AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Icouldn’t think of a time when I’d run as fast as I did then, chasing after Serena—except maybe the night my father killed her and I ran to the pier, trying to save her…and failed.
“Serena!” I screamed, my voice echoing down the dark halls. There were passages snaking all throughout, leading to pitch black tunnels of nothing. I could barely see, as the torch I took from the wall was near to dying. “Serena!”
I called out her name again, stumbling my way through blindly, turning at every entrance and trying to decide which one I should follow. I finally chose a path and wandered into the dark, chasing an end I didn’t even know existed and praying to a God I didn’t believe in to help me find her. But the passageways around me kept multiplying, and each time I chose one, more would appear. I spun, surrounded by corridors that taunted me and spun alongside me, my vision blurring at the sight of the dark halls surrounding me. I no longer knew which way was left or right, north or south.
I wasn’t one to panic, but in that moment, I felt my heart speeding up in a way that made my chest tighten. And the loud boom in the distance didn’t do much to settle that feeling when I heard the sound of stone crumbling and the feeling of an earthquake beneath my feet. The chamber had become some strange illusion of tunnels, a maze that I didn’t remember my way out of. Whatever Bastian was doing to my head, I wanted him out.
Find her, that’s right. Lead me right to her. He laughed in the recesses of my mind, taunting me with the fact that the closer I got to her, so did he. Poor Bellamy. The more you try to help her, the more you hurt her. It’s always been that way. In this lifetime and the last. Yet you just can’t stay away.
“Shut up!” I screamed into the emptiness. “Shut up and go to hell!”
He didn’t shut up. He kept on, making my head ache. I leaned against the wall, agonizing over every word, reaching up to my neck and digging in my fingernails in attempt to claw away his mark on my collarbone. The skin tore, burning at my desperate scratches, but it wasn’t enough. I reached for a knife in my pocket and raised it to my neck.
Suddenly a hand caught my arm. “What the hell are you doing, boy?” I glanced up, my vision settling. There were no longer hundreds of tunnels. Just the two passages I was trying to choose between. And the person holding my arm was Russell.
“Nothing,” I panted, trying to catch my breath in an attempt to look less insane. “Where’s Serena?”
The look in his eyes told me he knew. “She found the Crown.”
“She did?” I asked, a smile starting to form. “She’s got her power back?”
Russell looked away, a heaviness overtaking his appearance. “Get out of this corner and come and see for yourself.”
I followed him down one of the passages, a glowing in the distance as we approached.
“The West tunnel,” I muttered, noting that the altar room was stark North of where I stood. “Damn. From North to West.” I connected Serena’s clue once again, baffled at how they’d been there all along, as Russell led me to the end of the passageway. It was a chamber, somehow inexplicably lit, showcasing even more of the thousands of Bastian’s collected items lining the walls like a hidden treasure cove. And there in the center of the room was Serena, kneeling in front of a broken heart shaped opening in the floor from the stone that she’d pulled up, staring at the Crown in her hands with tears in her eyes.
“You got it!” I shouted, rushing to her side. “Wait, what’s wrong?” I noticed her tears weren’t from joy, but sorrow.
“I got it,” Her voice squeaked, placing the Crown on her head. “But it didn’t work. I’m still the same.”
I didn’t know what I expected would happen when she got that crown back. Maybe she would put it on her head and light would shoot out every which way, or maybe she would levitate and shine like the sun. I had no idea. But nothing even close to that was happening. And she made it clear that wasn’t how it was supposed to be.
“What? No! Maybe it’s a fake. Bastian probably switched the real one or—’’
“I assure you, it’s the real one.” Bastian’s voice interrupted me. He stepped into the room, a strange calm about him, though he was soaked completely with his dark water. Something seemed…different, more sinister…about him. He looked relieved as he watched Serena holding the Crown. He spoke so calmly it made me nervous. “So you see…you cannot stop this.”
Katrina and Milo appeared behind him, but they didn’t approach. They stood, just as mesmerized by the scene as the rest of us, waiting to see a goddess re-crowned. Bastian kept his distance, but he kept talking. “What now, Atargatis?”
“Very well,” she said softly. “It’s written in stone. How could I think I could defy that?”
“What’s written in stone? What do you mean?” I took her hand, pleading for her to make sense.
“The altar is painted with pictures of my legend. The first, a weeping woman by her dead lover. The second, she’s walking into the sea. The third, she emerges with a tail. And the fourth is meant to be the last. Her end. My end. I’m destined for this ending.”
“The last picture is faded! I saw the altar. You don’t know the ending!” Katrina screamed from where she stood.
“She’s right!” I screamed. “You’re going to let some damn pictures tell you what’s supposed to happen to you?” I shuddered as I heard another boom in the distance, wondering what was happening, knowing it was just a matter of time before Bastian got tired of playing cat and mouse with us and made his next move.
“It’s my destiny.”
“No, Serena. No. You’re my destiny! So what does that mean? We just give up?”
“What does it take to restore a goddess?” Bastian snickered. “Apparently more than it took to ruin her. Now come with me. Back to the altar, dear.”
Something about the way Bastian said the words triggered a clue in my brain. And I carefully sorted through the thoughts in my head, almost afraid to think them because I knew he would be listening. But I couldn’t help it. The thought came and I couldn’t get it to leave. But I couldn’t help but think maybe there was something more about that altar than we knew.
Stop trying. You’ll only make this hurt worse.
