I caressed the flute, my hands moved over the strings ever so softly. It was as if i was brushing the surface of a memory i hadn't known i possessed.
"It is beautiful."
I softly muttered, my voice barely above a rising whisper.
Garren laughter came soft, a fleeting warmth breaking through the grim shadows that defined their existence.
"Go on, play it. Who knows? You might just have a strange knack for music."
A grin tugged at my lips as i positioned the lute in my hands. I bent over the lute, then sounded the strings one at a time. It was strange, but oddly familiar. Yet when i hit the fourth string, it was ever so slightly off.
Nevertheless, i immediately gave one of the tuning pegs a minute adjustment. My fingers had literally moved... on instinct.
I-t it felt strange.
The strings, the lute, the oddly familiarity, the strange cooling sensation. It felt so weird... I couldn't really describe it in words. I-t was almost as though i had been doing this for ages.
The second chord trembled out, its soft tone resonating like a sigh in the quiet. My brow furrowed as i let my fingers move, crafted melodies that seemed woven from both joy and grief.
The room breathed with me, the notes floating like feathers, heavy with unshed emotions. Every strum called to me, every chord a secret unfurling, pulling me deeper into the music. I touched the last string, and tuned it too, ever so slightly. I made a simple chord and strummed it.
It rang soft and true.
Smooth and easing.
I moved again, this time three fingers swept across the strings, and the chord went minor in a way that sounded to me as if the lute itself were sad.
I moved my hands once again, and the lute made two chords whispering against each other. Then without realizing what i was doing.
I began to play!
The strings felt strange against my fingers, like reunited friends who have forgotten what they once had in common.
I played soft and tranquil, smooth and slow. Sending notes farther and farther into our enclosed space.
Fingers and strings trembled against each other, like a clash of sword and tail, whispering what seemed to be a flickering light of infatuation.
Longing, even.
My heart ached.
The agony, the cycles of death and despair- it bled through the strings, turning sound into something alive, something mournful.
The endless pain and torture. The longing for my past. Every single one of them poured into the strings, ever powerful and vivid. The music began to pour out into the desolate, silent surrounding.
It filled the chamber, spilling over its edges and beyond, each note a testament of my survival.
My fingers moved and trembled, quick and fast, they spun something gossamer and tremulous. The music moved like a nightingale, stirred by the clash of swords. There and then, it changed like a drop of blood dripping into a pure and serene lake.
It felt like ages had passed with a hollowness and body that once ached of despair and desperation.
I didn't know how long i had been playing for. It could have been ten minutes or an hour. I had no idea. But my hands weren't used to the strain that echoed through every fiber of their being. They slipped and fell, the music fell to pieces, like clusters of dreams breaking into pieces after connecting to an... ethereal sea.
Garren's astonished gaze locked onto me, mouth parted in awe. For a heartbeat, we were two souls suspended in the magic of sound.
"Oh my... That... was unlike anything I've ever heard." Garren whispered, in what seemed like in amazement, yet beneath the layer of amazement was a breath of disbelief.
He couldn't believe it. What Dean had just played could shame the best of singers. Poets even.
It could raise the dead itself!
Garren thought in what seemed like...in exaggeration.
But truth be told, what Dean had just sang was... truly otherworldly to say the least.
I felt a red shade rise on my cheeks, my face flushed in embarrassment. Yet at the same time, i felt a strange surge of warmth coursing through me. It felt strange, and i can't really place my hands on it or describe it in words.
I-it was like i was finally at peace with himself.
I-t it was beyond europhic.
But then...
CRASSSH!!!
KABOOOM!!!
Suddenly, terrifying explosions reverberated through the air, from what seemed to be from the top of their hidden lair.
My pulse quickened, and my eyes shrank in horror as frantic thoughts slammed onto the walls of my mind.
Hard and fast, brutal and unforgiving even.
I should have known better than to play the lute in a place such as the cursed land. No... Garren should have known better.
"What exactly is going on?"
My mind grew erratic, confusing flashing across my eyes as frantic thoughts continuously hit the walls of my mind.
My eyes flashed with fear, dread even as i thought of what could be creating such tremendous disturbances.
The horrendous, nerve-breaking tone of the top of the mountain breaking apart rang into my ears.
My body shuddered instinctively, dread settling into my spine. It felt as though ages had passed, but only a few seconds had actually passed by. Yet Garren had been quiet all along. He didn't seem bothered. He hadn't even said anything.
What the hell is going on?
I considered asking Garren, yet the icy set of Garren's jaw silenced me.
Garren isn't saying anything, so he probably has everything under control.
I comforted himself, an icy cold feeling settling into my bones.
I just couldn't shake the strange feeling that something was wrong.
Awfully wrong.
But no matter what I thought, i could never have forseen this.
Not in a hundred lifetime.
A towering shadow loomed above my head, and i turned back to catch a glimpse of Garren. His face now laced with a light smile tugging at the corner of his lips.
A smile which i couldn't really place my hands on...on what it entails.
And just when i fought hard to come to terms with what was happening.
The air shifted, charged with a dark, oppressive atmosphere.
"Garren?"
My voice was barely a whisper, lost beneath the cacophony of confusion.
Then pain- searing, and blinding pain rippled through me- as something tore through me, impaling my chest. A gasp escaped me as i looked down to see a hand- Garren's hand- slick with my blood and clutching my heart.
The organ thudded weakly, pulsing confusion and disbelief through my veins.
I felt a cold rush of pain surging through me.
It was painful.
Eeriely painful.
But not as painful as the layers of trust and camaraderie that shattered into the ground beneath my feet.
Staggering backward, with my heart now crushed to paste.
I knew i wouldn't die. I couldn't die. Not now. I had questions and i needed answers to them.
My hands trembled, fingers sprayed against the gaping wound in my chest, the crushed heart faintly throbbing with betrayal, far deeper than any blade could cut.
My knees threatened to buckle beneath the weight of it. Garren- my friend, mentor, family even- stood a mere step away, his face shadowed but eyes with something cruel and unrecognizable.
The terrifying sound above my head had stopped by now. And i could feel the strange darkness moving farther and farther into the distance.
Its work here was done.
My knee threatened to buckle, his heart threatened to stop thumping. My vision blurred as the truth clawed at me. My breaths came ragged, each one a fight against the encroaching darkness.
"Why, Garren? Why?"
My voice crackled, my voice quivering as betrayal seeped into every fiber of my being.
But i got no answers. Except for an endless silence and a cold detachment i had never thought possible, in Garren.
Garren smiled, sending a rage of fury through me.
I wanted to leap.
I wanted to trash on Garren and ask him why?
Why had he betrayed me?
What have i done to deserve it?
Why!!
I fought hard against the desperation that clung onto me.
Raising my head with clenched hands, as tears of rage and pain came out ever so softly.
"Did you ever care?" Amidst the despair and betrayal that held onto me, i managed to speak, my voice shaking with rage and what appeared to be... hope.
"Was any of it real?"
I asked, grasping tightly onto that slight tinge of hope as blood streamed unceasingly from the gaping wound on my chest.
Garren's eyes, now devoid of any warmth it once held, got replaced by a cold gleam that mirrored the frozen wastelands in the far end of the North.
A dark smile tugged at the corner of his lips.
"Ah Dean, you never understood, did you?"
Katcha!
I f-elt something shatter within me.
Garren smiled, his voice cold and fiery as it sliced through my broken heart.
"The heart of a man is a wellspring of ambition, secrets, deceits and lies Dean. Men will weave stories, wrap themselves in the warmth of feigned affection only to use it as a knife when the moment is right.
Always keep this in mind."
The word's scraped against my chest, more painful than any wound. The bond we shared, the laughter, the stories- they were all mere illusions, masterly crafted.
I stumbled back as the world around me turned blurry. My heart, my mind, my body and being felt lost. I can't even describe what i was feeling right now. How i wished all this was nothing more than a mere illusion. Yet i knew it wasn't. It never was and never will.
Pain!
Agonizing pain and agony tore through me, finding its way through every fiber of my being.
The sudden shift before me was both grotesque and swift. Bones crackled, flesh twisted and masks fell. Garren's form swelled into an abomination- a creature of shadows and sinew limbs, gnarled like the roots of a cursed tree, eyes gleaming with the baleful light of a predator.
My crushed heart pounded ever so softly in the cacophony, but as the creature's piercing gaze met with mine.
Clarity descended. Hitting me fast and hard. Brutal and unforgiving even. This was the truth, the cold reality: Garren had never been a mentor, a guardian or even a man.
"An Amaraith..." The word tumbled from my lips, fragile as glass. It all now made sense. The puzzle pieces finally fixed together. The warnings and subtle signs I'd ignored. The answers that were always just out of reach.
Durakxis! Durakxis!!
There and then i finally understood what the past me was warning me about.
It all now made sense.
A bitter smile tugged at the corner of my lips.
Wishing i had paid greater heeds to the warnings.
Amaraith's feed on strengthened bond and emotions. It was no wonder, all those moments. Garren never dared speak of any God's name. Instead he wrote them down.
A dry, humorless laugh bubbled up from my chest, blood-streaked and bitter.
"I should have known."
I should have noticed it. I should have been more careful.
B-ut i didn't feel like i was to be blamed. The warm feeling of love, affection and a family to call mine was what i had always longed for.
Garren had given me all that and perhaps more.
And it was far too precious to me. I couldn't afford to let it slip off my hands.
I didn't want to.
But now.
Now... I had no other choice.
"Hahahahaha!"
I laughed maniacally.
My hair disheveled like that of a mad man.
Blood gushed uncontrollably from my gaping chest, staining the floor in its eerie dark shade.
It was a mystery how i was even still standing up till now.
A cold crazy laughter escaped my lips, my mind struggling to come to terms with the cold reality before me.
...I didn't want to.
Slowly, tears mixed with blood streamed down the corner of my eyes. My legs soon gave in as i fell onto the ground with a loud, crashing thud.
A guttural laugh resonated from Garren- no, the Amaraith.
"You see. The facade was only necessary for you to play your path, Dean. And now, as all masks fall away. Let the darkness claim what it had always owned!"
There and then, i felt something within him shatter. It broke within me, yet it was soft and audible. Ringing through every fiber of my being. The last shred of warmth i had felt disintegrated completely as i faced the truth. My past- the moments with Garren had all been a lie.
And the abyss before me was all that remained.
My eyes slowly got closed, tears and silent sobs resounding in the eerie atmosphere.
The endless darkness encroached closer and closer. And i could feel those strange unseen arms, the cold and warm feeling. The eerie familiar force inched closer with every ragged breath of mine.
I tried to breath, tried to talk. But only blood-riddled coughs escaped my lips, my eyes staring at the abominable creature that slowly drew closer.
I should have known better than to have even a thread of hope in this wretched, and cursed land. A bitter expression tugged at the corner of my lips, as the endless darkness swarm over my vision.
There and then, an endless darkness encroached upon the walls of my mind.
How i wished it was all nothing but a dream. Yet i knew that was nothing but childish thoughts. Not only was it real, if i don't do anything about it.
I would still wake up to go through it- the betrayal, the endless grief.
I would go through it all over again.
Blood stained tears streaked down the corner of my eyes, and i tried to scream to the heavens, or at least say something. Anything.
Yet nothing escaped my lips. My mind and vision slowly grew hazy and blurry. There and then, the endless darkness swallowed me whole!