The Ex-Luna's Revenge

Episode 6: The Warning

/Alora/

He disappeared out the door, and the distinct echo of the man’s shoes became nothing more than an unpleasant memory.

I could hear my heart beating as my breathing became ragged, as if my lungs were struggling to fill with air beneath the detective's jets of water.

Randall was writing every word about the strange man, and I could almost feel him standing behind me like a physical shadow, as annoying as his words.

“They’re coming for you.” That sentence replayed in my head and reverberated around the inside of my brain with visible clarity.

The Elders. Then, a part of me considered rejecting the very thought that was going around in my head. To deny it.

Thinking about it, after all the things that had happened to me, how could I be completely sure that this, whatever it was, had anything to do with me? There was another part of me, a primal part of me, that didn’t want this to end.

Randall’s hand grasped my arm with increased pressure, recalling me from whatever memory I had floated away to and back to the shallow cavern.

I tried to concentrate on him. I tried to find some kind of power deep inside of me that was still strong enough to keep me in check.

“What did he mean by that?” My voice was goosebumps; I could only speak in whispers. I despised the vulnerability in it, despised how it shook.

Randall dropped his hand from my arm, and his fingers curled into a fist as if he were conflicted between trying to hug me or avoiding me. ‘I have no idea, but I guess there is so much you are getting wrong that asking these questions should be minor.’

His voice had grown sterner, and there was a sheet of frost on the horizon of his threat. What stung me most—the tone in which he spoke to me or the tangible sensation of a s****l connection we used to have that faded away with each moment?

“So, then what should I be asking, Randall?” I raised my voice despite myself and said it. New and strong, the feeling of anger was like needles in the pit of my stomach. “Why did you bring me here? You are unwilling to explain to me what is going on here.

What did the elders want from me?

A brief moment of pain was replaced with determination in Randall’s eyes. He stepped backward and moved away from me as if my voice was too hot to handle or too painful to listen to.

"Let me go, please," she muttered, finally looking at him; however, tears still ran down her cheeks. “No.” He said it in an authoritative tone.

I am not the one who can give you the answers that you are looking for. Well, you’re going to have to learn them yourself. Yet, it is not the time for them to do it.”

It gave me a sensation that my chest was tightening because frustration and fear formed a terrible pressure that was making me bad.

Randall’s jaw worked, and for a split moment I was sure he was going to erupt, but then his anger seemed to recede. He sighed deeply, letting the air out of his lungs, and raked his fingers through his black hair for a calming effect. When he continued to speak, his tones were much slower and much more controlled than before.

“I did not bring you here to save your life, Alora." Our gazes directly clashed, his eyes flaming with a fiery determination toying with me. ‘You needed to know this, and that is why I brought you here,’ the man continued, pointing at the clipboard. The power they fear.”

I froze momentarily, and there was a lump in my throat. I wasn’t given any chance to protest, “You mean the power you hold yourself?”

Randall did not respond immediately. He shook his head and, with quiet intensity, strolled away and started walking back and forth, the sound of his boots unable to be completely masked against the floor. I could palpably hear tension rising as the atmosphere between us became charged up, his aura oppressive as a storm cloud.

“Ever asked yourself why one has always been able to carry on, regardless of what life has thrown at us?” He no longer looked at me directly. "Why have you been able to survive all these losses, all these betrayals, without collapsing?”

He was probably wondering why I didn’t say anything; I was plucky, and I wanted to tell him just that.

That I wasn’t weak. But at the back of my mind, I understood that the reply he expected was much more than that. She had always carried that sense of potentiality lurking somewhere just below the skin, a sort of strength that was hidden but which I sensed lay within her somewhere, although I had no real idea of what that might be.

“I don’t know,” I replied, the pitch of my voice rising with anger. “What exactly are you trying to tell me?”

The bastard ceased striding back and forth and stared at me with an ill temper as he moved towards me. “The Elders are waiting for you, Alora; they know the real you. They know what you are.”

My heart skipped a beat. “What am I?”

He squinted his eyes and looked intense, just like he was fighting some inner demon that he would not show. But the words slipped out anyway.

Thus, Siobhan sized me up, trying to see me beyond the moniker of the ex-Luna. They don’t know you’re a force they can’t control. And that’s why they’re coming for you. Remember this quote?

I closed my eyes for a moment and then turned around... Staring at the ground for a minute or so. “What are you talking about?” I asked, and my voice trembled, but I was fiercely trying to make it sound otherwise.

Randall glanced for a second toward the open entrance, and for the first time, I saw the worry in his eyes. “The more time you spend in this place, the higher the risks you undergo.”

He moved closer, his eyes dark fire, and his voice, despite the noise level, tight and tense. “We need to move, Alora. They just don’t let go, and they don’t ever really stop pursuing their prey until they catch them.”

Before I could object, I saw Randall’s hand rush out and clamp a vice-like grip on my wrist. Then he began to lead me through the back to a small, slightly concealed path I had not ever seen before.

“Come on,” he ordered urgently, doing everything to make her understand his words. “We don’t have time to waste.”

I followed him immediately. The heavy feeling in my chest from fear and apprehension accompanied me at every turn. Whatever it was that Randall knew, or whatever was going on, I was being drawn into a whirl that I could do nothing about.

We slowly walked by the passageway through the throne, trying to prick our skins as we went further and deeper into the darkness.

As we walked, Randall didn’t say a word, but all the muscles in his face told me a whole story. It was a strangling atmosphere; something desperate filled the room, intensifying the air impossibly.

Finally, after what seemed like hours, we came to a small secret room that none of us could have found in a thousand years on our own.

The walls were filled with detailed signs, which illuminated slightly in the dark. My eyes opened wide in disbelief as I looked at the sight. This place—it was ancient.

Randall glances and turns with no visible emotion on his face. “This is where you’ll learn.”

I looked at him blankly for a moment, my mind still trying to process what he had said. “Learn what?”

“The truth,” repeated Randall. “About your family, about your heirs, or what remains of them.”

I nodded my head, looking at him in disbelief as his words sank to the core of me. It’s always, ‘You keep saying that, but you’re not telling me anything,’ don’t you? "How do you know all this? How do you know what I am?”

He didn’t answer right away. Instead, he continued moving towards the middle of the floor, his eyes piercing. “Because you have been waiting for me, Alora?”

I have been expecting with a kind of joy the moment when you would come back to life—to your real life.

This was cut short by the shaking of the walls around us. A low hum shook the chamber, and Randall shifted his gaze towards the door, his face freezing over.

“They’re here,” he mumbled angrily. “We don’t have much time.”

I sensed it then as if I could feel the excitement before a great event—that charged feeling that comes when something is nearly upon you.

The Elders were coming, and the storm that had threatened to overwhelm me for a long time was now here.

I realized that I had not prepared enough, and there was no chance to do anything anymore. I didn’t have time to think.

There was a loud crackle. The door caved in, pieces missing as some dark form filled it from the outside. The air started to tremble with an old, powerful energy.

I clenched my hands, feeling fire begin to k****e inside me, a small chunk of something wild and powerful, and in my blood, fear warred with anger, but one thing I knew:

I wasn't going to give up that quickly.

Then, from the dark:

Alora..." A voice whispered, colder than death.