Connected

He was fast.

Incredibly fast.

What was I even thinking?

Of course I wouldn't get far with my sad escape attempt.

I was not really sure what had happened, but I had only just barely crossed the threshold of the main entrance before a pair of strong arms got a hold of me.

What??

I was pretty sure that I had not heard any footsteps or sounds of movement at all before I was caught, which was probably the reason why I was caught completely off guard.

I hated him.

God I hated him.

But even still, some little traitorous part of me did not want him to let go.

I fought against that feeling, kicking and screaming for him to let go of me, but it was no use.

I even managed to smack him in the face once or twice, which did not have the desired effect, or really any effect at all to my great disappointment.

Instead, he picked me up like I weighed nothing and threw me over his shoulder before he began walking down through the halls towards my room.

When he got to my room however, he passed the door and kept walking till he reached a stairwell going up, and to my surprise, this was a part of the castle that I had not seen before.

I had stopped resisting as it made him carrying me both difficult for him, and much more painful for me.

Instead, I decided, it would be clever of me to memorize the small corridors and the paintings that were hanging all around us on the walls, if I ever had to find my way back from there.

I recognized some of the paintings and soon came to realize that the paintings looked the same as the ones from the corridor close to my room.

I heaved a sigh of annoyance and began thinking of different ways to memorize but could not seem to think of anything useful.

Zachary suddenly stopped in front of a large wooden door and put me down, leaving me with a strong urge to run away again, which I ignored.

I was not a big runner and for the past few days I had been running a lot more than I would willingly have done in a much longer time span, and for what reason?

I wanted to be near him, but I also wanted him to stay as far away from me as possible.

It was confusing and tiresome for me to find any logic in my feelings and thoughts.

I did not notice that he had opened the door while I was lost in my own thoughts, so he gently but firmly interrupted by clearing his throat before he gestured towards the door.

"Enter"

Oh he's commanding me now?

At first I hesitated to move, but something in his eyes told me that it would be unwise for me to further test his patience at this point, so I walked through the door without any further objections.

I had feared that it was some sort of dungeon or torture chamber, but my silly assumptions were soon put to rest.

It was a marvelous sight, to say the least.

The room was not very large.

In fact, it was rather small, but the way it was decorated completely took my breath away.

Although there was only the light from the doorway, I could see the walls clearly.

They were painted to look like a forest in spring with bright green colors and a golden hue that made it seem like the sun was shining through the crowns of the trees.

The ceiling was made entirely of glass, which let in the light from the moon that had now risen above us.

I felt as if I had been there before and soon remembered that I had, although at that time, it had been the real thing.

This was a very lifelike copy of the clearing I had found just the day before and I instantly felt at peace with myself, just the way I had when it was the real thing and I could not help but wonder if he felt at peace too.

I looked at him, not as discretely as I had hoped, and found him watching me quietly from the far end of the room.

As our eyes met, I felt my cheeks begin to burn and I quickly placed my hands to hide the rosy tint, although I knew he had likely already seen it.

Pull yourself together!

I hissed at myself in my head, scolding myself for getting so easily affected by his presence and his presence only.

His voice broke the silence but it was not much more than a whisper, which silently echoed in the empty room.

"Do you like it?.."

He almost sounded, excited? though it was hard to tell because his facial expression, which was rather blank all of a sudden, seemed to be telling me otherwise.

The words that followed escaped me before I could think.

"Yes, I uh... It's.. It's nice..."

My reply did not seem to please him much, as he almost looked disappointed.

Or was it sadness I saw in his eyes?

"You seemed to like the place quite a lot so I thought..."

He stopped himself in the middle of the sentence and seemed to consider his words for a moment, before simply saying "I'm glad you like it...", not revealing what he was truly about to say.

His mood seemed to have changed again all of a sudden and I was not sure what the reason was, nor did I dare to ask him about it, as I did not want to upset him any further than I already had.

I had completely forgotten the reason why I ran in the first place, forgotten the loose woman who had been pressing herself up against him earlier that evening.

All of my anger and all of the pain that I had felt in that one moment, seemed to fade more and more, the longer I looked at him.

What was he doing to me?

I never even found a logical explanation for why I would care about his private life in the first place.

Why would I care?

It was not my place and furthermore, I had only just learned his name the day before, which once again made my previous reactions seem extremely absurd and exaggerated.

I hated what this place was doing to me.

What he was doing to me.

I feared that if I did not find a way to leave this place, I might not ever leave at all and that thought made me anxious for reasons I could not say.

I had never planned on going back home, but the thought that there was a chance of it not even being possible, was killing me slowly and I felt trapped like a bird in a cage.

My mind had gotten foggy and I had not even realized that he had gone to pick me up to take me to my room, till I was sitting on the edge of my bed, alone.

I must have sat there for hours because what got me out of my daze, was the first rays of the morning sun, shining through the windows with the open curtains.

The side of my neck felt strange, almost as if I had scratched myself unknowingly and it had an itchy feeling to it.

I could not remember anything that would have caused the feeling to be there and when I went to the mirror, I did not see a thing.

I had not slept at all that night and so I figured that my mind was just playing tricks on me as punishment, and although I had a strange feeling in the pit of my stomach, I could not quite make out why.

The following days passed by in a blur and honestly, I was more like a zombie than a human being as my mind and memory were still foggy.

I did not eat much which only made my body feel worse and my energy was completely drained, so I spent a lot of my time sleeping.

Finally, after what I believe was about a week and a half, although I had sort of stopped keeping track, I started to feel a little bit like myself again.

My appetite still had not returned, but I felt like my head had cleared and I began remembering things again, in fractions at least, which was more than I had been able to since I had been in the beautifully painted room.

There was a soft knock on the door, and a quiet voice gently spoke to me through it.

"Miss Anderson, are you decent..?"

I looked down at myself and studied my attire, which today only consisted of a simple robe and slippers.

I considered it for a moment, thought to myself that I was decent enough and then invited Eleanor in.

To my surprise she was accompanied by a familiar figure, Mason.

I had not seen him since he escorted me back from the clearing and frankly I had missed his flirty personality, which honestly, was a surprise, even to me.

The atmosphere in the room immediately lifted and I could not help but smile at his frisky behavior when he grabbed my hand and pulled me up to twirl me around a few times.

"Well, well cuppy cakes... It's good to see that you're alive, and...."

He paused and looked at me for a brief moment before he continued with a smirk.

"Well, alive...."

His grin widened when his last remark was answered with a smack on his arm, and a well-deserved one too.

I could not be mad at him for anything in the world.

How he and Zack could possibly be brothers, was truly a mystery to me, as Mason always seemed to lift my mood, although he could sometimes cross the line and get a little impertinent.

Meanwhile Zack was hot and cold to me.

He always either seemed to walk around in a constant dark cloud, impenetrable for anyone who attempted to get close to him, or a simple look from him could melt me completely and make me lose my senses.

Still dizzy, I nudged him towards the door and he did not resist but left the room, chuckling.

Eleanor helped me get dressed properly as I was still weak, especially after having been in bed for days and I felt a little more like myself again.

She had brought me a plate of food which I nibbled at but did not have the hunger to finish and so she left me alone again so I could rest.

Several days went by again and I found myself stuck in a simple but at the same time meaningful routine.

I always did feel that having a plan for the day or some sort of schedule both kept me occupied and made me feel that my days contained at least some purpose.

I had almost finished reading the large book by now and I was debating with myself on whether I liked it or not, as some of the myths in it were a tad too bizarre for my taste.

I had always been interested in such things.

Superstition, folklores and myths that were used to scare disobedient children had always been a subject that the people in my village seemed to dislike and so they put a lot of effort into hiding descriptions of anything of the sort.

The day they found out that I had my gift, or curse as they would rather call it, they made sure to keep me away from anything related to magic, folklores and magic.

Little did they know that I had been working on finding the hiding spot and snuck in to read the old books at night.

I never fully understood what my gift was and nor was I likely to find out anytime soon as the books were not much help. What I did know, was that I had little control of it and it usually did its thing when I was asleep, causing me to experience most of it as dreams, or dream-like sequences with little meaning.

A little part of me had hoped that this one particular book perhaps held a clue as to what it was, but I was unsurprisingly disappointed.

I had become determined that I had to figure out what it was, why I had it, and how I could either stop or control it as it had been gone for a while but had for the past week begun to return and it was out of my control.

My foster parents knew at an early age that I was not like the other children in the village.

I was different and it scared them. I never really knew my real parents and so I never knew if it was something that ran in my family or if I was just abnormal by nature.

I went to sit in front of the mirror in my room and the moment I did, she appeared in front of me.

I desperately wished that I could speak to her, that she would hear me and respond to me, but all I had was the images and the memories of the little girl, whom I loved so dearly, but had left behind with nothing but a lie to hold on to.

That night, my dreams were chaotic.

I could tell that the people from my village were still desperately searching for me, and I could sense that they were expecting to find a gruesome hint that I had either died on my own or gotten killed by the one creature, which existence they were never able to deny, nor confirm.

I tried so hard to stay focused on them, but I was unable to control it and so it took me wherever it wanted to lead me and showed me whatever it wanted me to see.

Sometimes it would show me the past, other times current moments, but never before had I experienced what was about to happen and it frightened me.

My vision changed and I was no longer viewing the villagers.

I found myself in a room I had never seen before and a painful feeling suddenly struck me out of the blue.

It was dark in there and it was cold.

Unnaturally cold.

The floor was like ice beneath my bare feet and I could see my breath in front of me as it made small clouds of fog.

At first, I thought I was alone in the room and the eerie silence made me feel uncomfortable.

Soon the pain returned and my vision shifted to a figure that was crouched over in a dark corner in the far end of the room, screaming in agony as black marks spread throughout its body.

I felt every bit of it as it was happening and it was as though my body was burning up from the inside and every bone in my body slowly breaking.

It screamed again.

I screamed too, almost as if I was connected to it, whatever it was.

The pain was unbearable but there was no escape for me.

I could not control what my visions wanted me to see, only watch and wait for it to be over, however long it lasted.

The figure was shaking uncontrollably and threw itself to the floor over and over and over again, as a way to numb the excruciating pain.

I tried my hardest to focus on moving closer to the figure which I soon regretted, immediately feeling the consequence as my body began shaking and cramping intensely as if it got stronger the closer I got.

I felt as though my lungs were being torn from my body and I was unable to breathe.

My sight had begun to get blurry and I felt my head hit the ground as the lack of oxygen had taken its toll on my body, and then it went dark.

Eleanor was sitting beside me on the bed, with a wet cloth in one hand and a lit candle in the other.

She was speaking to me softly while she held the cold cloth against my forehead to cool me down, as one would do to someone with a fever.

Several other people were in the room, but my vision was too blurry for me to identify them and I was too weak to sit up and get a proper look around.

I didn't remember calling for anyone, nor did I recall them arriving and that alone caused me to feel even more confused. When I tried to speak to Eleanor, to ask what was going on, I felt a sharp pain in my throat that sent a shock through my entire body and made me dizzy.

I could tell that the people around me were worried about me but I did not understand why or what had happened to me.

I felt feverishly hot and my body was burning, my skin was burning too and my mind had gotten all foggy again.

When I raised a trembling arm to remove Eleanor's hand with the cloth on my head, I saw something peculiar on my hand. My skin was unusually pale but my fingertips were almost completely black from something that seemed to spread along the veins on the upper side of my hands, where it then would fade into my arms.

Something about it seemed familiar, but no matter how hard I tried, I could not remember where I had seen it.

I was sure of one thing though.

Whatever this was, it was not a common fever and I was pretty sure they all knew what it really was, but did not want to tell me.

Someone rushed into the room and rushed back out with two others following.

My head was getting heavy and I felt completely drained of energy.

It was not long till the fatigue got the best of me and I fell into a long, deep, dreamless sleep.

I woke up in the clearing, or so I thought till I realized where I was.

I was in the painted room, in a bed that was not my own, with no recollection of how I ended up there.

As I got to my senses, I felt the familiar prickling sensation on the back of my neck, which let me know I was not alone.

With a jerk I sat up straight in the bed, soon regretting it as an excruciating headache overwhelmed me.

"You should be careful with that" a deep, raspy voice said.

A few moments later, Zachary revealed himself to me as he stepped out from the shadows.

"How are you feeling?" he asked me with a hint of worry in his voice.

In a mix of sarcasm and annoyance I replied

"I feel awesome, just great!.. Could not be better..."

His expression was serious and I knew he was not satisfied with my reply, nor did he find it amusing, but I was not in the generous mood where I would rephrase myself properly to please him.

He had probably sensed my unwillingness to converse with him and so he simply heaved a sigh and turned to leave the room. A thousand unanswered questions were buzzing around in my head and I could no longer bear not knowing what was going on.

"What is happening to me...?"

I asked quietly, barely recognizing my own voice.

He stopped but did not turn around to face me and he did not speak for a while, perhaps searching for words.

Finally, he decided to answer my question, with another question.

"What do you remember?"

Nothing...

I remember nothing...

In that moment I wanted nothing more than to slap him for once again evading my questions.

I kept my composure as best I could and once again asked him, though not as calmly as I had hoped.

"What is happening to me Zack?"

He still had his back turned to me when he replied coldly.

"You caught a fever and had some pretty nasty dreams. It is nothing to be worried about. Now if you will excuse me..."

The moment he took a step, all the frustration, confusion and anger that had been building up inside me for days, surfaced, and although my throat was still a sore mess, I practically screamed at him.

"LOOK AT ME!"

He had obviously not expected that reaction which was obvious by the way he flinched and froze.

Even still he did not turn to face me, but I could tell he was upset, as his body had tensed and he almost seemed to be shaking. I hated that he kept things from me and I hated myself even more for allowing it.

This time I had had enough and I did not hesitate to repeat myself to him this time.

"Turn around and LOOK AT ME!"

He hesitated but ended up accepting my demand, though seemingly not of his free will.

The moment he turned around and looked at me, the world froze in place.

His eyes were completely black and the veins on his neck had turned black as well, in a fashion similar to what had happened to my hands.

The expression on his face was nothing like I had ever seen before and it frightened me to the core. I had seen it before.

Flashes of memories went through my head and became small, fragmented visualizations around me.

The visions from the dark room revealed themselves in small fractures and I realized what I had seen, but I could not believe it. It was him.

In my head, I heard the sound of tormented screams and more images flashed before my eyes for milliseconds before vanishing.

I saw myself cramped up in bed, screaming in agony.

I saw a dark figure throwing itself onto the ground repeatedly.

I looked down at my hands that had previously had similar marks to the ones on his neck but found nothing, which made me think that perhaps it had been a hallucination caused by the fever.

The look on his face told me otherwise.

He looked hurt, almost guilty.

As if drawn by an invisible force, I rose from the bed and walked towards him slowly, with weak and shaky steps until he was right in front of me.

I gently traced my fingertips along the marks on his neck and watched them slowly vanish beneath my touch.

The prickling sensation that I had continuously ignored, overwhelmed me and it was as though his skin against my fingers was electric.

He did not evade my touch, although his body was still tense and he seemed to breathe superficially in order to keep himself under control.

I traced my fingertips up along the side of his neck, along his jawline, and onto his lower lip, where he would take my hand and stop me.

I had done it unknowingly and when I realized how close we were standing, I could not help but take a step back in surprise. His grip on my hand was firm, yet gentle, and it prevented me from moving too far away from him.

His eyes were still fixed on me and I could tell that he was considering something.

When his lips graced the back of my hand, I understood what.

He felt it too.

I understood that he had felt the exact same way that I had been feeling during my time there, but he had somehow, impressively managed to suppress it, which was more than I could say for myself.

My skin was tingling, no, aching where his lips had been just a moment ago, and I found myself once again yearning for more.

I looked into his eyes, and once again a thousand questions flooded my mind.

I could tell by the look in his eyes that he knew I would need answers and he knew that I would need them soon.

Yet still the look on his face seemed to be telling me what I had heard him say several times before, to my great annoyance.

All in due time...

[Author's note: Please don't forget to vote and leave a review if you enjoy my novel <3 Thank you!]