Into The Darkness

Necklace

Audrey POV

I look around, and I am in the same dream. It is all dark outside with the same red sun. A few fires are burning, but it doesn’t give any more light. I hear the twins screaming. I ran towards them. I don’t know why, but I always feel the need to run towards them. I see them and they run past me.

They look up at me at the same time. “You have to run! She is coming! Run!!!” One of them said.

“There isn’t much time. Run!!!.” The other one said.

I always try to run after them, but my feet are always glued to the ground. I see Celine. She was wearing the same long and elegant-looking black dress. “I looked everywhere,” Celine said in that strange voice again. “ I cannot find her. She will come back for you. She will come for me. She is going to kill everyone. Stop her!”

“Who?” I asked again for the hundredth time.

“Catalina. Stop her!” She said.

“How” I asked

“Draven” she said, and I woke up. I sat up completely stunned. She has always said Leo’s name. Something changed. What changed? I looked over at Seth. He is still sleeping. His hair's a little messy. He has a dark brown curl on the top of his head. The sides and back are shaved. I chose not to wake him up. I go downstairs to find Draven and Leo having a hushed conversation.

“Hey”, I said to introduce myself. They stop talking and look up at me.

“Hey” Draven replies. “Is everything okay?”

“Something has changed,” I said.

“What?” Draven asked, while Leo just raised an eyebrow.

“In my dream. It no longer tells me to find Leo. This time, it told me Draven's name.” They both stared at me with extremely serious expressions. “You know what changed, don’t you?” They both tensed up for a moment. Draven looks over to Leo.

“It hasn’t been decided yet. We met with the elders earlier today. They have asked me to join them. To become an elder. If I do, then Draven will become King.” I sat back and was a little stunned.

“So whatever I need has to come from the king,” I whispered.

“It would appear so.” Leo then looked at Draven again. “Audrey, there is a part of the castle you have not been to. It is a part of the castle that only the king himself has access to. No one besides the king of vampires has been allowed there since it was created.”

I sat up in my chair and furrowed my eyebrows. “What part?”

“I had a suspicion that what you needed was in that room. I was just hoping I would be proven wrong. It is strictly forbidden for me to even talk about its existence. I am unsure of what kind of punishment we will receive from the elders but due to the situation, I will take you there. It is an artifacts room. It holds a lot of history, not just our history. Since the only one who is allowed access to that room is the king. If I step down, Draven will be the only one to allow you in. Access to that room is the only explanation why the vision changed.” Leo stands up from his chair. “Come! Let us go see that room.”

I walked down the hall with him and into a library. Inside the library is a fireplace. He places his thumb inside a gargoyle's mouth on the mantle. There is a clicking sound and a bookshelf slides out of the way. “Be very careful. Do not touch anything you don’t need to. We cannot damage anything,” he warned. I nodded, and he disappeared into the doorway. I step in, and the door closes. Fire magically lights candles along the wall. We walked through a hallway and came to another door. There is no handle on this door. Leo pushes his nail into his finger and a drop of blood forms. He pushes it onto the door. Another clicking sound happens and the door opens.

He walks inside and I follow. This room also lights up. The room is filled with glass cases. Inside the cases are shelves. There are tens of thousands of artifacts. I walked down an aisle of cases and looked at some of them. I saw a mummified human foot. I turned around to ask Leo and he laughed. “That foot has a curse on it. Long story. I will tell you later.”

We kept going through the aisles of glass cases. I got a strange feeling as I move further to the back of the room. Something started to call me. I stopped looking at the artifacts and walked to the back. There is a glass case surrounding a podium that is completely alone. There are no other cases around it. It is pushed against the back wall. I walked up to it. There is only one thing inside and it is starting to sing to me.

Literally sing. I am hearing a humming tune. Leo steps beside me. “It is rumored that the very first witch to live on this earth owned that necklace. Some speculate she was a god. Well, she wasn’t the only one. There were four in total. Two warlocks and two witches. It is said that they possessed great power. The details are so vague. It happened so very long ago. It is rumored that the power corrupted them after a few generations. It is said that the power was stripped away from them”

The singing got a little louder. It sounded like it was coming from all around me now. “Open it” a voice echoed behind me. “Open it” it said again. My hand reached up for the case latch. Leo’s hand came up and stopped mine.

“We don’t know what this does. The necklace has been down here since before my time. It could be bad to do this.” he said, and the voices got louder. It started to shout at me “Open it, open it, open it.”

“I have to,” I said and he sighed. I look back at the necklace. It is gold with symbols etched into the chain. There are some symbols with different colored stones in them. There is a red, white, green and blue stone. “Four witches and four stones,” I stated.

Leo removed his hand and I opened the door to the case. I felt a rush of wind fly past me. The flames in the candles went out. It is completely dark except for the stones. They are lighting up now.

They rise up out of the necklace and start to spin around in a circle. The red stone goes flying into the darkness. My eyes get fixated on the white one. It is so beautiful. I am mesmerized. “Audrey” Leo sounds alarmed. I turned around and saw a white light floating towards me. It is in the shape of a person, but it is just a light. It looks like the light is constantly flowing. Like the rhythm of a flame that is burning.

It gets closer and Leo reaches for my arm. He starts to pull me away. We take two steps before the light rushes forward and grabs my other arm. I screamed as a searing pain rushed through my arm. “Chosen” The light said in three different voices. It disappeared and there was nothing left but darkness. I turned around to the stones. They are still flying around in a circle. The blue and green one falls back down onto the necklace. The white one stays in the air.

It floats forward and starts to circle around me. “Audrey” Leo sounded panicked. I can feel the energy building as the white stone spins around. It came to a stop in front of my chest. It is about a foot away from me. The stone then suddenly flew straight into me. A rush of energy rushes through my body. I look at my hands and arms to see them glowing. I looked down and realize my whole body was glowing.

Just as fast as it started, it all stopped. The glow was gone, and the candles lit back up. I look at the necklace and see the other two stones sitting on the necklace again. The red and white ones are missing. My arm starts to throb and I look down. There is a white handprint showing where the light touched me. It looks like a birthmark.

“What on earth just happened?” Leo asked, and I looked up at him. He looks just as clueless as I feel.

“I think it is choosing the chosen ones. Where did the red one go? It disappeared, so it has to have chosen someone already.” I said more to myself.

“Chosen for what?” Leo asked.

“I don’t know”, I reached inside the glass case and grabbed the necklace. I clasped the necklace around my neck.

“Is that a good idea?” Leo sounded skeptical.

“I was brought here for a reason. I will need these other stones. I don’t know why yet, but I feel the need to protect them.”

Leo grabbed my hand and started to pull me out of the room. We went down the stairs and through the bookshelf. Seth is there pacing the room. He sees me come out, and he rushes towards me. He pulls me into a hug. “What the hell happened?” His heart is racing. He is scared.

“You felt it?” I asked.

“I felt something hurt your arm.” He lifted my arm and saw the white handprint.

“We don’t know Seth.” He took me upstairs to our bedroom. I lay down and curled up next to him. I told him what happened, and he seemed to panic a little from the unknown. A part of me feels relaxed though. I feel at peace for the first time in a long time.