Escape from Harrizel Read Online Free PDF Page B

chest about to break me open, and I
stagger to my feet, clutching the wall for balance.
    Yes, I’m in a room—a compartment of some
sort. When my legs secure themselves, I push forward, past the
ruins in front of me and find another grouping ahead, also coated
in sheaths of ivy with bare blocks of stone wall remaining.
    What is this place?
    I wander from ruin to ruin and stop at each
wall, gazing over the remaining stone and their connection to the
others. They were white at some point but age and dirt have eroded
them to this yellowish tint. They must have been here for years. Centuries, possibly. But how do I know? It’s like a feeling,
like a hidden message was stowed away in me all this time—a
knowledge I didn’t know I possessed.
    I continue on, lost in this ruin of a city
that at one time must have been quite spectacular to behold. More
rooms, more compartments await me until I emerge from them all,
finding myself across from a new clearing and in the middle of it,
a single tree with flowing tresses of pink, peach and orange
blossoms.
    It stands alone, overlooking the city with
its ancient, ethereal eye. A breeze whisks through, dancing in the
blossoms and playing their pink fingers like a pianist on his keys.
Drawn by its overwhelming magnetism, I start for it when I’m
distracted by a crunch, crunch behind me.
    I drop to the ground, my back to the closest
stone. Another crunch, crunch —the stomping of leaves. It’s
coming from my left… or is it my right? Have they found me? Those
creatures from the Castle? Or is this a new predator?
    My chest thumps emphatically as I listen for
the source of the sound. The crunching grows louder on my left but
a soft pitter-patter of steps echoes on my right. A pack of
something? If I don’t move now, they’ll find me. Kill me. Eat me, most likely. Maybe that’s better, though. Ending my
fate now instead of prolonging all this. Maybe the best thing for
me is to do is run out and fight it and go down trying. But
somehow, I can’t. Fear has swelled inside me, blocking the
practical from survival. I can’t give myself over willingly, even
if I wanted to. It’s human nature to fight and although I can’t
remember, it’s in my nature too.
    Another rustle of leaves. What then? Flight?
Fight? Neither sound like an ideal activity. I have to do
something. But what?
    Crunch, crunch!!
    This is it.
    My demise.
    I wish I could remember someone I once
loved, someone I’d think about at the very end. Any person who’d
make this time here all worth it. I try to search for any glimmer
of light but the rustling is upon me. I’ve lost. Perching myself to
spring from the wall—one final act of survival—I see him.
    His deep mahogany eyes burn through me,
nonplussed…
    …and then everything goes dark again.
Chapter Three:
Castle
    A table.
    Just out of the sun’s reach, it sits on a
square porch under a tin roof. Three glasses drenched in
condensation sit atop the table’s plastic yellow cover, a black
ashtray in the center. A pair of slender fingers flick a cigarette,
releasing the ashes before bringing it to her mouth. She inhales
and the tip lights up orange. Her black hair is swooped up in a red
bandana and large squared frames block her eyes.
    The scene fades and is instantly replaced
by another—an older woman staring straight at me with long, white,
billowy hair breezing around her. With silvery glass eyes, she
pierces me, looking through me, searching. She calls my name
but her mouth never moves, never opens.
    Fallon!
    She’s shouting for me. Shouting for me to
hear her, to see her. Her eyes flare wider, ghastly, overpowering
everything else.
    FALLON!
     
    I’m awake.
    Everything’s bright. Open . I’m on a
flat, hard surface but it’s not the floor. A table? I roll my head
to the left and find four endless rows of metal, rectangular
surfaces built five feet off the ground. They disappear into blurs
on the opposite side of the space, lost in the streaming