Dark Requiem [malexmale]

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fourteen

I dreamt that night.

It was strange for two reasons. One being that I hadn't slept in months on my own. The only rest I'd gotten was when I'd been knocked unconscious after the UP meeting. The second reason for its oddity was the dreamt itself.

I was standing in a courtyard of what appeared to be a lavish castle. The towers rose high into the sky, disappeared through the thin wispy clouds. The stones were polished to a shine, brand new, beautiful, clean, and the deepest shade of black I'd ever seen. It was a sharp contrast to the snow that fell in a thin crispy layer to the ground that was full of dead and blackened grass.

Eerie statues stood in the courtyard, nothing like the statues I'd seen everywhere else. These ones were frozen in positions of agony and pain. A few were hunched over, weeping into their palms; some were draped over benches, expressions etched with pain. They were randomly placed throughout the garden, much like the naked trees that seemed to shiver in the cold air.

My breath left in clouds and the warmth I'd felt earlier was gone. Replaced with frigid icy air that burned my lungs, stung my sensitive fingertips and toes. I looked around, shuddering as a cold breeze swept through the courtyard, sending snow dancing across the white ice. Snowflakes twirled across the courtyard toward a pair of pointed tall doors with glowing blue handles.

Confused, I started toward the doors, eyeing the statues warily. Something about them felt wrong. They were strangely in perfect condition, smooth and shiny like marble, but they were black instead of gray. They glinted in the soft white lights that lined the outside of the courtyard like a strip of holiday lights. I paused, frowning at one statue in particular that seemed to be in the throes of agony. His head was thrown back, his mouth open in a silent scream, his arms crushed to his chest by an invisible force. He seemed so familiar, and yet it was hard to tell with that distorted face.

My eyes lingered longer.

I knew him... I felt him, I realized suddenly. Just below the surface of that shiny black marble, I saw something flicker, almost like a candle preparing to go out; the flame no longer orange, but rather a soft blue. It was a split second where I saw it, recognized the soul that was inside, then my eyes shot back up to his face.

Where did I know him from? Whose soul was in there?

I wanted to stay, to figure out who this was, who all of these statues were, but I felt oddly compelled to leave. And it was more than just an urge in my legs, because I could hear the faint sound of music. I frowned, turning back to the doors. I approached them, placing a hand on the handle and I shuddered as an icy chill crept up my arm, like cold fingers teasing my skin and rising up to my neck. I shook the sensation off and opened the doors, stepping inside a beautiful elegant hallway. It was nothing like the outside of the castle, medieval and gothic. It was modern with arched panels, a black and brown color combination with modern art pieces hanging on the walls. Chandeliers made to look like icicles lit the halls, tinkled from the bass in the music that shook the castle.

Frowning, I made my way down the hallway, listening to the sound of someone playing a piano, the sound beautiful and yet somehow diabolical. I followed the sound, walking down the hallway, my bare feet cold on the black and white marbled floor. The sound led me down the long hallway and around the corner toward a foyer with a tall ceiling with black beams running across it, hoisting up a massive chandelier that looked like a thousand swords strung together and draped in white lights. Two staircases slid up from the floor to the second floor where a balcony jutted out and a piano was blocking the view of whoever sat there. I frowned curiously.

Something felt familiar here...

The piano music picked up into something more playful, teasing, perhaps downright mocking and a soft voice began to sing, making me go still.