Chapter 28 The Pit

It was chaos. The previously white canvas was now dipped in black, paint dripping all over the white floor. How did it turn into such a mess? I could hear footsteps approaching in the distance. Who was this new intruder? A guest, maybe?

I suddenly felt the urge to prepare something for the guests to come. But there was nothing to prepare. I looked back at the black canvas. The paint was endless as it bled out, passing through underneath my invisible feet. The minute it touched me, a cold sensation took over.

I felt my body cringe, felt an eyelid flutter. I could hear voices now. They were almost here and I hadn't gotten anywhere with the cleaning.

"No… don't come any closer," I whispered the thought.

Out came a reply. I wasn't sure I could make out the words from it being so muffled. The paint was pooling in now, rising up to my ankles. It was freezing cold. I took a step back. It seemed as if showing signs of resistance made it rise up even higher. I kept very still, letting it crawl up my shoulders to reach my throat, seeping into my mouth bit by bit.

I held my breath, letting it submerge my entire existence into darkness. Someone called out in anger. Those guests must have been furious at the sight. It sounded like a name.

"...xon!" I could make out part of it.

"Take me to them," I told the darkness, "I order you."

My finger twitched. In response to which someone screamed even louder.

"Dixon!" It was definitely a name.

My eyes opened to an image of a girl, faded but intact. The girl had red hair and looked at me with concerned eyes. The image floated away into the darkness.

"Dixon!" This time it was someone else calling out the name.

Bits and pieces bonded together to form an image of a man who also had red hair. He resembled the girl a lot.

"Do I know these people?" I wondered aloud. That image, too, floated away.

All of a sudden, there was a sharp pain. It was a pounding of a sort, followed by a heart beat.

"Dixon, help!" the girl cried out.

Another set of eyes opened up to a multitude of images containing the girl and many others. Once more, I opened my eyes, and my vision was jam packed by terrains, locations of different kind. My eyes flipped open with a gasp and I rose to my feet. She had her back towards me. My hands reached for her and pulled her into a hug from behind. I could feel both our hearts speeding in a synchronized pattern.

"Dixon? You woke up!" Cheryl announced with relief. While still holding onto her, I glared up at the surrounding shadows. They stared back with their pearl white eyes. One by one, each of their eyes turned to a luminous blue as they retreated under my gaze.

Ricky cleared his throat from beside me and I quickly straightened myself, letting go of his sister. He then moved in for a bear hug. I didn't know he had it in him.

"Are you crying?" I teased and he pulled away too quickly with a no. I looked around at the rocky terrain. We were inside a crevice of some sort, guarded by large rocks that extended up towards the sky.

"I know this place…" I said. "This is the realm of shadows… but it's not his realm." I raised my eyebrows at both of them. "How the hell did you get here?"

"Your little blue eyed buddy helped us. Without it we wouldn't have been able to come here," Ricky answered. I noticed he was once again without his spectacles. I wondered who took them this time.

"So, wait, you guys came all the way here just to find me?" I looked at them with disbelief, turned to Cheryl who was almost teary eyed.

"You disappeared and we didn't know how to find you. It's Meryl. She's in trouble," she said in a panic.

I looked down at my hands that still pounded for some reason.

"Last I remember I was on my way to check if she was okay."

"We found you coated in shadows, lying unconscious on the ground. It was like they were feeding on you," Ricky said, "They attacked the minute we walked in here."

"It's the shadow king. He put me to sleep…" I muttered, balling my hands to a fist.

"How do you feel?" Cheryl asked, her eyebrows raised with concern.

I smiled, lifting my fist to gather a dark wind around it. "Stronger than ever."

.

The blade stopped an inch away from her face. Meryl gasped out the breath she'd been holding. Her heart could explode from the amount of pressure it was exuding. She could hear Iris snicker behind her.

"Are you a fool?" the king spoke in a loud, startled voice. Before she could even explain to him, an invisible force shoved him back. His feet skidded against the floor as they slowed to a stop. His chest heaved as he gasped for breath.

"Interfere again, and my blade will not stop the next time." His nostrils flared out of rage. Iris snickered behind mockingly.

The king stomped his foot on the ground, cracking an opening for shadows to slither through. Out of a small hole beneath his feet, they rose into the air, surrounding him like a black cloud.

"I didn't want it to have to come to this…" he trailed off as the miasma around him thickened, absorbing into his skin. A second later, a black flame ignited around his skeleton wings, sucking in all the shadows with it.

"Get out of the way… or die," he told Meryl in a bitter tone, raising his ax into the air. Shadows from the surrounding walls melted into the blade, enlarging it, making it heavier as it swung. The king slashed the air with it, aiming for Iris. A black wave slid out, cutting through the threads in the air. Meryl's feet felt too frozen to move as she watched its power close in on her.

Jonathan appeared out of the empty air beside her, pulled her out of the way, just in time before the wave slashed through. Iris quickly raised a hand, having the threads rise up to create a spherical shield around her. She was pushed back under the massive force as it hit, sustaining her threads for a few seconds until they began to break off. One after another, she watched wide eyed, each of her threads snapped in front of her.

Without giving her the chance to recover, the king slashed the air over and over, consecutively. Iris was pushed back with each wave, cutting deeper into her shield of threads. For the first time, a worry line appeared on her forehead.

"I am the shadow king! Do Not think lightly of me!" he said, gripping the ax tightly in his hands. His wings flapped once, before a force of wind pushed him off the ground. He sped straight towards what was left of Iris's shield, swinging his ax with as much power as he could muster. A dark, fiery wave exuded out of his blade, landing a critical on the threads all around. Iris's tiny body was hurled backwards, hitting the wall behind. The threads stretched out under her weight to reduce the impact. A mass of unattached white lines was sprawled out on the floor as what was left of the shield.

"Iris…" Meryl murmured in between tears, attempting to break free from Jonathan's hold once more but he gripped her arm tightly this time.

"Don't do it," he warned her, watching the shadow king slowly inch towards the unconscious little girl.

A single blue eyed Catter hopped off the wall to stand in the way. The king paused in his steps to frown at the odd being. More followed behind, gathering in front of him. All had the same luminous blue eyes.

.

My blade slightly grazed against the king's neck from behind. I watched him turn around, astonished to see me standing before him holding my scythe.

"How?" the words escaped his mouth.

"Dixon… you're alive…" Meryl cried out, almost jumping up in joy.

"I'm also here…" Ricky muttered in an annoyed manner from behind the king, crouching down to place a hand on the floor. Sparks emerged, heading straight for the king, wrapping around him till he was submerged inside the web. He refrained from showing any resistance.

Cheryl rushed over to little Iris lying towards the corner of the room. She wiped the silver hair out of her face. Her cube of threads did not disappear even though she was unconscious.

"Explain yourself," Dixon ordered in a firm voice. "You realize what you tried to do behind my back."

"I did what you refused to do. Had I left you to yourself your powers would have killed you. So I put you in a deep slumber while Merylin and I tried to retrieve the light for you." There wasn't even a shred of regret in his voice.

"So basically you put the entire town in danger, just to kill an innocent little girl," I rephrased for him, inching the blade closer to the nape of his neck. "Worst of all, you tried to use Meryl?"

"He tried to kill me!" Meryl snapped, marching ahead, only to have Jonathan pull her back.

"It wouldn't have killed you but you purposely kept getting in the way!" the king snapped back.

"Alright, enough!" I yelled out. I could feel a faint pounding in the side of my head. I looked at the king with tired eyes. "Take back the miasma before it consumes the entire town."

"Impossible. It goes where I go. I am the King of the shadow realm!"

I sighed, having heard that line one too many times.

"Then from now on… you are no longer king." I said in a low voice.

"What?!" he reacted out of bewilderment.

"I told you what would happen if you tried to go against me. This is what you wanted all along anyway. I'm taking over."

A subtle wind blew towards us, converging into a massive storm around me. Rage overtook the king and he lashed out, breaking free from the electric binds. Ricky's body jerked back as the electric web snapped at him.

"You think you can defeat me?!" he barked.

The ax reappeared in his hand as he swung it at me recklessly. Immediately my scythe went up. A wave of black wind hit it with so much force it vibrated in my hand. My entire body pounded from the inside, feeling an endless flow of energy stream through. I let my new found power surge, coating by blade with a thick layer of shadow. It stretched out, curving into a sharp point at the end.

I swung it in one swift motion. My muscles tensed as they exuded force, cutting the black wave in half. The storm grew heavier on my side as more shadows travelled towards me. The king let out a deafening roar, flapping his wings as he lunged at me with speed. More shadows converged around my back and a third set of wings grew out. The king's ax went straight for my blade, hitting it with a loud clunk.

The new set of wings flapped behind me with force enough to shake the edges of the cube. The king pushed hard against my scythe, screaming as his muscles ripped from the sides. I could see his veins popping out. Very slowly, I felt my body being driven back. Then I heard a crack. My eyes widened as a tiny piece on the blade of my scythe chipped off. The crack quickly spread towards the entire blade. My heart began to sink.

At that moment, I stared into the king's hate filled eyes. I could not detect even a moment of hesitance as he attempted to kill me. Had it all been a lie? Calling me his son, fighting to keep me alive.

"You really want to kill me right now…" I murmured, letting my scythe draw back into my hands.

The king slashed forward, aimed at my chest. I could hear the wind screeching in my ears as it enveloped me completely. Shadows flew towards my back, melting into my skin, strengthening me. My hand moved instinctively to catch the blade with my blackened fingers.

The king flinched as he stared with startled eyes.

"The shadows have already chosen…" I told him, tightening my grip as cracks emerged from under my fingers, spreading out onto his blade. A second later, the ax shattered in front of our eyes. Metal shards flew into the air.

"How…?" the king shouted in helplessness. "You weren't this strong before. Where are you getting the power that took me centuries to build up?!"

My hand moved to grab his neck, tightening my hold around it.

"You said it yourself… it's the shadows that choose their ruler. Your time is up."

Miasma seeped from inside the king's body, absorbing into my skin. He struggled to move but my hold paralyzed him in place. I felt him shrink in size. I held out my other hand under the thrashing force of wind. The storm bombarded against his body, stealing shadows and converging them into my hand.

For a second, I didn't feel any different. Then it hit me hard, so much that my body began to wobble slightly under the weight. I held on, feeling a pressure pinch me from every part of my body.

"Obey…" I whispered in a hard voice. Almost immediately the pinching eased. I let my arms fall back to my side. When I looked up, the king almost stumbled to the ground in shock. The storm vanished from around us, leaving a shorter, thinner man standing before me. He looked just as surprised to see his own skin color back to normal. He had dark hair and eyes and a face cut similar to mine.

"It worked…" I breathed out in relief. I noticed the rest of the guys looking shocked at king's transformation.

"You… what did you do?" I almost cracked up at the sound of his frail, thin voice.

"You're no longer the king," I told him as he ran a hand over his ragged clothes that looked to be centuries old.

"What about the realm of shadows?" He looked up at me with panicky eyes. "All my powers… they're gone!"

"Without you… the realm is going to crumble. And those powers were never yours to begin with. You simply borrowed them, you weren't born with them."

"No…no no no…" Darke ran his hands in his newly found hair, clutching at the roots. He looked up at me desperately, "The shadows… they will need a new home. Otherwise… they will kill me the first chance they get!"

"They won't because I already have a realm of my own. When I was there… it felt like a part of me had always existed there," I said.

Cheryl pursed her lips into a tight line. I noticed her exchange glances with Ricky.

"Impossible…" Darke shook his head, staring intensely at the floor, "No son of mine before you could conjure a realm at birth.. Could it be… that you were born with a light of your own?"

For some reason, my mind immediately went back to the white room with the blank canvas.

'Could that have been…' I wondered.

"I did all this for nothing… It took me centuries to make my powers grow and now they're gone… just like that…" Darke was mumbling to himself. Then he looked at me with startled eyes of a maniac, quickly grabbing onto my shirt.

"Give them back! Everything I did was to protect you… You can't do this to me!" His voice, although frail, was enraged to the point where it irritated me.

I swiped his hands away with ease and pulled onto his rag of clothes, lifting him up with one hand.

"You were just a power hungry tyrant always boasting about yourself. It made me sick to my stomach. After all that you did… you're lucky I'm even letting you live."

I threw him to the floor with disgust. He glared at me, narrowing his eyes threateningly.

"You don't know half of what you're getting into… you will die eventually. There are far more dangerous things in existence that you have no idea about."

He babbled on for a while, all which I ignored as I stared ahead. There was movement at the far end of the wall. Cheryl and Ricky stood there unaware. I saw the little girl's eyes as she glowered at me, pushing herself up to her feet.

"Get down!" I yelled out. The two simply frowned for a second before turning around. It was too late. I felt it coming before it hit. My hands automatically went up to shield myself just as an angry force of wind threw me to the back of the room. The rest of the people were hurled to one side. I jumped back to my feet in an instant. My body felt lighter, more athletic than before.

"It's you!" she growled with a voice sharp enough to stab. "You are the one I loathe…"

She made a face of disgust, raising her hands to her side. All of a sudden, my feet wobbled as the ground shifted below. I jumped over the threads as they realigned themselves, breaking away from the cube. The ground gave way underneath yet Iris remained in one spot, floating on empty air. I watched Meryl slide down the angular lines of threads. It took three Jons to grab her arms to keep her from falling.

My wings lifted me up as the ground descended. Darke fell all the way to the bottom of what had now become a three dimensional hexagon.

"You… Will…. Pay…" Iris announced, raising her arms further up into the air. All of a sudden the hexagon began to rotate. The sound of gears filled the room. I watched as my friends squirmed about, struggling to stand on the moving surface.

"Your fight is with me. Why torment them?" I spoke through my teeth. To which Iris let out a wicked laugh. The hexagon sped up, rotating at a pace impossible to keep track of. The rest of the guys rolled over uncontrollably. I balled my hands to fists at the sight.

"Enough!" I ordered in a loud, demanding voice. Shadows emerged out of my body, splashing around at the surrounding, enveloping it. Within seconds, the entire hexagon had turned dark, slowing to a stop. I could feel my heart pounding in my ears, along with whispers itching to fight back. I held it in.

Silence followed, overlapped by only the sound of my flapping wings. Iris stared at me for a long second.

"I will not rest… until I have killed you," she said, cupping her hands in front of her. Threads of white excreted out of her palms, wiggling about like worms. They rose into the air, zigzagging as they converged into the form of a spear.

The Iris I knew seemed far away somewhere. There was no way I could fight her without hurting her. It all narrowed down to my last option.

I looked down at all of my friends, seeming exhausted and on the verge of puking even. Cheryl watched me with eyes that tried to hold back pain. Her red hair was glued to her forehead with sweat seeping through. She breathed heavily, fighting to maintain posture.

"Have it your way," I said, letting my arms fall to my side defenselessly while not leaving Cheryl's gaze. She widened her eyes at me. Her mouth opened to say something, glancing at the spear and then back at me. I just gave her a slight nod and she understood. She had one hand claw around Ricky's arm, feeling a wave of dizziness hit her as she breathed out.

Ricky sat her down and looked me in the eye, shaking his head no to whatever I was about to do. Jonathan just made a face of disapproval while at the same time holding back the urge to cry. Meryl's eyes only fixated at the spear that was currently charging energy, sucking in the threads from its surroundings. It began to spin as it glowed a brilliant white. The light flashed in my eyes just before it shot towards me. I was blinded for a second before something pierced my chest. My eyes blurred as they looked up at the tiny figure falling limply.

I blinked, only just starting to feel the blood choke at my airway. The lines all around began to disperse. I felt the hard cold floor underneath as my body made contact. The furniture was intact, just as I remembered from Meryl's apartment. I coughed up some more blood and they all rushed to my side.

Something tight held me by the chest, as if digging into me, although the spear, too, had disappeared. Concerned faces surrounded me from above; one absolutely on the verge of breaking down. I lifted my hand slightly over to her and she quickly grabbed it, letting the tears stream down.

'It was the only way…' I thought to her, not being able to make out any actual words. 'I love you…' I thought with a slow blink. Almost as if she understood, she cried out, pulling my hand over to her face. She kissed my fingers with tear stained lips.

"I love you too…" she whispered.

I breathed out.