~Chapter 7~
After breakfast, Mirella took me outside the walls of the manor to see the grounds around the mansion for the first time since arriving here, which was three days and nights ago according to her. She was right of course, breakfast was the best thing for me; nothing like a good breakfast after an untimely death and three days of unconsciousness to get you back on your feet.We ran through the mansion, soaring from room to room as if flipping through postcards.
"This way!" She says as we approached a seemingly endless corridor, which was different from the rest of the posh mansion interior. Its walls were made of solid marble with countless dark wood doors bearing silver knockers and handles, along both sides of the infinite hallway. Unlike the rest of the manor, the corridor's floors were tiled in a checkered pattern with pearl and obsidian tiles laid down like a giant endless chessboard.
"Come take a look at this!" She screamed with excitement in her voice.
"We call it 'The Endless Turn.' The doors lead to many places. Fantastic and magical places all throughout Neverrealm. And beyond. Although traveling this way can be very dangerous. Erik forbade it without, and I quote, 'Adult supervision'…Alright, come on then. Let's go in."
"This is madness!" I yelled out loud. "What is this Neverrealm you speak of, and who in the bloody hell is Erik?"
Mirella giggled as she watched me sweat profusely from the exhaustion of running up and down the manor.
"Neverrealm is all around us." She proclaimed. "It is the air we breathe and the very ground we trod on. As for Erik, well, he is the man who owns everything in this mansion, and on the grounds outside. So, he should be the one to fill you in on all the details really.
Nervously, I looked at Mirella and then turned to the ominous corridor. After letting out a deep sigh I turned back to her and in a calm voice, I asked.
"So, this Erik owns everything here? Does he own this whole mansion and the grounds outside? The very man in that giant painting out there, who told you that we are to stay in our rooms with exception to the kitchen, thank the gods; and the privy, until his return, yes?"
"Yup!" She quickly answered.
"Excellent!" I said to her. "Might I advise that you not go against the rules of this establishment's Lord."
Mirella took a few steps towards me and held out her hand.
"The way I see it Beuren. If the children follow the adult's rules and go back to their boring rooms, then there won't be much of a book, will there?" She proudly preached as she took my hand and pulled me towards the entrance of the corridor.
I shrugged my shoulders.
"Oh, well when you say it like that…" I playfully said to her.
Mirella turned and faced me, before putting her hands on my shoulders. With caution and worry in her voice, she warned me of the dangers ahead.
"Just remember, never under any circumstances are you to look back once we've entered this corridor. No matter what you hear. No matter what you see. Do not look back and only move forward."
Anxious and now lightly trembling at the spine-chilling warning she had just given me, I hesitantly asked.
"Wh, what would happen if one were to...look back?"
"Well. One would find themselves at the mercy of the Dark Bride. An ancient tortured soul who's said to have been sacrificed by her hateful husband on her own wedding night. You see, he wanted to live forever, but his ambition outweighed his skills; Corvin The Coward they dubbed him. He died during the ritual and his wife's soul was trapped here forever. Forever in rage, eternally reliving the pain of that night, the sorrow of it all. In there, she is everywhere and nowhere. In there, she rules…It's ironic more than anything else really." She narrated while casually looking down at her feet and keeping them in line with the tiles.
Or else she'd die, she'd said when I inquired on what it is she was doing and why. At this point I didn't know whether to join her in the timid passive fun or to believe her and take it she's being literal in which case I would have gladly walked normally.
As Mirella spoke, a sudden and quite violent gust of wind accompanied by a painfully angry wail escaped the corridor and entered the circular ballroom that we stood in, extinguishing the braziers that burned along the walls and illuminated the room. Plunging us into pitch blackness.
My body froze as the room's temperature dropped so low that I could see my breath freeze as I breathed out. The menacing voice began to echo indistinctively through the room while frost and ice crept onto the several sets of solid silver knight's armor that stood along the ballroom walls forever grasping their greatswords until they were completely covered in glistening, misty ice.
We stood there in the darkness for a short while until I felt Mirella's hands take mine. They felt like warm pancakes amidst the chill of the darkness that surrounded us as she cupped mine in hers and held them between us before whispering to me.
"Do not move." She whispered.
"Ri, right you are. No problem." I replied as I swallowed air with a slight gulp.
There was a long pause as we stood in the dark with our hands joined. The wailing voice abruptly seized its cries and left the darkness as quiet as a crypt with only Mirella's murmurs lingering in the air, along with the clinking and crackling of ice as it covered all of the steel in the room. Although I could not see her in the pitch blackness despite being as close as we were, I could definitely feel her for she gave off heat like a bonfire fire in the icy wilds.
As suddenly as the voices left us, Mirella's eyes snapped open like dim headlights. Her eyes, no longer like oceans of icing sapphire water, were now bright amber, like two scorching suns lighting up the small area around us. No different than the light of fireflies.
I gulped once more with my eyes as wide as saucers, stumbling my words as I tried to speak.
"Oh. Cri, crikey." I said with a breaking voice.
Before my very eyes, while stuttering and all, Mirella's hair spontaneously combusted and caught fire, burning as if flames of gold, amber, and blue were engulfing strands of indestructible scarlet silk.
I watched as her hair burned and her eyes like stars seemingly seeing right through me without blinking the entire time. Her murmuring stopped as suddenly as she caught fire before she looked upwards towards the ancient oil paintings that brought life to the ballroom ceiling. Instantaneously, the now frost-covered braziers that once illuminated the ballroom burst into flames of deep blue, drowning the room in a tanzanite light, making it look as if we were now at the bottom of the sea. They burned blue until turning back to their normal amber flames shortly after.
I looked around and saw the ballroom as it was when we first ran into it; the ice had melted from the sets of silver armor which were now capturing and reflecting the light of the golden flames that hung on the walls around them; the three grand crystal chandeliers that hung above the ballroom no longer had icicles like spearheads hanging from them. The thousands of crystal pieces on the chandeliers absorbed the light like sponges and beamed it out onto the ballroom floor like stars on the darkest of nights, as the chilling mist that filled the room, slowly but surely began to clear up; everything once again calming and quieting down. The flames on Mirella's hair slowly died as the amber fires in her eyes were extinguished and turned back to the color of a sunny afternoon sky being viewed through a diamond lens.
"This is completely mental!" I screamed at her as she stared at me blankly with eyes slowly shutting themselves.
Mirella fell forward into my arms having fainted from exhaustion, and merely touching her skin was barely bearable as smoke rose from her pores.
"Whoa, talk about a hot mess," I said to myself as I cradled her steaming head in my arms. Unable to fight the urge, I slowly ran my thumb along her cheek, concerned with whether she was harmed but also amazed and a tad terrified at what had just happened.
"Okay, come on Mirella wake up. Come on witch girl, you're alright. You're just fine, I'm only losing my mind. Come on wake up…Please." I pleaded with her still body, hoping it was not lifeless.
Although her skin was warming the entire ballroom like a giant fireplace, it remained as pale as milk and as smooth as petunia petals; the only sign of there ever being a fire, being the smoke rising from the surface of her skin like steam from sauna stones.
"Hey! No, no, no, wake up...Wake up!" I shouted.
Mirella's eyes snapped open and her body rose from my arms as if pulled up by invisible rope. Her body shortly levitated not too far off the ground before being gently lowered feet first back onto the marble floors.
"Bloody hell! I don't know how much more of this I can take," I said as I bent over and grabbed my knees while breathing deeply as if I had been running a marathon.
Mirella took a few steps towards me and swung her hand at my head, slapping me across the face as I rushed in to hug her, relieved that she was unharmed. The impact between my face and her palm resonated through the ballroom and hallways of the old manor, as the voice of the Dark Bride did not too long ago.
"Wh, why!?" I asked with shock and visible stinging pain on my face.
"Hot mess! Is that what I am? Call me a hot mess will you. You must have lost your mind." She said as she turned and stormed off back towards the entrance of 'The Endless Turn'.
I ran after her with my hand still on my cheek and my eyes scanning all around us for any more ominous signs of potential danger. "wha, what was that." I asked her with worry in my voice.
That was 'The Dark Bride'. Don't worry, she can't hurt us unless we're in the Endless Turn. The most she can do out here is scare those who wander too close. That's why no one's used this ballroom in centuries.
"Until us," I said cryptically.
While smiling, she looked back at me.
"Yes. Until us." She repeated with a slight giggle.
"So why in blazes are we walking towards it?" I asked.
She took my hand and began running towards the entrance of the corridor, from the middle of the ballroom.
"Because I need to show you something okay!" She said with both excitement and impatience in her voice.
As we approached the entrance of the corridor, Mirella stopped us in our tracks and I couldn't help but notice how silent she had become while staring into the endless hallway.
"Whatever you do Beuren. Whatever you hear, whatever you see. Never look back, and always move forward no matter what happens. Forward, is how we will survive her."
I looked back into the corridor and with a soft breaking voice, I asked.
"What happens if you look back? Wh, what happens if you take a step back?
With a blank expression on her face, and without blinking the entire time she answered me, still staring into the cursed corridor, and with a calm subtle voice, she explained…
"You would become hers forever. She will literally take your heart, your soul, and your mind until all you are is a sack of meat, blood, and bones without ever having known the concept of joy or happiness. She will turn you into the color grey, with legs. Unable to live out your dreams, unable to feel the breeze on your skin; Not even able to wail or shed tears for your never-ending sorrow. All you would do is walk through that corridor with nothing but all your regrets and your worst nightmares to keep you company. Nightmares that will play out in front of you for all time and become as real as you or I; while all your worst fears creep up behind you, whispering and watching as you walk, and walk, and walk on checkered tiles. Forever."
With my entire body now trembling and an ocean of sweat forming between our palms I let out a loud gulp as I swallowed air.
"At least until Erik finishes whatever he's doing and comes to get you out. He hasn't taught me that trick yet. So, just don't look back for now okay?" She said casually as she pulled me into the corridor. Like walking through a door made of water which rippled as we stepped through it.
And as if we were never even there, we disappeared into the corridor's checkered floors leaving behind nothing but the crisp crackling of burning braziers in the beautiful but barren ballroom.