Chapter 2 - Shadows and Blood (Part 1)

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 The bird was flying from tree to tree, singing the only song it knew. Everywhere it looked felt cold, foreign.

It landed on a branch and sung again. It could have been such a beautiful song, but no one was listening.

It tried again and again "Cuckoo! Cuckoo!" But no one responded. It was alone, as always. Then, out of nowhere, between the branches, bathing under the light of the sun, was a small nest. A few eggs were waiting patiently the return of the parents.

The bird's heart grew with happiness; it finally found a house, a family. It hopped towards them and with all the care in the world; the bird sat on the fragile eggs. As it tried to move around and to find a better angle, the eggs fell, one by one.

Oh, no.

What should it do? It wondered as it looked down with a heavy heart.

All it could do was to sing and sing and sing...

Cuckoo!

Cuckoo!

.

.

Cuckoo!

The song covered him like a warm blanket. The bird continued to sing as if trying to wake him up.

Soring grunted, his brows set in a deep frown as he tried to wake up. Was that a dream? Did he miss the bird that much it appeared in his dreams?

After a bit of struggling, he finally opened his eyes. At the powerful light, Sorin closed them again. As soon as the darkness enveloped him again, the bird sang again. More desperate and closer to the window.

This time Sorin opened them carefully, trying to get used to the light. As his eyes fluttered open, he saw paintings of birds. Some of them singing, others were flying, and some of them looked back down at him. For a few moments, his body remained still while his brain tried to remember what had occurred.

Under his body was something warm and wet; his fingers moved along the liquid absently. The birds on the ceiling still had their eyes on him, and the light of the sun was drifting towards him, bringing warmth.

Even with the sun reaching him, an icy shiver ran through his body as he finally saw what he was lying in. His hand was shaking as he brought it to his face. It has been enough to make him jump to his feet.

The pain streamed through the weak body, trying to pull him down again, but Sorin remained to his feet.

On the floor was a pool of blood, right where he had been laying.

That was when the memories started to invade every fiber of his body. To remember the screams, the blood and the woman.

His head snapped towards where he saw her last time, but she was not there anymore. The sudden movement made him hiss in pain. With a shaking hand, Sorin touched his neck.

Blood.

Yeah, he remembered the pain before fainting. Now that every memory was back, his body caught up with the pain and he swayed, nearly falling back into the pool. Sorin tried to stay on his feet, to gather the energy he needed and to leave. To escape from this place. The thing that attacked him was probably...

"I would stay down if I were you. Blood loss is not a laughing matter."

Sorin spun around, his legs shaking and his breath heavy. His eyes moved from a corner to the other, but the shadows were too dark and his fear even darker. He couldn't think; his thoughts were too tangled, his emotions all over the place.

The voice was polite, calm, and that was exactly what made Sorin uneasy. It made him feel watched, followed, hunted.

It was silent, too silent, but that's when the sound of a page being flipped echoed in the room. The air became colder, and even the sun hid behind the clouds. The room darkened slightly, a blue light enveloping every corner.

Sorin turned his head slowly, afraid of what he will see. And there, in one corner he already looked at, was a figure sitting on a chair. That part of the room was the darkest, difficult to see, but Sorin could feel it. Instinctively, he took a step back, the pain still very present.

The figure seemed to read, or at least pretending he did. Sorin could barely see how the stranger was moving his hand to flip another page. There was a calmness surrounding the shadowed man, but Sorin never felt more afraid. More hunted.

His feet tried to take him towards the door again, but there has been a movement, one that made Sorin freeze. The man in the chair turned his head. It was difficult to see any details, any features, but Sorin knew those eyes were on him. His heart was beating faster and instincts told him to run.

The pose of the man was too straight. It did not look like in that chair was sitting a person. Instead, it felt like a doll was looking at him, unmoving, unblinking.

He stepped back again, trying to get as far away as possible. But as soon as he saw the bloody trail he left behind, a gasp escaped his lips. His legs continued to move and move... and move, hoping the blood will stop clinging to his shoes.

His eyes were on the blood, but his brain was still aware of the dangerous presence in the room, so he looked up.

The man was standing now, still covered by the shadows.

That is when Sorin fell again, scrambling away until his back hit the cold wall. But his eyes fell again on the trail of blood and, in a haste, tried to take his shoes off.

A shadow fell over him.

He stopped immediately, and slowly, he looked up. The person in front of him couldn't be older than him. A dark red shirt covered the lean body and fluttered in the cold air. The hair, bright like the morning sun, was tied in a low and disheveled low bun, strands of hair framing a pale and thin face. But what Sorin really paid attention to, were the eyes. A bright blue, like the serene sky, but something about them was dark. No trace of light in them. And those eyes... they were fixed on him. 

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