Chapter 5

"You sure you want to do that?"

A voice — deep, velvet, mocking — cuts through the stillness behind her.

Ira wheels around.

A man is leaning casually against a rusty red pillar. He's small — may five feet. His skin glows faintly in the cavern light, a shade of alabaster marble. A black tunic clings to that skin, revealing a sliver of a defined chest. He's built, but the shape of his body seems to be forged from utility, not brute force. His facial features are…Ira struggles to find another word in her mind other than beautiful. Androgynous. Delicate. Strong. A messy mop of chestnut-black curls frames his face. 

He's prettier than me. Ira muses to herself. 

But it's his eyes. His eyes that she truly notices. They make it difficult for her to notice anything else at all, if she's honest. Large for his face, they're an indigo shade of deep blue, moving like waves breaking the surface when observed from below. Something about them seem oddly familiar to her, but she can't quite place it.

Ira has never been so relieved to see anyone in her entire life.

The stranger cocks his head slightly, as though reading her mind just then, and a crooked smile spreads across his lips. It reveals a set of straight, white teeth that are just a bit too sharp, too canine. 

Still gorgeous, though. Ira notes to herself. 

"I wouldn't, if I were you," he adds, nodding towards the pool. "That water doesn't like to be disturbed by strangers." His grin widens into something that doesn't quite reach his eyes. Ira can't read his expression. It's not concern, but it's not malice. 

It's curiosity, Ira realizes, and it's not kind. The kind of curiosity that a cat has while playing with a mouse before it makes the kill. Perhaps she shouldn't be feeling relieved to see him after all.

She doesn't speak. Just stares at those eyes a little longer, thinking.

"Yours aren't bad either," His voice echoes softly again through the chamber.

When Ira doesn't respond, he tilts his chin up and clarifies, "Your eyes."

Ira takes a step back.

Is he reading my mind? If he is, he ignores the question.

"I've never seen eyes that shade of red before. Any idea where you got that…charming trait?"

His tone is mocking. 

The comment snaps her out of her trance, though. 

Red? Her eyes were brown. Always had been. A dull, hazy, brown. Usually bloodshot, but that was as red as they got. She rushes towards the pool, peering into its surface to catch a glimpse of herself in the still water.

She barely recognizes the reflection staring back at her.

Her face looks narrower. More predatory. Her cheeks more hollow, eyes more sunken than before. Her long black hair is matted, tousled, caked with dirt, still damp from the tunnel. Her skin is streaked with dried red mud. Rusty. 

But it's her eyes she notices immediately — and he's right.

They're glowing. Red. Wild. Weird. Wrong. The red glows faintly, like lava moving under a molten crust.

Suddenly, she realizes how exhausted she is. How frightened. How alone. Annoyance flares up in her chest, the affinity towards him gone. She wants to go home, not play strange games with a stranger in a cavern.

"Who are you?" she demands as she whirls back around. Her voice is shaking with adrenaline.

"Who I am is none of your concern at the moment," he says lightly, as though anticipating the question. "The question I'm more interested in at the moment is: what are you?" His voice has a strange cadence — clipped, precise, old.

Formal.

Must come from money, she thinks to herself quickly — and then scolds herself. He's not real. You're hallucinating. Why are you thinking about money when you're obviously having a psychotic break?

Ira narrows her eyes, her gaze hardening in a challenge towards the stranger. "Are you real?" She asks him. Even figments of your imagination could provide her with some answers, she hope.

Something shifts in his face then. A flicker, passing over it like a shadow.

"Of course I'm real." He says at last. "My name is Cobalt," as though deciding an introduction would be best. "And yours?"

She hesitates, then: "Ira." Hallucination or no, she'll humour it.

"Pleased to meet you, Ira," he says smoothly. "I apologize if this is a rude question where ever your from but again I ask, what are you?" Cobalt begins pacing slowly, walking the perimeter of the cavern with his hands behind his back.

"Why do you keep asking me that? Why does it matter?" Her voice a challenge.

He ignores her question, then begins to walk towards her.

"What. Are. You?" he repeats, taking a step forward with each word, his hands no longer behind his back. His eyes are beginning to glow faintly now, too. His teeth seem to lengthen. He looks hungry. Or is that in her head?

She backs up with each step he takes forward. The pool is uncomfortably close behind her now. Her body tenses.

Ira's heart pounds. Hallucination or no, her instincts tell her honesty feels like the safest option. "I… I don't know," she shrugs. "I don't know who I am, or what I am, or where I am, or what any of this is. I just know that you're not real. None of this can be. And that, honestly, I'm over it. I just want to wake up. I have…work tomorrow."

Work. Somehow, despite everything happening, she still groans interally at the thought of it. 

Silence fills the cavern. His head cocks to the side again, staring. Seconds stretch out into a minute. Ira just sighs, her breath comedically loud. 

As though coming out of a trance of his own then, Cobalt says casually, "I assure you this is real," adding, "Unfortunately."

He changes course and walks toward the edge of the pool, leaning down on his haunches as he gazes into it.

"Unfortunately?" she echoes as she edges towards him. "Why unfortunately?"

He kneels and lowers a hand into the pool. Slowly. Deliberately. Gently. She notices his hands then. Slender. Lean. Strong. Accentuated by a beautiful large ring that sits on his right pinky.

"You're standing at the doorway to hell." He says to her idly, making a gesture in the water.

It reacts instantly to its touch. It ripples, as if shivering with pleasure, then begins to move, parting into two tall, fluid walls forming a narrow corridor across the cavern. The path glows faintly red — like bioluminescence, soft and pulsing.

"I'm sorry. Hell? Hell isn't real."

His face is unreadable as he stares forward, lost in thought. "I assure, you it is." 

Ira softens a little as she watches him. There's something so…sad about him.

"Ok, fine. I'll humour you. If this is the doorway to Hell, then what are you? Its keeper or something?"

He pauses. "That's a story for another time. Right now, we need to figure out how you even got here. And how to get you out."

Relief floods her. 

Thank god.

She realizes then that no matter what happened, whether this was real or not, she would follow him. He was like an anchor in this bizarre fever dream and she knew in her body, her best shot to wake up, or to get out.

Cobalt presses his small, soft lips together in a line of quiet resolve, concentrating. A sudden calm wraps around her. The water itself feels… protective. Like it's inviting her in.

"Shall we?" Cobalt asks, his velvet voice barely louder than the shifting current. 

"You want me to go in there? With you?"

"Of course I do." He says calmly. He's looking deeply at her eyes.

"I thought you said you were going to get me out. I don't want to go further in." 

Ira sweeps her gaze over him then and notices something. Something eerie. It's his pinky ring. Deeply set in the silver craftsmanship sits a ruby. It's glowing. Red. The same exact shade as her eyes.

She glances down at her own hand, then.

Her mother's ring glows too — soft, steady. Blue. Cobalt blue. The same exact shade as his.