Page 10 of Nightmare's Dance

The woman in the mirror bowed and stepped back, revealing a translucent stone archway in the mirror.

In-charge clone stepped into the mirror, and he grew smaller as he walked through the archway.

“What the fuck?” I whispered again, an edge of panic making my voice fragile.

The clone with his hand clamped around my arm, dragged me forward. I screamed as he thrust me at the mirror, but instead of hard glass smashing my face, the feeling of cool liquid cradled my body, followed by my ears popping. I screamed for my knight.

Only cold, rushing air and silence answered.

Ember

“What the fuck?” I whispered for the millionth time, arms clutched around my legs, hugging my knees to my chest as I rocked back and forth. The stone floor radiated its chill through my body, shivers wracking me and not entirely from fear. It was freaking cold in the small stone cage they’d thrown me in.

Everything was gray, from the blocks of stone making up the walls, to the bars on the front, to the hallway outside. Even my skin had taken on a gray tinge. That couldn’t be healthy.

My brain had short-circuited when I’d stumbled out of the mirror into the cold, dry air of wherever the hell I was now. I’d glimpsed Geraint before I’d been dragged away, so I knew he’d also made the trip. Impressions of stone corridors and deep shadows, and a few precariously narrow and steep staircases, flitted through my memories before I’d been tossed in my cell. I had no idea where they’d taken Geraint.

Picking at the threads around the rip in my yoga pants, I fought tears and hoped the cut on my knee didn’t get infected. Though, honestly, that was probably the least of my worries.

I needed to pee, but except for me, the cell was empty.

With no idea what else to do, I stood, nearly cracking my head on a low stone ceiling that had literally been shrouded in shadows. When I waved my hand through the air, the blackness swirled like smoke, except it clung to me in cool droplets. So maybe more akin to a shadowy fog?

Weird as hell.

The cell wasn’t much taller than I was. I could stand, but if I stretched at all, I’d hit the top. Hunching my shoulders, I shuffled forward and sank down to the floor, so I didn’t feel like the walls were closing in so much.

The bars were cold in my hands, like everything else. I pressed my face to the metal and looked around, trying to see up and down the hallway. The same black fog clung to the walls and the floors, shifting in an unfelt breeze.

I thought I saw other bars like the ones on the front of my cage up and down the hall, but the fog hid a lot of details. It was quiet down here, too. Even the sounds I made seemed muffled. Listening, I couldn’t make out anything that made me think others inhabited those cells. No scents reached me except my sweat and a weird, dry papery smell. I expected dank mustiness, especially with the weird shadow fog, but it smelled dry.

Not sure what else to do, I was about to shout. The lack of anything but the sounds I made was making me feel a little crazy. Even negative attention was better than this.

While I tried to compose my first demands and force words from my lips, the air pressure changed and the slightest breeze tickled strands of my shoulder-blade-length hair. I wouldn’t even have noticed if it weren’t for the absolute stillness of the place.

The click of claws on hard ground displaced the silence and for a moment warmth pushed away the chill and the fear in my chest. The patter of paws on stone brought back fond memories of the pack of dogs I’d grown up with. Then the harshness of this strange reality crashed back down, and I whimpered as a version of the same heavy-jowled dogs I’d drawn by the lake a lifetime ago came into view. The pair padded toward me, red eyes locked on mine, lips drawn back to show gleaming white teeth. They were solid black, heavy bodied and broad shouldered like some sort of large bully breed dog. Drool leaked from their mouths and splattered on the floor. The black shadow fog swirled away from the dogs, but a small bit wasn’t fast enough, and the drool landed on it, hissing like acid. The rest of the blackness fled, leaving the room feeling empty, even with the demonic dogs that had positioned themselves in front of my cell. They lowered themselves to their haunches and stared at me. One licked its lips as if hungry.

I winced in sympathy for the shadow stuff, though why I should feel any empathy for whatever that was, I didn’t have a clue. Its absence left the room in a weird place lighting-wise. The ambient light was low but dispersed, and I had no idea where the illumination came from. The dogs did not seem to have shadows.

I held my hand out. My shadow was faint, but there. It still existed. For whatever reason I found that idea a tremendous relief. It wasn’t like I was in Neverland, where I could lose my shadow.

Okay, so I didn’t know that. I’d gone through a mirror to get here, after all. Still, getting to Neverland involved flying if I recalled correctly and I’d certainly not done any of that.

The dogs breathed heavily and filled the space with their presence. Despite being terrifying in appearance, it was nice not to be alone.

We stared at each other for a while. The only thing to mark the passage of time was the increasing pressure on my bladder and the dryness of my mouth.

I’d finally decided, again, to break the quiet and start yelling, when the unmistakable thud of boots on stone reached me.

My heart sped in my chest and anxiety increased the need to pee. What now? Whatever this was, I didn’t want to meet it sitting on my ass, so I forced stiff knees to behave and climbed to my feet.

I didn’t have to wait long before a man came into view. He wore some sort of uniform in shades of black and gray, blending in with the rest of the place. His skin was chalky. Not exactly Caucasian, more like someone had forgotten to shade in his features. He wore a sword at his hip, but the only color about the guy other than shades of gray was his pallid skin.

“Prince Baz will see you now.” The guy’s voice was as bland as the rest of him, lacking emotion and inflection.

“I need to use the restroom.”

The guy gestured, and the bars in front of me dissolved into a gray mist. He didn’t acknowledge my words, but I hoped that he’d understood.

---