♠️ Exceptis Centrum ♠️ ✔︎

Chapter 2

It was all interesting to look at but the question still remained; where the hell was he? Also how did he get here?

“Please tell me that this is a practical joke,” he murmured to himself, rubbing his eyes for the twelfth time to make certain his mind wasn’t playing tricks on him.

With his mind now fully awake, or as fully awake as he thought, the odd noise that had disturbed him was still present. As he focused in on it he discovered that the sound was... crying?

He looked around and soon noticed an archway that led to another room, a flickering light coming from the chamber beyond and also where the noise was coming from. The hairs on the back of his neck began to stand on end as thoughts of ghosts and spirits began to flood his mind once again. Was he being haunted? Was this what this whole thing was? First the weird voices in the garden and now waking up in a different room with something emitting an eerie crying sound from another room.

“Why me?” he stammered, wanting to curl back into the bed and go back to sleep, hoping that he’d wake up back in his room.

Maybe it was a dream? A nightmare? Everything felt real, too real, for it to be a dream. Whatever it was, he wanted it to end. He tried squeezing his eyes shut and counting to ten like he did back in the garden, but after reopening his eyes he found that it didn’t work.

“Dammit,” he hissed.

He looked back at the archway and although he wanted to stay exactly where he was, something was telling him to go and find out who was crying. Maybe it was his heroic nature to help anyone in need that convinced his body to force itself off the bed.

He crept towards the archway, convincing himself over and over that it wasn’t a ghost or an angry spirit, it was just someone who was hurt or lost or something, something that wasn’t a ghost. His heart thumped hard within his chest, his fists clenched so hard his knuckles turned white, and he was fairly certain he was sweating.

He soon found himself in another small room only this one was more of a lounge, with velvet couches, a coffee table and more bookshelves filled with books. The flickering light was coming from a modest fireplace with a roaring fire.

It was another nice room but something had caught Alfred’s eyes that made him freeze in place.

Someone or something was sitting right in front of the fire, completely hunched over and trembling. The crying sounds were coming from it so that solved that mystery, but who or what was it? Alfred couldn’t quite make it out as the fire made it look like a silhouette from where he was standing, so he had no choice but to step closer.

He swallowed the lump in his throat as he moved closer and closer, trying his hardest not to make a sound. The closer he got the more he could make out. It was a person (thank God) who was hugging himself with his face buried in his arms, sniffling and sobbing for whatever reason. Alfred began to debate with himself whether to call out to the person or not.

It was until he was standing almost right behind them that the person suddenly sat up, his sobbing now ceased. The room was now silent with the exception of the crackling fire. Alfred froze and wasn’t sure what to do or say, he couldn’t even get his mouth to open.

The person sat completely still for a moment. Before Alfred could even try to say something, the person’s head looked over it’s shoulder, it’s eyes locking onto Alfred. Alfred stared into a pair of teary eyes that were as green as emeralds with insanely thick eyebrows right above them, it’s messy hair almost hiding them from sight.

The expression it was making, with the light of the fire upon it’s face, was so terrifying Alfred finally let out a cry of fear and jumped back.

The person also cried out in terror, dragging their body away from Alfred and reaching for the poker by the fireplace. “Who the bloody hell are you!?” it barked, standing up and raising the poker in a defensive pose. “Don’t you dare try anything!”