When God Closed His Eyes

Chapter 3:The Owner

POV: Kaelen

I wanted to run away from that closed door, but I chose to stand my ground.

My hands shook as I reached for the iron lock. I felt a cold knot of dread inside my chest, and my lungs struggled to catch enough air.

The terrible gurgling noise in the hallway had stopped, so I knew I was alone with whatever waited on the other side.

I took a deep breath, grabbed the handle of my dagger, and pulled the door open.

I expected to face a royal guard who wanted to arrest me. I thought maybe Elara had come back to finish me off. I even thought the King had sent an assassin to test my loyalty.

Instead, I found myself staring directly at my own face.

The man standing in the dark corridor looked just like me, but his skin was grey and bruised.

A terrible cut stretched across his neck, leaking dark blood onto his torn shirt. He looked like a corpse that refused to stay down.

I backed up into my room, pulling my knife higher.

"Who are you?" I asked with my voice sounding weak, and I hated myself for showing fear.

The stranger did not attack me. He just tilted his head and smiled with my own lips.

"Do you remember the girl with the braided hair, Rowan?" he asked.

His mouth did not move when he spoke and the sound came straight out of the cut in his neck. It was raspy, wet, and unpleasant.

"Do you remember how she screamed your name when the horses came into the garden?" he asked me as he took a slow step forward into my room.

"You ran away like a coward and hid under the floorboards while blood leaked through the cracks, and you just watched them die."

While he said that, immediately a sharp pain shot through my forehead, and I fell to my knees.

I pressed my palm against my ear because I wanted his voice to stop, but I could not block it out.

"Stop talking," I said. "Just shut up and leave me alone."

"You hid while they bled," he said again, his dark eyes staring down at me.

I hated him for saying those words, but I hated myself more because I knew he was telling the truth.

I did not just hear his story but I suddenly remembered the smell of smoke and the sound of that child crying. I felt the rough wood against my chest from when I hid under the floor. For five years, I believed I was Kaelen, the King's quiet butcher.

Now, I realized I was Rowan, a coward who survived by hiding in the dark.

I felt a sudden, deep urge to survive, but I also felt a dark desire to hurt him for making me remember. I wanted my old life back, yet I also wanted to remain the strong killer the King has ever created.

The clash inside my head made me want to tear my own skin off.

"You are just a shadow," the corpse said to me as his grin grew wider, cracking the grey skin around his cheeks.

"You are a ghost wearing my body, and I want my life back."

My fear turned into pure anger as I was tired of hurting, and I was tired of feeling confused about who I was.

I decided I would rather kill this thing than lose my mind.

I pushed myself off the floor, let out a rough shout, and lunged forward.

I aimed my blade straight at the middle of his chest, hoping to feel the steel slice through his heart.

But my dagger hit nothing… just an empty air.

At that exact second, the small candle on my table went out as the room became completely dark, and my own movement threw me forward into the stone wall where the man had been standing.

"Where did you go?" I shouted into the dark as I turned around and swung my knife wildly, but I hit only the quiet air.

The heavy feeling in the room disappeared, leaving behind only the metallic smell of fresh blood.

I stood there alone for a long time, holding my breath, waiting for an attack that never came.

Then, when the sun came up in the morning, I was lying on the cold floor. My shirt was soaked with sweat, and my arms ached as if I had been carrying heavy stones all night.

I sat up and checked the door and it was still locked from the inside. The wax on my table had melted completely.

“It was just a bad dream,” I thought, rubbing my dry eyes with my hands.

“The prisoner’s magic messed with my head, so I am seeing things.”

I stood up on unsteady legs because I needed to prepare for the day.

My skin felt filthy, and I wanted to wash the sweat off my face before the guards came for me.

I walked over to the corner of the room where my water bowl sat and I made a simple choice to ignore the voice, bury the name Rowan, and keep playing the role of the King's executioner so I could stay alive.

I dumped my face into the cold water, feeling the chill wake up my tired brain. I grabbed the edges of the ceramic bowl, leaned forward, and looked at the small silver mirror on the stone wall.

My reflection looked exhausted and my skin was pale, and the dark circles hung under my eyes.

I looked like a murderer who had not slept in days.

You are Kaelen, I told myself as I stared into my own brown eyes. You carry out the King's orders, and you do not have a past.

I closed my eyes tight, rubbed my face hard with both hands to clear my head, and opened them again.

My heart stopped beating for a second as the blood in my veins felt cold.

I was looking straight ahead with my eyes wide open in fear.

However, the man in the mirror had not opened his eyes. My reflection remained standing there in the glass with his eyelids completely shut.

A full second passed while I stared at a face that could not see me back.

Then, slowly, the man in the mirror lifted his eyelids and suddenly his eyes were not brown anymore; they were completely black, like two empty holes.

He looked right at me, and a small, slow smile appeared on his face.