King of Darkness and The White Flame

Chapter 5

The opening was a dark cave. Some of the men that had gathered the wood had started making a fire that barely stayed alive due to the dripping. “There must be water here, nearby.” Lilith observed. She was standing so close to me. The butterflies returned and now was not the time. I had already lost manpower, as well as my trusted advisor. I couldn’t afford to lose everyone else.

“Silus, how’s the fire coming along?”

“If we can find a dry spot, Sir, we’ll have it going in no time.” I nodded in agreement. I left them to do what they needed and felt a pull toward the back of the cave. Stepping carefully, I slowly walk toward the back of the cave in the dark, using the wall as my guide. “Where are you going?” Lilith whispers beside me and I nearly jump out of my skin. “Yelp!” I squeal.

“Don’t do that!” I whisper back. She howls and taps her leg with her hand as she does so. “What was that?” she says between breaths still chuckling. “What was what?” I ask, acting dumb. “You yelped!” she laughs so hard she struggles to breathe.

“I did not.”

“You did too.” I feel her holding onto the tail of my jacket as we move toward the darkest part of the cave.

“YAY!!” The jeering behind us makes us both jump. When we turn back, we see that Silus was able to light the biggest fire and everyone is starting to gather around it.

The back of the cave becomes colder and colder but the dripping becomes louder. The walls seem to be getting wider too. The left wall that was guiding me had started to curve slightly and had become slick with what I hoped was just mold. Lilith grips me tighter and starts walking closer to me. The light from Silus’s fire gets smaller and smaller. Eventually, we are alone. There is only the sound of the dripping water that seem to come from nowhere and everywhere all at once.

The dark feels all encompassing and starts to make me feel claustrophobic. The anxiety of not knowing where I'm going is starting to become too much. My only comfort right now is Lilith, who is gripping onto me. If I wasn’t this scared I would enjoy this moment with her.  “Where are we?” Lilith whispers and the sound echoes off the walls. “Don’t know.” I responded. Just when we think the tunnel would never end, a faint blue light appears in the distance. “What is that?” Lilith asks. We try to move a little faster toward the light but the floor is so slick that our sneakers feel like they’re slipping. The light gets bigger and eventually we notice that there is another opening. When we round the corner we enter a room with a glowing blue light all around it. In the center of the room is a large, round pool.

“Woah” Lilith gasps. I’m speechless. Next to the pool are stones carved out into deep buckets. Lilith bends down to put her hand in the water. “It’s so cool.” she scoops up a little into her hand and drinks. Her eyes light up as she looks up to me. “This is the sweetest water I’ve ever tasted!” she exclaims. She grabs one of the nearby stone buckets and scoops up more water, breathlessly gulping it down. Bucket after bucket, she consumes gallons of water and I’m wondering when she’s going to stop. At first it seemed graceful, now it seems almost savage.

“Lilith, do you want to come up for air?” I joke. She doesn’t respond. “Lilith?” I touch her shoulder. She looks up and her eyes have changed. The beautiful light brown eyes turned neon blue. A memory flashes in my head of the beasts that attacked me. I step back quickly, slipping on the slick rock beneath me and falling, my back slams against the stone wall. I groan as I try to get back up. Lilith looks back at the water and continues drinking. Panic rises within me. What if this water turns people to monsters? How do I save her?

I run toward Lilith, my back still feeling like it’s bruised. I pull her by the shoulders as hard as I can. She turns on me. Lilith leaps, her growl is deep and her fingers bent like claws. Her eyes are a glowing neon blue. I catch her wrists. She’s still much smaller than me and she hasn’t gained much strength, unlike the monsters at the campsite, so I am able to subdue her. What if she stays like this forever? My heart hurts. The pain is sharp. 

“Lilith, please, it’s just me.” her eyes flash from blue to brown and back to blue. She’s still in there. “Lilith, you need to fight it. Please?” My heart is in agony as I watch her face contort in pain. A teardrop slips from her right eye and I pull her tightly into my arms. We slip down the back wall onto the floor and I’m still holding her as she fights against me. She growls then whines and I’m rocking her back and forth, repeating “Come back to me Lilith. Fight. Please Fight against it.” Fire  The voice whispers. Instantly I become angry. Was it not YOU who led me here in the first place?!! I yell in my head. Fire The voice responds. I’m done listening to you! I scream again inside my head. 

A loud shriek comes from Lilith. I feel my cheeks warm with tears. I’m still rocking her back and forth when I hear footsteps. 

“What - what’s going on in here?” Jessie says. He’s carrying a fire torch. His eyes land on Lilith and tries to run to us. His feet slip and he almost tumbles to the ground. His hand still gripped to the torch in his hand. Jessie decides to slowly approach, careful of every step. The closer he comes, the whiter the flame becomes and I instantly know what’s happening. Jessie is unaware of what is going on with his torch. His eyes are focused on Lilith in my arms still shrieking loudly. 

When Jessie is directly in front of us, he bends down near to Lilith bringing the flame closer. Lilith whips her head in the direction of the flame and starts screaming at the top of her lungs. Her blue eyes start to pale. They look fearful of the flame and Jessie starts to pull away. I grab his hand and bring it closer. His face full of anger, he tries to fight against me. I hold the light of the flame as close to her as I can and the blue in her eyes slowly starts to fade away. She lets out a huge sigh as if she had been holding her breath this whole time and then her eyes clear. They’re a beautiful shade of light brown once again like the sand on the shore. She turns her head toward me and looks deeply into my eyes. Without a word she puts her arms around my neck and holds me close. My head is buried in her dark hair as relief washes over me. 

Lilith and I pull apart. Jessie is sitting beside us, bewildered. “What. Just. Happened?” he stutters. 

“It’s the water.” I explain. As if he notices the water for the first time, Jessie turns his head toward it and puts his hands on his head. 

“But everyone is so thirsty. If any of them sees this, there’ll be trouble on our hands.” he says

“We can’t let them back here. Lilith, can you stand?” She tries to get up, but her legs are a little weak. All of her energy is drained. I stand up first, and then help her up and throw her arm around my neck. I put my arm around her waist and Jessie put his arm around her other side. We help Lilith out of the room. Slowly we walked toward where we had left the others. The light of the torch had gone back to its warm orange glow. I try not to think about the strange White Flame that seemed to have lured me to the depths of the cave and then saves Lilith from mutating? Is this flame good, or bad? I thought it was good, and now I’m not so sure.

Just as we reach the camp, we hear shouting and screaming at the mouth of the cave. “What’s going on?” I asked one of the volunteers nearby, I think I heard someone call him Evan. 

“Looks like some of The Skull members have come back,” he says. I leave Lilith with Jessie, who has laid her down on one of the nearby mats next to the fire. When I arrive at the mouth of the cave I see what the fuss is about, two of the soldiers have someone on a makeshift stretcher. The wind is still strong but the tornado is gone. They’re struggling to carry the weight of the other guy. 

“Let’s go,” I called to the two men nearest to me. The three of us run to help the soldiers carry the stretcher. When we get closer, I see who’s laying on the stretcher. “We need to hurry before the wind picks up again” I shout to the men. With the five of us carrying the stretcher, it goes a lot faster. We reach the cave in no time at all and with the light from the fire I’m able to see the injuries much better. There are scratches on his legs, arms and face. I bend to touch the wounds when he stirs, “They’re coming,” Asher whispers. His eyes were wild and clear for a minute. Then he slipped back into unconsciousness.