Escape the Fate - Cellar Door

It was like looking through a keyhole, I couldn't see the edges, the full picture, only a sliver of the room, a narrow glimpse into my worst nightmare.

I saw myself, on my cot, tossing and turning as I imagined I did most nights. And I saw Syn across the room, his gold-flecked eyes bright from the firelight as he watched, sadness etched into the lines of his face. His eyebrows drew together as he watched me, as if he could see whatever nightmare I was fighting, he couldn't though, I knew his Gift didn't work like that. He rolled over, his back to me, but I knew he was still awake.

The peephole shuddered, shivering and making the image blur. When it returned everything was varying shades of grey, like a Shift, but somehow it felt different, darker, worse. The world was beautiful through my Shift, at least it was to me. The brightest of whites, the deepest of blacks, and every shade in between, showing everything, hiding nothing, it was beauty in its cleanest form, its sharpest form. But the room before me was not beautiful, it wasn't clean or sharp with razor-thin lines separating stark contrasts. The room before me was dull and smoky, shadows making it hard to see, like my vision was from another world, like I was trying to see things that weren't really there.

My mind ached from the difficulty of watching through the fog, but I couldn't look away. A moment later I realized it was the same scene as before. Me twisting in my bed, the blankets tying themselves into knots, and Syn watching me, the dull grey shadows making his face look lifeless in the firelight, his eyes no longer holding the warmth their color gave them. He looked haunted, everything did, not truly alive, but not yet dead, like a ghost world.

I felt a jolt as something dark came from where I laid, a slightly deeper shadow crawling across the concrete floor. It was eerie how alive it acted, like it was dragging itself, pulling itself forward with great effort, each movement bringing the darkness closer to Syn. He had turned away already, his back to me as he lay on his right shoulder, staring at the wall, just like he always did, but I knew he wasn't asleep.

I tried to move, to will myself into the room, to save him from the dark greyness leaking from my sleeping body to his. There was something sinister about it, something that made my Shift jump in me, clawing and snapping at its cage. It was a poison, a living, evil poison slowly advancing on Syn, trying to overtake him, to cover him, to get a hold on him and drain the life from his golden-brown eyes. I tried to claw at the peephole in front of me, digging at it. I felt my nails bending and breaking against the door, little slivers digging back as I desperately tried to warn him, to warn my friend of what was coming for him, from me.

I awoke with a cry, fiery pain shooting up my arms. I looked down to see the damage I had done in my nightmare, bloodied fingers with shards of wood sticking from my skin, my nails bent and broken, hanging or jagged. My fingers felt on fire, the kind of sting I hated the most. I would rather be punched than slapped, cut deeply than have the multitude of slivers under my nails that I now did. I shook my hands, trying to fling the red-stained wood away, but only succeeded in splattering tiny droplets of blood across the floor I had fallen asleep on. I glanced around to get my bearings, trying to remember the night before while avoiding looking down at my hands as I rubbed at the splinters to dislodge them. My mind felt thick, slow, like fingers that stopped listening to instructions in the cold.

I was in an old house. I had come in late through a poorly boarded up window on the first floor. Too tired from my hunt to make it through the storm outside back to the Clan's warehouse. Too exhausted from stretching myself so thin, from not sleeping, not resting, only hunting. I had curled up in the corner and was asleep within seconds, even on the uncomfortable, warped, wooden floor. The same wooden floor which now had deep, bloody gouges in it where I had clawed, thinking it was the door separating me from Syn and the darkness that was creeping ever closer to him.

Syn.

The dream came back to me vividly, a flood of fear and nausea filling my stomach and clearing my mind. It wasn't a dream, it was a vision, a warning, I knew it.

I bolted from the house, ignoring the bite of the sleet as it flew into my eyes. It was still night, somewhere between three and four I guessed, the streets all but empty as the drunks were already passed out, and the earliest of workers weren't quite out yet. It made it easy to dash across intersections and down side roads, areas that were usually congested with people or cars. I made good time, wordlessly thankful for the long runs I had continued to take ever since my training, it made the few miles between where I had spent the night and the Clan's warehouse seem to fly beneath me. No matter how fast I ran though, the sinking, rotting feeling stayed, making my hands shake, but not from the cold.

I hardly even noticed the cold, at least not at first, but slowly it seemed to harmonize with the deepening feeling in my chest, the chill of winter marrying the chill of dread I felt growing in me. Soon my chest felt tight, my breathing labored, but I could see their street, the flickering lamppost that always went out when the worst of the storms hit. It twinkled its pale yellow light like a beacon calling me home. My feet tried to slip on the slush, but it was easy to lighten my steps until they only used the ground for fleeting seconds of force, more than for balance.

I slid to a stop before the metal door, my hand already reaching for the steel handle when I felt it, like a quiver in my mind, a static in the air around me. Others, like me, not the Clan. I heard them a moment later. The snow had muffled the noises, soaking them into itself like a white damper, and between my own ragged breaths and the wind screaming around every ally's corner, the noises of fighting were barely audible.

Without a thought or moment to make a logical plan, I felt my Shift tear from me as the dread in my chest coiled tighter, letting me know I was already too late, just like I had known all along but refused to admit. I burst through the door to see pure chaos before me.

Halo and Horn were teamed against a tall figure, black as coal, except for its eyes, where a dull light was, a greyish-white that seemed both dead and alive at once. It moved like smoke, one moment between the twins, the next behind one, then the other, a whirl of translucent black materializing before it would vanish again. The creature didn't even seem to have a body, just black bones, jagged and sharp, all angles, covered in a tattered robe, with long fingers that emanated a deep reddish glow, so dark it almost matched the black. The brothers' tactics wouldn't work, I knew that much, but they weren't my concern right then. I hadn't seen them in my vision, only Syn.

My eyes swept the room, looking for his hulking figure, but I couldn't find him. Then I saw Chi, her back to Spade's as two more of the shadowy demons circled them, swiping with long fingers tinged in ruby, burning the pair wherever they touched.

Thanks to my late-night demon lessons, I knew these creatures, these beings that should only be found in Hell; Shafes. Demon's who weren't in our world completely, merely controlled by one who was. They could step back from us, occupying Hell one moment, then step again and be anywhere else, everywhere else. They were distractions, only meant to haggard the victim, to wear them down while something worse came. Their power was still in Hell, and though they could drag some form of themselves from their home, the bulk of their strength was left behind. All they had was a burning touch, a remnant of the fire they came from. Only a strong Fire or Water Sign could send them back to whatever circle they had been summoned from, and the Clan didn't have either. The dread in me constricted once again, threatening to break whatever it was latched onto.

"Where is Syn!" I yelled out, my voice sounded horse and I realized the others hadn't even noticed my entrance as four heads snapped in my direction at once.

The shadowed demons looked last, carved out eyes with dim lights deep within slowly turning their attention on me. Stretched smiles touched their grey lips, wavering like the smoke that came from their charred hands, black bits falling from them like burnt flesh, disintegrating before they made it to the cold, concrete floor. With a cry all three of the demons vanished, their shrieks filling the room, rebounding off the walls like the caws of a crow, shrill and grating, making me flinch back involuntarily.

When I looked up again it was into Chi's dark eyes, smoldering into mine, an anger there I had never seen before. Her chest heaved as she caught her breath from the fight. The stillness after the chaos seemed worse because of her stare, it spoke so clearly, I didn't even need my Gift. Accusation, betrayal, guilt thinly covered by disbelief.

I looked away, my need to find Syn still burning at the back of my throat, my eyes, coursing through my mind.

"Where is Syn?" I repeated, quieter this time, more controlled. I had all but screamed it the first time, but my voice still sounded too loud in the stillness.

"Is he alright?"

My voice was lower still, almost a whisper, because I already knew. And that's when I saw it, my attention finding the streaks of rust on the floor, the streak that looked like a stain, but had definitely not been there just a few days before. Then more started to come together, more pieces to the puzzle; Chi in her bedtime attire, all three of the men in much the same, shirtless or t-shirts, their hair attesting to sleep, all the beds' covers in heaps, some not even on their cots anymore.

My eyes moved to Syn's bed and my breath caught in my throat. There was a thick stain where his head should have laid, red, a bright red, a vibrant red, a red that only comes from something living. I felt something stick in my throat, something heavy and unyielding. I closed my mouth hard, not wanting the noise to find its way into the silence surrounding me. Not wanting to cry out in front of Chi and her brothers.

All I could think was that I had done this, I was responsible. My dream had all but made that clear. This had happened because of me, because I had stayed with this Clan. This ill-prepared, young, weak Clan, who didn't even have their own Book of Dust to learn from. Who didn't train, who didn't have a single strong Sign among them, no wards on their home, no protections, nothing.

I had stayed because I had mixed them up with my old Clan, an ultra-equipped, strict, cautious-bordering-paranoid, experienced, strong Clan. And I had expected the same from Chi, from a child and the men she ruled because of a trick she could do that wouldn't even help her against a Shift. I had made the unconscious judgment that all Clans were equal, stable, that all were safe, that they could conquer anything, because that's how mine had been. No one could have snuck into the manor and killed one of us, no one could have beaten us as easily as they had with Chi and her brothers.

But they never would have dealt with this attack if it hadn't been for me, I knew it, deep in my mind. Why would anyone use so much power against a Clan as insignificant as this one, out in an abandoned warehouse on the outskirts of town? Looking at the people in front of me, at the shocked silence, the accusing glares, I knew I had brought this on a Clan who could hardly protect themselves, let alone house someone as poisonous as me.

That's what I was, that's what I had done. I had taken their hospitality, Syn's kindness, and poisoned it with my mere presence. Bringing them to someone's attention, someone dark, someone powerful, someone that would have never noticed this Clan if it hadn't been for me.

I stepped back, slowly, my Shift still laid thickly over my skin, not having the will to stifle it. I flicked my eyes to the corner, to my cot, and grabbed my bag, still packed, always packed, from beneath it. I could hear Chi's thoughts now, all of their thoughts. And I couldn't shut them out, or maybe I didn't want to, maybe I wanted to torture myself with the images I saw, the whispers I heard in their minds. That Syn was dead, gone, that a dark-clad man, his face hidden beneath a hood, had appeared in the night, cut Syn's throat in his sleep, and then stood over him, watching as he drowned in his own blood.

That was the sound the Clan had woken to, their brother gagging and choking as blood filled his lungs. Chi had been the first out of bed, the first to run for the man stooped over her brother as he convulsed on his cot, fear wide in his gilded eyes. The man merely flicked a finger back at Chi as she charged, not even bothering to look up, sending her sprawling across the floor, tumbling like a dry leaf in autumn. Then the Shafes appeared.

I could see it in my mind now, the horrible memory of what had happened. I had only been seconds too late. In the commotion, Spade rushed to Chimarah, forever her protector, and the twins found each other, fighting the best they could a shadow of the real demon they faced. Each blow met only air, each attack only frustrated them more, frightened them more. I could almost see the panic in the air, smell it.

As the Clan fought something that wasn't even truly there, the man in the black coat dragged Syn from his bed, pulling him unceremoniously by his hair across the floor. He was already dead, but the man didn't seem to notice. I could see the skin of Syn's neck ripping farther and farther as the man yanked him to the far side of the room, leaving the streaks I had seen. The man pulled him to just barely past the door, just over the threshold from the room the fighting was in and then he seemed to waver, like the air around him was burning. I heard the door bang open as I entered, and the man looked to the noise, pale animal eyes glowing from deep within the hood, and then he disappeared, along with Syn's body.

I felt sick, seeing what had happened, knowing the fear Syn must have felt, the panic, as he met a similar fate to the one he almost had as a child. It seemed cruel that he survived his own blood the first time, just to die by it years later. I hated the man in the dark coat with the eerie yellow eyes. The one who had so cowardly murdered someone in their sleep. The one who had murdered my friend, or the closest thing to one I had had in months. The one who had stolen a good man, a truly good, kind man.

I was almost to the door. I could feel the cold wind at my back as I inched closer, keeping my eyes on the room before me, on the glares of hate coming from four sets, the looks of pain behind the hate, of loss. They knew as well as I did that I was the reason Syn was gone, the reason he would never be coming back. They would all mourn for their brother. I would too, but not with them. I would be far away by the time the sun rose, and I would never come back.

I took one more retreating step, feeling the crunch of snow under my heel and almost turned, almost fled right then, without a word, but I couldn't. I knew I would never get their forgiveness, I wouldn't forgive me if the tables were turned, but I still had to say it, hoping they would at least believe I meant it, at least Chi.

"I'm so sorry. I'm so, so sorry."

My words were barely above a cracked whisper, but that's all I could do. I took one last moment to take in the room, the faces, to be sure I had seared each pair of eyes into my memory so I would never again forget the devastation that followed me, the plague I was. So I wouldn't go a day without one of them haunting me. Then I ducked out the open doorway and was back in the snow, running from the warehouse, from the vision of Syn's golden eyes staring out emptily, from his blood on the floor, from the questions of why the man had taken his body, from my guilt at what I had done to the people who saved me. I ran from it all, leaving the lamppost to flicker behind me as the snow picked up once more.