The darkness of the night wore on as Cassidy and this man walked deeper and deeper into the twisted forest. There was a silent kiss left unspoken between them-an unsaid tone, yet so potent. The memory seared in her brain. Something had tilted, she thought, some inarticulate fulcrum hooked the strings of their association with a turgid thread of longing.
Yet, even less time was there for reflections on that either. Now, the way was becoming dangerous, the shadows of the treetops thickening as if the very forest would like to swallow them wholesale. The smell was earthly-a humid earth and decaying leaves-even the silence seemed to stink of menaces, as with some gloomy whisper it rustled leaves.
He strode purposefully, the man, his eyes scanning their surroundings for any sign of danger. Cassidy kept her head low, her senses raised-on every sound, every movement amplified. No longer did the darkness outside seem some indistinct threat far away, but an entity unto itself, its pressure leaning in on them from all sides.
"We're close," he whispered; the words vanished into silent air.
"Close to what?" Cassidy wheezed, panting, her voice barely above a whisper.
"The heart of the forest," he returned with him, his voice grave. "That's where the darkness is strongest. If we're going to get any answers, it'll be there."
Cassidy's heart plunged at the very thought of anything even more sinister than what they had faced, but she knew he was right: whatever had lured her into this nightmare, whatever power coursed through her veins, was connected with this place.
The trees began to thin as they walked, breaking into a meadow that was bathed in some otherworldly light-an unnatural light. The floor was carpeted with fog that curled up their ankles like icy ghostly fingers. In the middle was a stone altar, old and whittled by weather, weird symbols cut into its face.
Cassidy watched as his eyes came to rest on the altar, a shiver running down her spine. There was something so fundamentally wrong with the object that it almost seemed a doorway into another world, one in which the rules of real life did not apply.
It was the edge of the clearing he finally stopped at, his face tense. "This is it," he whispered, his voice no louder than the heavy silence. "The source of the dark dawn. Whatever is drawing it here-it's to do with that altar."
Cassidy took a step forward, her eyes pinned on the altar. The symbols moved in short, living undulations of noisome, cancerous energy. She could feel the evil within her stir at the sight. Like some altar of summons, calling her toward it.
"What now?" she faltered, her voice alive in her with a mix of terror and anticipation.
"We have to know what this altar is and how it is connected with you," he answered, keeping his eyes nailed into the ancient stone, "but be very careful-the darkness uses this connection it has with you.
Cassidy nodded but was not quite sure how she might protect herself from something so insidious. It already resided inside her, a shadow hulking along the edges of her mind, just waiting for that one moment she should ever let her guard down.
She would then have made her way to the altar with trepidation, feeling her heart beating in her chest. In fact, the carvings on this stone glowed a little brighter when one was closer, and the cold of the air-cold, far colder than it had been before-seemed to sap the very warmth from her skin.
She stretched out her hand to touch the altar, and a searing pain pierced her hand as a sharp intake of breath jerked her back. Her palm tingled, crimson where it had touched the stone.
In a moment, he was beside her, his eyes etched in concern. "What happened?
"It burned me," Cassidy said, holding her hand up for him to see an angry red mark. "But I didn't feel any heat. It was more like… the darkness itself was spitting me out."
He scowled, his eyes darting from her to the altar and back again. "That doesn't make any sense. The darkness was supposed to go to you, not vice versa.
Cassidy stood facing the altar, her mind racing: "Maybe it is not the darkness that is rejecting me. It could be anything else; maybe something protecting me."
The man's face darkened as he weighed her words. "Or else it is a warning. This altar may be more than a source of power; it could be a trap-something designed to corrupt those who come in contact with it."
Cassidy's heart had quickened at the thought. "Then why bring me here? If it's a trap, shouldn't we be getting as far away from it as possible?"
"For what you seek is within," he answered calmly and steadily. "Still we must be careful: for the powers contained within are wild and untroubled; one wrong move and they might suddenly flow into you.
Cassidy nodded, but somehow, she just couldn't get rid of this feeling that fear was seriously gnawing at her guts. She'd won so far-faced things she never even thought existed-and truth was finally in front of her-but then again, she did know pretty well that sometimes the price for truth could be too big to pay.
She took a great, huge breath, reached to the altar once more-prepared this time for the pain. Her fingers brushed the cold stone; the symbols flared to life once more, shining with an intense, unnatural light. A dark wave of energy surged through her as she gasped, her mind deluging with visions.
Flashes from the past of some sort-ancient, deathly rituals executed at this very altar, and sacrifices for powers beyond their own-she saw everything. She saw faces of those who had come before her, their eyes wild with madness as the darkness consumed them. And through a thinning veil, she saw a figure, shrouded in shadow, watching from the edge of the clearing, its presence a dark stain on the fabric of reality.
The visions tumbled and shifted, taking her in flashes to a world gone bad-a world in uproar, its cities burning, its skies thick with storms. And in the middle of that, an altar, with herself standing at its center, her eyes aglow with a dark power that once before near enough consumed her.
Cassidy jerked her hand free; the visions fled, the link severed. She stepped backward, her breathing harsh, her heart racing.
"What'd you see?" he asked. His voice was urgent.
Cassidy shook her head as if she were stuck in the vividness of the visions. "It was. the past and the future. This altar has been used for dark rituals for centuries. It corrupts anyone who comes into contact with it. And the future." She stuttered. Her voice trembled. "I saw myself taken over by darkness upon this altar. The world was destroyed.
The man's face hardened. "We have to destroy it. If it is feeding the darkness from this altar, then it must not be allowed to live."
Cassidy nodded, but there was a growing determination now in her chest, nestled in amongst her fear. "But how? If the darkness protects it, how to stop it?
"We have to somehow find a way of disengaging the link between the altar and the darkness," he said in a firm voice. "It is, however, going to be anything but easy. It'll revolt back, and it will do everything possible to make that not happen.
Cassidy's eyes hardened, still fixed upon the ancient stone, the symbols still flashing very faintly. Cassidy knew that the battle facing her now was tougher than any that she had ever faced, but at the same time, she knew she could never run from it.
First, she had been swallowed by darkness, and now she had to choose.