Nimue's POV

Making our way back through the maze like castle, I look over at the tinted blade as questions begin to run through my head, "Aegis, how come you've never actually appeared to me? Like Saint?"

The Sword pauses, pointing towards to the ceiling. Her eyes blinking nonchalantly before a purple haze flows around it, gathering to the tip of the sword before solidifying in a ball of blood, gradually dripping back down the sword to construct a body just beside it.

I watch in anticipation as the developing figure's back appears turned to me, her blacked out hair coiled around her neck with highlighted tints to it. "Happy?" She stomps with her heel, twisting on it to face me as the sword now lingers behind her instead of me.

"You look...too real?" I extend my hand toward her dyed armour, flicking it out of confusion and sure enough it clinks just like metal.

"We all come in different shapes and sizes, what can I say?" She looks around the castle with more interest than before, almost like fulfilling a nostalgic need.

I admire her physique as she walks just ahead of me, her powerful stance tied with an indomitable energy surrounding her. I never realised till now that I'm actually looking up at her, she's tall, "You coming?" She pauses to watch me in the back, apparently I stopped moving without realising.

"That accent, I've never heard it before?" I question.

She runs her hands along her arms, pulling back parts of the wrist plating to poke at her veins. "When you've been alive for so long...met so many people and seen so much time pass, I'm sure even you could pick up a new pronunciation or two" She responds back to me, slyly sliding her head back from facing me as a piece of light traces her iris through the dark.

"You mentioned me being able to gain a power? What was that all about?" I ask, causing her to stop. Her head turning back to me interest as she walks back to me with an unintentional intimidation.

Her hand reaches from under my chin, raising my head to look at her directly in the eyes. "The Spirits, a term very...and I mean very, few people have heard of. I could possibly count on one hand the amount of people who understand the very concept." She moves my head from side to side as she gets a better look at me. "You've seen what The Spirit could do, its raw unrivalled ability to whisper a command into any of the surrounding parts of reality. But that's the flaw it had, it's raw."

She lets go of my face, making me touch it again as it feels sore now, "And what's that supposed to mean?"

She rolls her eyes before leaning down to cover my ears suddenly, "Close your eyes" Her muffled voice reaches me still. Entrusting my vision to her I succumb to the darkness of my eyes. "Listen for it...let it peel away at you. But...do not open your eyes, Nimue." She advises before removing her hands from my ears.

𝘒𝘯𝘰𝘤𝘬

I hear something tapping, not too far away but not close at all either.

𝘒𝘯𝘰𝘤𝘬 𝘒𝘯𝘰𝘤𝘬

Step by step I approach where I think the sound is coming from, my shaky breath releases every now and then as I manually breathe.

𝘒𝘯𝘰𝘤𝘬

I stand in front of what I think to be a door, placing my hand on the door knob I begin to twist it ever so slowly.

"Open it~" A soothing voice calls out to me from the other side, urging me to twist it further. "Open it~" It calls again.

𝘒𝘯𝘰𝘤𝘬

Another knock sounds out from a bit further down the hall as dread and horror fill me. "Open. It." The voice commands this time in a different tone. Banging against the door and sending me to the parallel side.

"Open it~" A similar pitched noise sounds from behind me, yet another door that's calling for me.

𝘒𝘯𝘰𝘤𝘬 𝘒𝘯𝘰𝘤𝘬

The sound from the hall gets louder, I avoid the whispering. Instead heading right towards the knocking.

"Open it~"

"Free it~"

"Listen to it~"

They all whisper through my ears, almost deafening me to the next knocking. Their bangs and slams against the wooden doors sounding like a rampaging beast just behind it.

𝘒𝘯𝘰𝘤𝘬 𝘒𝘯𝘰𝘤𝘬

I stop my movement, adjusting my body to face the most audible sound. The knocking came from directly next to me...it's this one. I hold my hand on the door knob, gently twisting it like before.

"You can open your eyes now" Aegis speaks out, confirming it for me and easing my heart.

Opening my eyes I quickly glance down at the hallway, noticing something that makes my stomach sink a little...this is the only door here. "Accept it" She speaks again as the door suddenly flies open. Her sharp edge driving itself through me, cracking my ribs and stabbing through my stomach and out my back.

"Wh-" I try to speak but she hushes me. My breath begins to rapidly pulse my chest up and down as I hyperventilate for my own survival. Stumbling into the white reflective room and trying to drive the sword out of me. "Ple-" I try to plead.

"Help yourself, Nimue" She murmurs.

I grab the hilt of the sword with my left hand, tugging on it and shifting the organs inside me, ignoring each blinding pain that courses through me. My silent screams met with a final tug that forces the sword out of me, the same black lines tracing their way up my arm and twisting around my eye. I stand there with a new found serenity, rain after a drought. I walk towards the white marbled surface, staring back at myself. The pupil of gold that mimics my every command, that's my eye.

I go to touch it with my other hand in disbelief, disrupted by a blood curdling screech further within the castle. "Melanie..." I whisper, watching as a pink orb floats from the ground and into my vision.

"####" It speaks its thoughts to me.

"Display and seek" I repeat its word. The pink hue fading into reality and honing in on a vision of Melanie's scared form, scampering across the floor away from something. It reforms back to pink, now guiding me from the room, twisting on my heel I walk back through the door with a hurried pace.

I can feel something, building inside me. Like a heartbeat, something that just keeps tightening up with each pulse, constricting a tension inside my stomach. The orb suddenly flies into the wall beside me.

"####" Another one comes back out, brown in hue with a new command for me to order.

"Reorder" I demand before it goes back into the wall, lighting up the brick and stone, rearranging a new pathway within the castle that drives right to my target. Each brick that I step towards, making way just for me, perfectly pathing down flooring for me as if subjects to their queen.

I enter a pitch black room with chains audibly shaking around me. "Nimue!" I feel Melanie tug on my torso, digging her wolf claws into my stomach in desperation from something.

"I'm here now, it's okay" I try to reassure her.

"Help me!" She screams in fear, letting go of me suddenly but not seeming like her own choice.

"Melanie!?" I yell, trying to find her in the darkness.

"Th-eye-s" She whimpers before a loud snap rings out past my ears.

I look around in panic, right, left, down...up. Something's in the corner, blinking at me. Its pearl white eyes dancing and analysing me. I wait for it to reopen its eyes again after another blink of its eye lids, only to notice it hasn't reopened them for some reason. A red orb floats into my vision, I grab hold of it with an increasing malice towards this thing.

"####"

"Scorch" I whisper, illuminating a flaming circle around me.

"You..." A rather feminine voice speaks from what's left of the darkness.

"What are you!?" I scream to it, surging the flames higher.

Nothing but silence falls within the room, her eyes nowhere to be seen. I wait in patience as the crackling flames begin to die out, listening to the environment for anything to give away its location. Scratching...just behind me.

I tense my arm, grabbing whatever it is by the throat as it shrieks out in pain, slamming it against the reconstructed wall over and over. "N-o!" she begs, scampering from my grasp and crawling somewhere within the room.

I raise my sword up, hearing a command pierce through my ears as I scream the new words, "Illuminate!". Bursting a white light towards the target, only to show a terrified Melanie, cowering and twitching to herself.

"Are you okay!?" I run towards her, letting Aegis to float in the centre of the room, still releasing the light. "Melanie!?" I touch her pale white skin, practically the temperature of ice. "Please stand up" I beg, lifting her arm over my shoulder.

I rush to get her out of the room, eyeing the corners of what seems to be a cage of sorts with a large opening at the top to let sunlight in? The white eyed monster, nowhere to be seen. "Aegis, get us out of this castle" I ask, not knowing the way.

"This way" She points like before, dowsing the way out.

The longer I carry her for, the more her temperature feels abnormal to me. I've never been able to feel a wolf's body be this cold, what's wrong with her?