The Creatures Series

Seventeenth Dark

Seventeenth DarkCreatures of the Dark

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##### Seventeenth Dark #####

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Looking for Truth

When the world is Wrong

And can't be Fixed

The Noirmelns Castle is not just a work of architecture and world, but also a symbol of a well-known ancient clan. The darkness that surrounds it is not just the invisible fences that guards it, but is also the sign of how powerful the occupants are. From afar, it will appear in the vision of humans as a lovely, ordinary green forest. But for the supernatural beings, especially to those that are welcome, it looks exactly like a kingdom of hell, with dark-gothic theme and radiating, distracting fear. And I have never stepped into this palace again since the day that I joined Sorcier. The organization was more home than this typical grand on the outside building.

Before we step into the Noirmelns territory, though, me and Eleanor make a stop inside the death forest—the fence that surrounds the land.

I summon my shadow-gulp, appearing from one of the tree's darkness. It approaches in front of me and stops obediently. A line is made after that, blooming like a giant flower crown. Inside, a sleeping figure is lying.

"Eleanor, time to wake up," I whisper in such a lovely tone to her half-conscious self. "I'm going to start your punishment soon, Eleanor." She starts to stretch, moving her head from side to side in confusion while her eyes remained closed. "Yes. But before I can do that, I have to take a glimpse of your memory."

My palms reach to the sides of her head, trailing for something. Still weak and unaware, her body moves into a sitting position. It suits my comfort to take a look inside of her.

"Now, open your eyes," I whisper lowly.

She does as what I told her, and I make contact with a pair of black eyes soon. Her eyes are both in trance. Shadowy. Hazy. Unfocused. She's not looking at anything in particular, just catching the sight of what's in front of her. It's like her eyes had lost the ability to function.

My palms embrace her skull, pulling it away until her head cracks to 100 degrees.

Then, it starts.

A cold breeze sweeps the entire forest around us in mere seconds. Like how a drop of ink contaminates the clear river water, darkness starts to possess both of my eyes. Leaving nothing but black, it starts to do the same thing to Eleanor's. First, comes from the center of her irises. Then, spreading like a virus, tainting like mud but in darker shade. The darkness corrupts both of her eyes in hunger, devours all the whiteness.

Drawing closer to her head, I can feel my power channeling inside her. Starting from the tip of her skin, under the layers of flesh, down to the veins and deep into her core.

Her energy is there. Very unperplexed. Very calm. Stable, but much because she's still under my influence. I know because I’m caring it with my invisible waves.

My waves turn completely away from her core, and right into her brain, where every thought that ever passes her consciousness lie. The waves embrace the surface of her brain, before slipping inside.

Each fragment of her memory welcomes me and leads me right away to where I want. And soon, the scene arranges itself to truth in front of my sights.

A dark figure climbs on an open window under the midnight sky. The moon’s shine upon the figure, but the head rise on the floor. Everything else is dark around the room. With traces of burned candles, rotten petals and torn yellow pages.

The dark figure speaks.

"I know you want revenge, Eleanor, and I can present you the chance. All you need is say 'yes', and she will die. You want it, and I want it, too. It won't be possible if you just charge at her openly. But with my help, and some others, we can accomplish it. You can control them, and they can do the deeds for you. That way, no one will know who actually do it. Your parents even won't be troubled by the things you'll do. Again."

When there’s no reply to answer that dark figure, he continues again.

“Come on. A change like this won’t come every night, will it? So come to me. Answer my offer, and the chance is yours.”

"What makes you think I even need a help from a creature like you?"

The sore voice that comes from me sounds disgusted by the presence of the figure.

"It's because you don't have a choice. She has lots of enemies that would accept my offer. I came to you because I thought that a boiling hatred from a close cousin will burn more than a stranger's. But if you refuse, then you can just concern that I was never here and will come to someone else who wants her dead. Just mark this though, that it is your loss. Not mine."

“Why don’t you just do it yourself, then?”

The vision wavers again for a bit.

Then I can hear a snort coming from the opened window. He snorts. The figure does.

“If I don’t need help, then I wouldn’t have came here in the first place. What do you think the reason is?”

“ That you only need a tool to do what you want. You ’ re afraid of getting caught, so you look for someone else who wanted to do the dirty deed for you willingly. You ’ re looking for someone like ─”

“─ You, ” the figure finishes. “ You want it, and you are desperate. A perfect choice. ”

“You didn’t deny it.”

The words don’t come out as a question.

“So? What will be your answer? I don’t have all night. Either you accept, or you lost your chance.”

The figure sounds urgent.

“No? Fine. I’ll go ask someone else who wants her death.”

The figure climbs away, but before it goes far, the vision around me vibrates faintly and the same sore voice buzzes.

"Wait!"

It climbs back to the window frame.

"I...."

She hesitates for a second, before answering.

"I will do it."

She has sealed the deal.

"I will kill her, with your help."

The figure snarls, forming an odd configuration on its facial feature.

But it's all I need to know, before withdrawing.

I pull off my waves that have been holding Eleanor since before. Away from her brain and out of her system. I didn’t waste another second inside Eleanor’s memory because I already know who is the mastermind of all this.

Eleanor is emotional. When she just lost it and became insane, she would not think about the consequences of her actions that far. She just ran, and attacked. It was totally not like her to even bother arranging a plan on killing me in the first place. The Cobra can’t be her own creation. It was set on place for her. A prepared tool to use, just like how she is now.

Although now only I start regretting the decision upon sealing the culprit inside an ashtray....

....It's the kappa.

Noises start to come from behind me, snapping the gulp that still holds Eleanor inside it to blend in with the dim surroundings.

At first my senses are alerting me in urgent. But once I realized who are coming, I let myself relax.

“Arsene, there you are. We’ve been so worried about you,” my mother says, looking about to cry and trying to stay strong at the same time when I turn to her. She approaches me and cares her palm over my cheek lovingly.

“Arsene, please don’t do that again. Inform us when you’re okay, alright?” My father catches up and come to my other side.

“I’m alright, Mother, Father. You don’t need to worry. My fire never really disappeared from the family tree, right? So there’s no reason for you to start believing that I really died and begin to panic,” I say to them, smiling slightly while trying to be sweet as well. It’s not every day that my parents think I’m dead for good, anyway.

Mother looks like she’s about to break down at any moment. The collective self of her is crumbling down, and she doesn’t seem to care if she looks weak anymore. Suddenly, she pulls in a hug. “Oh, who am I fooling? I miss you, sweetheart.”

My father joins us soon. “I miss you, too. Even though we both know you’ll be alive.”

“It’s not like we can tell that to anyone else, anyway. Everyone thinks that you’re really dead, and we must pretend that you really do, too. We wanted to do something, but we’d received a notification from him at the previous night. We didn’t even know what would happen after that, since the message is unclear. We only knew that we couldn’t do anything at all.”

Lelouch let them still remember a few little things about me for being a part of something else, so that they can understand when the situation needs them to.

“It’s okay, Father. I understand. We both knew that it was for the best, letting me caught by the Wizthority. It provoked the rebellions to come out from their hiding places and start walking under the radar. We were helped, big time. It was just a little bit unexpected that another side would have used the opportunity to steal my consciousness. Good thing he came to my rescue at the right time.” Well, for my body, anyway.

My mother sighs in frustration now. “Let’s stop talking about it, okay? I’m tired. You both are, too. We all have enough share of worries. Why don’t we stop discussing about it and get on to something a little more refreshing, like a party?”

“A party?” I almost break a laughter.

“Yes. We called the castle at the earlier day, to announce your return. It’s still a secret, though. They only knew that someone special will be entering the castle, but they have no idea who. There will surely be a party this night, though,” my mother explains.

“ Well, I ’ m not really sure about this time, ” I begin slowly. “ But ─”

“No but, Arsene. Why don’t you just come with us? It will be a blast, we can assure you. It’s a good activity to let out your stress from it with having fun. We will let you do anything after that, we promise you,” she adds. “Right, darling?” She looks at Father.

“Yes, indeed. Your mother is right, Arsene. Come join us tonight. Just one night, and you can go later.” My Father smiles at me.

“Oh, I don’t know. You both know I’m not really into parties. Not many of your family members will be happy to see me, I’m sure of that. As for having fun, it will be hard to do that in that kind of situation. And besides, I have somewhere else to be tonight.”

I don’t feel like explaining more to them, though.

“Somewhere else?” My father asks.

“Don’t tell me that....you have a boyfriend?” My mother guesses.

“No. Of course not. I’m still single, much because I don’t like the idea of it. But truly, I will attend another party the next time you ask me. Just not this time, please.”

“Don’t do that. Accept the invitation and come to the party. It will be great,” my father urges.

“ I ’ m sorry, but I ca ─”

Suddenly, a clink clank through the forest. My stomach feels like there’s a hot rolling tin ball inside. And as I look down, my eyes starting to go wide in panic.

"What are you doing? Get these chains off me, Mother, Father!" I scream on top of my lungs in panic as I struggle to keep the chains off my wrists. But I can't.

Both my parents combined are no match of me. I can't break free from these chains unless they let me go willingly. The problem is, I have this bad foggy feeling inside my guts, telling me that something unwanted will happen. And that something is not a good thing. Not to mention that from the odd looks my parents are giving me, it doesn’t seem like they’re going to set me free anytime soon.

"No. You will attend this party, be there when we announce your return, and receive your ascension," my mother says sharply. Her tone sounds so final, making the bad fog twist more inside me.