Darkened Clockwork

Oracion's POV

"Oracion." Ira announces out loud, trying to get my attention.

As I look up from the piece of metal, I can't help but shudder at the sheer amount of strength that emanates from it, shaking the very bones in my hand as he repeats the name. "Oracion?"

"Come" He quickly reaches for my hand, trying to pull me to wherever it is whilst keeping his hand under the cloak. "Do you see it?" He pulls harder, trying to get me to face forward but I still can't quite get over that sensation running through me.

The only thing pulling me away from that thought is the wheat whipping against my legs at the pace we're running at, earning my attention as I feel the lashes one by one pile up against my skin until eventually feeling my skull collide with...something.

I fall on my ass, not wanting to even get up in the first place as some tears try to form in my eyes from the sheer amount of shock that put me through. "I mean...I did say-" 

"YOU DIDN'T!" I yell back at him before standing back on my two feet to glare daggers at his unapologetic look.

He instead points at something, a place where light's once again refracted but not at all obvious to me. He sighs, using one of his nails to cut open his skin across his wrist and splatting blood in the direction in front of us. The colour beginning to run down the stone as it enters each crack and slides in-between a now obvious slit in where two doors are meant to open. Looking up from below, I notice some birds beginning to nest upon the structure, something I wouldn't of thought twice at before.

"So...how do we open it?" He wonders out loud to me.

"This...?" I point to a small gap in the door, just barely big enough for an eye to fit into it.

"Let me take a look" He eagerly leans in first. "It looks kind of dark? There's some li-" His words stop for some reason. "Oracion my eye won't come out." He deadpans as I watch his helpless pushes try to pull him from the door.

I grab onto him, trying to release him from the door as well without ripping his body in half. "Oracion something's coming." His words are chilling me to the core as I feel his fear.

"ORA-" His words are cut off by the door's rock crumbling off of it. He stands up from his leaning position as I go to circle around to him. 

"Ira..." I reach out to his face as he instinctively covers one side of his face, blood dripping down his palm as he lets go and finally shows me.

The socket of where his eye once was, completely open and susceptible to the wind. The once hollow space however, being coagulated by blood as he focuses all his attention to it in an attempt to heal it quicker. "I'll be fine...but where is that fucker." He spits onto the ground before we enter the darkened space. 

Each brick placed with care and each torch placed with meaning as the hallway gets brighter the deeper we traverse in. All of a sudden, an eye appears in front of us. Far too low to the ground to be anything human but most certainly something close to one as it examines us for any sort of hostility.

"Aww-" Ira raises his foot to stomp on it but another eye appears eye level with him, and another, another, another and another. Until the sudden wall of darkness is entirely filled with eyes that simply stare back at us. 

The last one to appear is none other than the blood swirled one owned by Ira, positioned along with the others as it blinks back at him. He quickly grabs hold of it, crushing it with his bare hand while healing his own eye back and causing the darkness to shift backwards and make way for us.

It reveals a space worthy of only a new world as the way back from where we came was apparently slanted, showing we've at some point gone underground. Blue electricity runs through the walls and floor as it powers a giant spinning circle along the ground that connects to each different level spiralling downward into nothingness.

"We're meant to be going home, should we even entertain this?" I question Ira.

"The fuckers who took my eye can certainly have a few minutes of my time." He firmly states as we glance upon this civilization of what appear to be some shelled creatures with darkness as their body. 

We walk down from the stationary balcony to meet these, some stretching higher up and others low to the ground as we saw before. We attempt to swerve through them but as they notice us they can't help but press forward more and more until eventually grazing upon our skin ever so slightly.

"It...seems...impossible" I can hear the echo of a voice from somewhere below us.

"Ira, the platform." I encourage him before they begin to surround us. Now running through them as the pillar under the spinning circle has an opening to a staircase inside of it. 

"Quickly!" I pull his dumbass in after he tries using his blood like before.

"Think...they won't come inside?" He ponders just as a singular eye pops around the spiral corner...and another...and another...and we begin running.

"For...me...to...let this go." The voice becomes clearer the higher up we go until the blue light becomes visible again on one of the open floors. 

Feeling the necklace vibrate in my pocket I dive out onto the new platform, feeling it vibrate harder the more closer we get to the right direction.

"There!" I practically drag Ira across the spinning stone before we succumb to the dizziness and run towards the orange lit library. 

As we focus all our attention to reaching this in time, I still can't help but acknowledge something below us...far far below us in the dark...waiting. Even so, we find ourselves diving across the bridge in hopes of making it on-time as the path works like a hand on a clock, only reaching this point at a certain time from what I can tell.

We crash onto the soft padding where the now familiar voice continues to speak, "I do wonder where he is now, what about you?"

Oh so carefully we tread, trying to not bring more attention to ourselves than needed. Turning some corners from the oddly structured bookshelves until I can fully get a painted scene of what's ahead of me. 

"So whe-"

She interrupts...or rather entirely silences Ira's speech, "Shhh..." Mousai's command near enough forces him to bite his tongue off.

A gesture that the smaller shadow turtle things run towards, hopping off her lap and towards his writhing tongue, chewing it between each other and nearly fighting for it. "Aren't they cute?" She asks.

"Yeah, they sure aren't." I answer whilst Ira regrows his lost ego.

"They're called Sene, and believe it or not...they were once human." She sits back down, folding a leg over the other as she gestures for us to sit alongside her. "Forgive me for not telling you about the humans prior to Eragon...but I believe you may have found out from him directly..." She looks towards the covered head on my belt.

"Oh-" I go to show her-

"NO!" She screeches abruptly, causing me to put a hand over Eragon's mouth so he doesn't speak yet. "I-...sorry. But these things chose to become this way *because* of Eragon, they were so frightened of being harvested for their humanity that they willingly chose to forgo it in exchange for, this." One of them hops on her lap, a simple pink shell that encompasses the darkness as a single pink eye appears from under it. "This one is but a child."

She strokes it peacefully as we continue speaking, "But how?" Ira manages to ask after fully healing finally.

"This." She grabs the Sene that's on top of her, continuing to stroke it as we go back the way we came. "Watch dear fully." She tosses it into the everlasting depths as it releases a small squeal.

"Mous-" She places a finger on my lips to silence me. 

Opening up her arms and watching the same one reform in her grasp. "It's called an Apparatus, one of the many of its kind, you can't see it, but trust me. It's most certainly there...and it can smell your skin just based off how fast the Descent Clock is spinning, it's excited."

"That giant pillar going downwards?" I ask.

"Some of them here can speak, the older ones. And that's apparently what they call it for an outstanding amount of reasons. Some believing you don't come back from going that far, others believing it's ticking down hence for its anti-clockwise spinning and etcetera." She explains, sitting back down with us. "Now, what happened. The wind whispers to me that you've been gone for a very...very long time Oracion." She leans into her hands, eager to hear me out after all this time.