Book of Curses (The Renning Chronicles) (34 page)

Chapter 16

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We got there in a short amount of time actually. Ryu knew exactly where he was going, and what he was doing when he started to feel around on the stone wall that kept us from safety. In just a few seconds though he pushed something in, and the wall opened into a door that swung wide for us to all walk in. I felt a bit calmer knowing that we had some form of safety,
at least
for the moment we did.

"Hurry, it won't stay open long." Ryu said, ushering us inside. He was holding the door open for us and none of us gave it a second thought as we rushed in.

I could hear the others hurrying in behind me, and let out the breath that I'd been holding for a long time now. Ryu came in last, making sure the door was shut and then walked up to a wall of torch's, I was lucky I could see in the dark now, or else I would've lost my balance.

"We don't have any matches." Tom announced, and then cursed himself almost instantly.

"Don't need any." Ryu told him, looking at the torch's for a long moment. Then I saw a thin stream of fire slipping from between his lips, lighting each of the torch's that he was close enough to. Once he was done the room was lit enough for us to see the faces of one another, and that was good enough for me. 

"What now?" Nel asked no one in particular. 

"Now, we wait and hope for the best." I said to her, letting out a soft sigh.

"The best isn't something you can hope for now." I nearly jumped a foot into the air hearing the voice. I looked over into a corner we'd all ignored and squinted my eyes to get a good look at who was over there.

Fang stared at all of us with a vacant looking expression. Without missing a beat he leapt up and was next to me, standing up straight. He had a grimace pulled tightly across his face, and didn't plan on fixing it any time soon. "Though, I supposed we can try to hope."

Dolphus and Nickel came forward and I couldn't help it at that point. I latched onto Dolphus and Tom both, hugging them in the tightest death grips possible for a hug. Tom returned the hug, and once shock wore off Dolphus he carefully pushed hair back from my face, murmuring to me before hugging me back.

"It'll be alright sis... I have to do something." Tom muttered to me and backed away walking towards the other side of the room. I was left standing with Kai, Dolphus, Nickel and Fang. The others were scattered about the room trying to comfort each other and hang on. I knew everyone in here was safe,
at least
for now, and that was all that mattered. 

"We just want you protected right now, who knows what is going on out there." Ryu said to me, his head cocked to the side as if he was listening in on something. Then I heard something. It was so far away I couldn't pick up on it yet, but I heard something move. "It's here."

Kai stepped over towards me
quickly;
his dark eyes seemed to be pitch black now, as he looked around. He seemed scary for some reason, his black hair was everywhere, practically lifting off of his body,
and his
skin looked like it had a slight glow to it. His hand sat by his sword's sheath and tapped slowly at the hilt of the blade, ready to draw it and attack anything that came too close.

I could hear it almost perfectly then, it was worse than before.

Scratch.

There was something outside of our room, and it didn't sound right. It sounded undead, and ready to kill, but I had no clue what it was.

Groan…

It was starting to sound extremely weird now, it was too silent outside, too eerie, but I could hear that thing almost perfectly. It was making me think of a Zombie, and if they existed we were screwed without a gun.

Scratch. Scratch. Scratch.

Then I heard a yell proceeded by the loudest thud I'd ever heard. My eyes grew three times their normal size as I stared towards the door of the room. I watched to see what was going to happen, and when the scratching passed us by I wanted to fall to my knees and start crying like a little child. It'd passed us, which meant for now we were okay.

"What was
that
?" I stuck with that, instead of what I really wanted to shout. I was stared at by each of them for a long moment without a response, and I was starting to get creeped out by it.

"That, was what we have to make sure doesn't come near you." Kai said to me, in a harsh whisper. I just stared up at him and it dawned on me that, that really could've been one of Maldre's zombies… the ones that don't die no matter what.

I stared over at the door and then heard something that was even worse. It sounded like breaking glass, then iron being ripped from
its
hinge's. My eyes began to widen once again, and I sat up as straight as I possibly could. "Guys..." I whispered out loud to them, actually pressing back into Fang for help.

Dolphus then put one of his hands
on
my
shoulder;
I gripped the wrist on his other hand for dear life. That was no monster, no God, Demon, anything like that it was something else completely. It was something disgusting, and something that sounded as if it could kill every one of us in here, especially with the way they were all acting.

It was what was here to separate everyone's lives, and send us where we were all doomed to go. For some of us that just meant our deaths, for others that meant a new world, with new worries and new problems… Or the place we grew up. It was how we were being sent back to my home, one way or another.

I could feel the room we were in beginning to shake harshly, like we were in the midst of
an
earthquake. The ripping and breaking sounds that I heard
further
up the hall were growing louder and louder, until it almost sounded like a horrible windstorm surfacing outside of our little safety zone.

It was only a moment before the door to the room was ripped off of
its
hinge's, and pulled into what looked like a dark, purplish whirlwind in front of me. In front of all of us. I could feel the panic that spread like wildfire in the room, and my grip on Dolphus tightened more and more until I could feel my nails pressing into his flesh.

There were shards of glass and
bits
of things flying around within it, even what looked like the left
overs
of a bedroom, and other things. The walls in the room started to crack from the sheer force of it, and I could see stone and wood breaking off and sliding into it and disappearing. That was when I realized we were sliding forward across the room. 

"It's ok Raine; you'll be fine, just hold onto me and close your eyes. You'll be home soon." Dolphus murmured to me, I could feel his breath against my ear and I turned around facing him and held onto him with a death grip. Kai and Fang moved in closer to me for a moment, and then Kerli and Nel, the rest of them were standing behind the others.  Everyone. "It's ok."

I started shaking my head back and
forth
, and I could feel myself being pulled backwards now. I lifted my head and met the eyes of my twin brother, just staring at him for a long moment. He seemed more terrified than I'd ever seen him before, and worried. But, in the end he just nodded his head at me slowly and tried to slide in closer to where I was.

"Go!" I saw him mouth towards me, and then he moved in towards Kerli's ear and whispered something to her. I squeezed my eyes shut as tight as possible, forcing back the tears of pure fear that threatened to leak out. I could feel myself being tugged more and more, and wanted to scream.

Fang grabbed hold of my hand, slowly sliding something into it. Before I could look at him he was moving back away from me once more. His eyes were completely focused on the portal that was growing bigger behind me. I clasped my fingers around the object tightly, holding onto it. Dolphus looked down at me, and then I felt his grip on me starting to loosen slowly.

I started to yell at him, moving my hand to grab onto him only to have him find a way to push me away again, and get me farther away from him. When he was finally satisfied with how far away I was from him, he let go of me as fast as he could. My eyes grew in size and I just stared at him for a moment.

My screams started almost immediately. I didn't want him to do that, and I didn't want to be separated from any of them. I was pulled back with more force than my small body could fight against, and before I could yell for help I was pulled off of the floor beneath my feet.

Suddenly I was spun around, and I saw that everyone had already
begun
to seem farther and farther away when I tried to look back at them. Squeezing my eyes shut seemed like the smart thing to do now. So that was what I did, I squeezed them shut and hoped for the best in this situation, and tried to keep my mind as clear as possible.

When I let my eyes open again though I let out a loud shriek, a large piece of glass came flying at me and narrowly missed my face. I was moving faster and farther through the portal. Dodging so many different things. I saw jewels fly past me and burst into shards as they hit something, a table smacked me in the back roughly a few moments later, clothing flew past me, and even weapons.

I had to keep looking ahead to where I was going, even though I didn't want to, but I didn't want to die either, so I tried to focus. Then I realized it was thinning out, there was a small area that seemed to no longer be dark, but a white color and it was growing brighter and brighter before it completely opened at the end.

I was launched towards it, throwing my arms up I tried to shield myself against anything that came my way. I squeezed my eyes shut once more, taking in a deep breath and was ready for the worst.

*
**
**

I had hit something sturdy and hard. Opening my eyes I was blinded by the light that was streaming in from somewhere for a moment. Then I saw the blurry form of someone standing over me, just standing there, not moving. I couldn't get my eyes to focus for a few seconds, and could only stare.

"Raine? Can you hear me?" The voice echoed around me. I saw
at least
four of
whoever
the person was, and after that I couldn't even move my body. It took me about ten minutes before I could even register who the voice belonged to, and wheezed out a quick and simple name. Smiling to myself when I actually heard it out loud too. 

"Christie?"

Almost as soon as I got it out though, everything around me started to grow black, and I was swallowed by one of my own dreams. I was becoming so used to this that it was like having a friend come over and visit. Well I mean that was if your friend was an extremely sexy God, and intruded into your dreams on a near daily basis. Then yes, it'd be exactly like having a friend come over.

"Aerbael?" I called
out;
I already knew that's who it was. I spun around in a giant circle taking in where I was now. It was the room we were all in before I was thrown into the portal, and taken back to my home. Somehow, I dreamed myself into this place of all things, and I couldn't begin to understand why I would do that.