in a trance. The Darkness had managed to enter his body through the bite in his neck and had taken possession of him. He was not going to be of any help. Kathryn stood outside the door of the burning room and tried to peer through, but the heat was unbearable. She retreated and looked back at Leo. No sign at all of him returning to normal. She panicked as she thought about Clarisa lying in the room, either getting burned alive, suffocating from the smoke or tortured by the girl who called herself Antonna. There was only one person who could save her now, and it took all of her bravery to accept it.
Thinking furiously, Kathryn ran to the nearby bathroom, yanked the shower head from its support, turned the tap open and soaked herself in cold water. She also wet a towel and wrapped it around her head and face. She ran back to the burning room and charged boldly into the inferno. The wet clothes helped, but she could already feel the heat stroking her exposed skin. Blisters began to form on her hands and legs, but she told herself that it was merely an illusion created by the Darkness, and that she had to find Clarisa fast. She couldn’t fail her now, and certainly couldn't let her die because of a few blisters.
Her vision blurred, she thought probably because of the smoke making her eyes water, and it made the process ten times harder. She challenged the searing heat and the hungry black flames in order to keep looking, and finally found someone, crouched against a wall. It was not Clarisa, it was not the girl, it was not a woman. She could not see him too clearly, but from the tall build and the set of round shoulders she could make out who he was.
Her father.
“Clarisa’s not here,” said the smooth, cold voice that she had tried for so many years to forget. “I threw her out the window. I killed her. If only you knew who's next.”
That was the last straw. Kathryn realised that her lungs were saturated with smoke and it was why she couldn’t gasp in shock. Her consciousness fading, she collapsed on her knees, but then her clothes took fire. The sudden surge of adrenaline gave her the strength she needed to sprint out of the room. She made it across the threshold and rolled on the floor to extinguish her burning clothes, all the way to where Leo was sitting.
“Leo!” she coughed. “Please help!”
When Leo failed to respond, she screamed as loudly as her failing lungs allowed her,
“LEO YOU ARE INCREDIBLY HOT BUT CLARISA IS GETTING BURNED ALIVE!”
* * *
He was on the bright road again, this time clearer and brighter than before. He was not in a car, but on his feet, and he could feel the cool evening breeze against his face and hear the birds chirping merrily. In the distance he saw the lady- his mother- running in the opposite direction. He chased after her, but his movements were in slow-motion. She was way ahead of him, only a tiny speck to his eyes now and too far to catch up with. The acid build-up in his muscles impeded him further and the chase seemed to have no end. At last, he decided to give up and stop in his tracks. As the final opposing force of friction acted on the soles of his shoes, the surroundings changed, and he found himself standing in his old house.
The one his parents still lived in.
He knew it like the back of his hand. He walked into the living room, where his two elder brothers were talking. They wore suits and ties much like his own, and carried plates of food and drinks in their hands. They stared up and him in derision as he entered.
“Hey, little guy!” his eldest brother, Matt, greeted him. “I almost didn't see you there. Want a drink?”
He held out a champagne bottle to him. Leo reached for it, and his fingers were about to touch it when Matt let go of the bottle. It smashed into shards on the floor and champagne spilled everywhere.
“Bet you're still underage,” he sniggered and sank his teeth into a juicy chicken leg. As Leo regarded his behaviour in confusion, his second brother, Dex, piped up,
“We just got our bonuses. Mom’s been asking us to visit this whole year, so we decided to throw a party. Matt and I ordered plenty of refreshments. I'm sorry we forgot to invite you. What have you been up to?”
Leo looked at him blankly. How was he supposed to explain Francis’ organisation to him?
“I do some kind of... maintenance work,” he answered vaguely.
“Interesting,” Dex said with his mouth full of sandwich. “Pay well?”
“Hey!”
Leo turned around to see his father standing at the foot of the stairs, holding stacks of pizza boxes in his hands. He stared hostilely at Leo and wore a frown under his mustache.
“Who are you?”
Leo felt the world stand still. As he struggled to give a response, Matt answered for him,
“Don't you remember, Dad? It's Leo the wanna-be lion.”
His father continued to gaze at him with unfamiliarity, and something compelled his feet to go past him and up the stairs. He ascended them slowly, and he could see the flickering brightness of the master bedroom caused by the television. He stepped in, and there was his mother, sitting comfortably in bed with pillows and pyjamas, watching her favourite comedy show.
“Mom,” he began, but she did not give the slightest response to him. She did not appear to be ignoring him; it was more likely that she could not hear or see him.
“Mom!” he stood in front of the television to capture her attention, but she continued to watch it, as if nothing was blocking her view. She burst into laughter as a funny scene played out on the screen. Leo could recognise that contagious laughter anywhere. He waved his hands and clapped them several times, but to no avail.
He was incorporeal.
Invisible.
Deeply hurt and confused, Leo exited the master bedroom and descended the stairs to the living room. As Matt threw french fries at him, he looked around the house with the unshakable feeling that it all wasn't real.
“Leo! Dad wants to know your last name!”
Leo ignored him and tried to remember where he really was. If none of this was real, it was either a dream, his imagination, or a hallucination. He recalled that it wasn't his first time experiencing it, and it had to be conjured by the Darkness. The assignment came back to him in flashes- the castle, Clarisa, Kathryn, and the girl who bit him on the neck. He made a sudden jerk as the memory of the pain stung him lucid.
“Kathryn!” he called to the ceiling. “Kathryn are you still there?”
“Who's Kathryn?” said Dex.
“Kathryn, I need you to shoot me!” he cried desperately. “It's the only way to wake me up!”
“What in the world are you talking about?” his father poked him on the shoulder. Leo dove past him and through the front door. He was back on the bright road where he first came from, and he continued to shout at the heavens,
“Kathryn!”
* * *
Through the sound of her own coughing she heard a voice in her head. It was Leo's voice, instructing her to shoot him. It had to be in her head; his lips were not moving and his eyes were still as black as they had been. Kathryn turned, and within reach was Leo's pistol. Shoot him? How could she? But his instructions were reasonable- shoot him to wake him up. After all, he was as good as dead in the trance-like state he was currently in. As she groped for the pistol, more questions swam to mind. How do I use a gun? Where do I shoot him? She remembered seeing pistols in movies and they all pulled the slide on top first. With whatever strength she had left, she did so before pointing the gun at Leo. Would shooting at his arm wake him up? Since he did not specify where, the location probably did not matter. Her mind was fading again, she had to do this quick. She squeezed the trigger, but her aiming declined as she surrendered to unconsciousness. Leo was shot in the lower torso and the pistol clattered to the floor. He gasped awake, and his eyes returned to their customary grey colour. Rapidly, his human as well as superhuman senses took in information; he was still in the castle, blood was welling through his shirt, his ribs hurt with every breath he took, Kathryn was injured and now unconscious, and Clarisa was still trapped in the burning room. Without bothering to give himself any protection, he staggered straight into the hellfire. He could not see anything besides smoke and could not feel anything besides the unbearable pain in his lungs and ribs. Just keep moving, he repeated like a mantra, and he braved through the flames stubbornly until he came across a body. He felt it with his hands- long, soft hair and thin, delicate arm- Clarisa. He tried to carry her, but couldn't even stand up on his feet. So he pulled, pushed, kicked, dragged, exerted any type of force he could with any part of his body to get her across the floor. Once they were out in breathable air, he looked down to see that Clarisa’s scorched face was damaged beyond repair, and that he had lost too much blood to supply his brain with oxygen any longer. As he stumbled to the floor, his last conscious thought was to hope that they had passed the Darkness’ test.
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