165- A Door Left Ajar
POV Elowen Grimwald:
I was very nearly captured. By a hair.
The last time, I walked so close to death that I felt its cold whisper on my neck.
The sky was filling with a gray mantle of heavy clouds, and the cold could have frozen my bones, but I couldn’t run from the curiosity of observing those colossal concrete walls, embraced by nature’s tireless green. Around them, trees heavy with fruit and flowers that I had never seen anywhere I’d wandered.
Different from every path I’d taken in my searches, something was calling me to that place. I just didn’t know what.
What were the chances my stubborn sister had been drawn by the same mystical energy?
Hell!
What if I resisted the temptation to look for her there? She wasn’t dead, I sensed it, even if it was strange. Her disappearance left a trail of unanswered questions and open wounds.
After so many months, a song of abandonment echoed inside me: Lunara chose to leave me. She traced only a one-way road and neglected the only person who could never forget her, even if she wanted to.
If only I could shove her into the last drawer of my memories.
Abandoned at the mercy of my own luck… actually, what luck?
Left behind in the painful company of her absence.
We shouldn’t be so shattered by the ones who carry our blood in their veins. It hurts twice as much. It cuts from the inside, leaving marks that maybe can never be fully healed. And even if they do heal, the pain would run through the shadow of my soul every time I remembered the scars.
Deep scars, because it wasn’t the first time someone—blood of my blood—hit me right in the ass. At least this would be the last time, since, besides my sister, there was no one else.
No one.
The silence of that place encouraged me to keep going. I walked barefoot over the damp earth for a few minutes, slipping along the structure and dodging fallen branches, until I stepped on something strange.
Curious, I crouched down, pulling the layer of leaves aside with my hands until my fingers bumped into something unexpectedly cold and smooth. I lifted the object carefully into the golden evening light.
It was a necklace, made of a dark metal that absorbed light instead of reflecting it, and set with a stone pendant that caught my attention immediately. It didn’t look like a simple rock; there was something enchanted about it, with shades of green and brown that danced in its core, as if the whole forest had been sealed inside.
Immediately, I thought it might be worth something considerable. The rarity of the find called to me, and the sensation of touching it was… singular. It wasn’t only the potential monetary value that made me take possession of it; it was as if the stone spoke to me.
Ignoring the voice of reason telling me to leave it where it was, I slipped it carefully into my pocket. Maybe it would bring me good money. I kept walking until I caught sight of a large cubic pillar at one of the ends, and it seized my attention—stealing my breath, too.
An ancient door of greenish glass… left ajar. What were the chances?
I looked around, and there was nothing but the deep green of the woods. I couldn’t sense anyone’s presence either, except my caged wolf. I took a few more careful steps over the dry leaves, until I froze, skin prickling and my spine shuddering. A warning. That open path couldn’t possibly be a good sign.
Elowen, better known as a trouble-hunter. The one who looks harmless, but is capable of ripping a heart out of a chest with her fist. The one with an angel’s face, but a heart as dry as a witch’s.
I kept moving, living up to my reputation for ignoring my intuition. And for caution’s sake, it was better to control my own breathing, so I filled my lungs with air and held it, letting it out slowly.
As I got closer, I leaned my body forward, walking in a defensive stance, until I was less than a meter from what could become my new prison. Nothing pinned my feet in place—not even the anxiety that struck my cells.
In our brain, there is a natural protective stimulus that makes us feel fear, that serves to preserve us from dangerous situations that put our integrity at risk. It is important for our survival and evolution.
However…
Fear, without the company of other feelings, cannot save a solitary soul from danger. What can you lose, when everything that ever had any value has already been lost, after all?
Hoping that, in the promise of my tomorrow, I would still have freedom, I stretched out a leg and pushed the door inward; it creaked softly. I drew my foot back and held the air in my lungs even tighter.
If any sound echoed—beyond the wind—I would run from that forest as if my life depended on it.
And it did.
The absence of new sounds promised me I wouldn’t be caught. I leaned my body and skull to the right so my eyes could reach through the narrow opening.
I glimpsed three round concrete towers with the same green adornments, rounded in shape. One of them, in the center, was larger and ended in a tapering point.
I no longer smelled damp forest, but an aroma so intensely fresh I couldn’t even decipher it. It was as if every kind of fresh herb on Earth gathered in that place.
Carefully, I used my forearm to push the glass wider and slipped my tense body inside. With my heartbeat roaring in my ears, I closed the door along with its subtle creak.
Whoever had been careless enough to leave it open might come back, and I wouldn’t leave him—or her—a vivid proof of that negligence. A trail to follow. A suspicion to hunt.
Beneath my feet there was no longer damp earth, but dry, rough grass. If raindrops could still be seen on the leaves of the trees outside, they told me there might be a different system in the soil within that place.
I watched the geometric designs on the towers’ walls closely and could see how well made they were. Stroke by stroke. Whoever painted that construction cared for it as if it were their own sanctuary.
The silence continued.
A holy remedy for my curiosity, and a true disease for my mind, which had already sounded a red siren spinning and blaring inside it.
And which, of course, I ignored.
My hands trembled at the possibility of being chased again, but at the same time, no force I could summon made my feet move back out of there. And as if they were an autonomous piece of my body, they moved toward what looked like the main entrance, since it stood at the center of the largest tower.
I couldn’t even imagine what that place was. It was anything but ordinary. It didn’t look like a prison, but it also didn’t resemble a calm, quiet rest home. The hypnotizing aroma purified my airways as I breathed.
In a way, the scent wove an enchantment that pulled me like bait deeper into that place.
On tiptoe, I went to the entrance. I climbed two small steps and touched the handle—dark, sharp iron. I only lacked the courage to turn it.
In all my searches, I had never gone this far, with the added fact that I didn’t feel pursued. Night was falling. My curiosity was so great that I suspected I wouldn’t be able to get even ten minutes of sleep that night—or the next ones—if I left without exploring a little more.
A road with no return for the obstinate.
Still under the whispers of reason, begging me to retreat, my memories with my sister played like a film in my head. Maybe she hadn’t returned because she couldn’t. Maybe she was trapped.
“For you, Lunara,” I murmured a silent vow to the wind.
The lonely Grimwald sister would not leave behind a legacy of cowardice, even without the awakening of her wolf. Not ever.
An eighty-degree turn of the handle. A sharp click.
And…
The blare of an alarm loud enough to burst eardrums.
Terror hit me so violently I could piss myself right there.
Oh, I couldn’t even tell life it was good while it lasted.
It was shit. And like tragic shit, it would end.