A Darkening World And A Sleepy Protagonist Chapter 6 (Unedited)

It has already been a week. Neal enjoying the comfortable life style of sleeping, eating, and re-peat. It was like a hibernation of sorts, so when he came downstairs for the first time since he had entered the motel the week prior, the secretary working at the desk was a bit surprised. Having forgotten about this customer. 

Neal would have preferred staying longer, but the need to start looking for a income over rode that desire. Sure he would be good for awhile with the gems, but he did not have many left and at some point he was surely to run out. So before he was flat out broke, he needed to start job hunting. 

What were the things about him he could promote in order to get a job here anyway? As well as what kind of job? They all seemed pretty tiring. 

“You know, I can give you riches if you ask for it. Enough to last you for the rest of your life, not a single worry to be had!” He had gotten used to this voice popping up now, suggesting things that were beginning to be a bit tempting. 

The unknown cost of such a wish left Neal shaking his head each time. He didn’t want to worry about what he had to pay to get his wants answered. It seemed like to much of a headache, how could he sleep peacefully?

“It would be odd to have money pop out of nowhere, what if people notice and freak out thinking I am a thief or something?” Neal commented, feeling this was a good enough excuse. He found himself understanding it, as who could just ignore a unknown boy who never worked or traded yet lived a luxurious lifestyle? He didn’t want to be the source of any attention, especially negative attention. 

“Then what about wishing to be a prince of a wealthy kingdom? No one would doubt the wealth of royalty!”

“Princely duties, tiring. Expectations, paperwork, and the stress from it all, I would rather not.” This voice seriously did not give up! Why must it keep pestering him?

“Have you heard of that strange sickness going around? People greeting death yet suddenly recovering with a whole new personality, scary isn’t it?”

“I’m pretty sure it is demon possession of some kind. A distant cousins fiancée of mine caught it and after the seemingly ‘miracle, she began acting so strangely! This is exactly like those stories of when those demons from the underside began to pop up in our world using a human as a vessel. How is it so many are happening? Scary to think you or a loved one might be next! How cruel to see another being parading around in someone you knows body, disgusting.” 

Neal’s ears could not help but overhear a conversation between two ladies on the street. They seemed to be out shopping, talking to each other as they browsed the goods. 

Sickness? Demon possession?

Neal thinks back to the village he had been in where everyone suddenly began getting sick, but then shakes it out of his mind. Getting possessed after getting sick suddenly? He had a hard time grasping this when it was spoken so casually by the women. As if it was something they could easily see happening.

Just where was this place? Did it have such supernatural things as demons? He did wake up in a flower though, so wherever he was he better be ready to accept anything to come. 

If this was a world that could have such impossible things, the voice he kept hearing made a bit more sense. Maybe it truly was a kind of ghost? Magical ghost, he really felt he could see the possibility of that. 

Nothing to do with the fact how enjoyable it was to annoy the voice with calling it a ghost all the time, getting so offended. Serves it right for being such a pest. 

As Neal went on with walking, he realized something. The voice for once was quiet. Not a single peep coming from it, it felt like  a miracle! 

“I can even make you immortal if you want! Then their is no worry for getting that strange sickness!”

“Seriously? Can you just leave me alone already!” Neal raises his voice higher then its usual soft tired mumble, due to a mix of surprise and built up annoyance.

“….If you wish it.”

“Ugh!” Neal grabs his head with both hands, shutting his eyes as he took calming breaths. At the very least could this voice stop asking him to make wishes? Why not talk about itself or something for once, anything besides its sketchy wish offer!

Neal breaks from his thoughts as he hears whispers around him. Opening his eyes while lowering his hands, people are staring. Their eyes burn into Neal, making him very uncomfortable, why are they staring? 

He decides to just head home for the night, no longer very comfortable being outside any longer.

–

Bang!

The harsh feeling of his entire body bouncing high then hitting the ground hard woke him up, the bumping continued on and he felt as if he were moving somehow. 

A groan left Neals lips, confusion mixed with the aching pain from his head where it had bumped against the wooden ground. 

His limbs ache, and he feels very stiff. He tries to move to get more comfortable but something stops him. It is as if his arms and legs  are bound together by some itchy tight rope. 

Quickly his eyes shoot open, but all he sees is darkness. 

Neals heart rate begins to pick up very quickly, leaving its pervious slow calm rested state as his panic rose and his mind cleared as he realized what kind of situation he was in. 

He last recalls eating dinner in the dinning room downstairs in the inn, before falling asleep. Nothing that unusual for him but…it seems someone had taken him in his rest and took him away. He finds himself unable to think of why anyone would go out of their way for something like this. Surely he had not gotten any enemies just by sleeping inside the inn all day? Was their a lazy person hater?

“Do you think we are almost there? I want to get this over with before he wakes up” A muffled voice fills his ears. 

Where was he being taken? Was their more then one kidnapper?

“Just a few minutes away, and what are you worrying about? We are getting paid some good money for getting this guy to the abandoned lands before he gets possessed. Since you know killing those showing signs never goes well” 

Another voice, slightly higher in tone. Neal wiggles his body, trying to get the ropes loose. All he manages to do is get the rope to dig in deeper. His skin turning red as it ached under the constant friction. 

Wet tears fell from his eyes soaking into the cloth covering them. He bites down hard on his bottom lip to keep from making a high enough noise and alerting his captors.

Suddenly the movement stops, Neal finds himself automatically tensing as he ceases his struggles. All his focus goes into his hearing. Listening as he heard them jump down somewhere before walking around something and opening two creaky doors. 

“You know I could get you out of this mess!”

A frown tugs at Neal’s lips upon hearing the voice. He is pretty confident the voice was the reason he was in this mess in the first place! Proof? He had none. What he did know though is that this voice had yet to bring him anything good!

–

A woman and man stood at the opening of the moveable cage they used for catching wild beasts to sell. Currently inside it was a boy with light violet white hair. Even though this cage always smelled of dirty beasts, currently it was filled with the scent of lavender. How calming it was, as well as confusing. How was it that it smelled like this?

The two looked at each other for a quick moment before deciding not to question it and continue on with their job. The woman went in and leaned down to pick the boy up. Lifting him with ease, her arms much buffer compared to that of her male companions. 

The man looks a moment at her carrying the boy, glancing to his own arms with longing. He snaps out of it however as she walked passed him. 

“Come on! Lets get him in there before sundown.” The woman shouted as she began climbing up a stone path along side a tall wall of rock.

They had come to the abandoned land, or better known as the land of the dragons. Not that their were any more true dragons left. It had been over three centuries after all since The Great Extermination. 

The land has lots of high ground, twisting paths, many caves. It used to have lots of greenery as well, the most beautiful in all the land, but with not dragons living there the life began to die just leaving the stone. Even so it was very easy to get lost if you did not know where you were going.

This was not the type of area any being but a dragon could live in. Far to dangerous with how a single step, one could loose their life. 

“Here looks good, ” They find a little dent in the stone that made a little cave. The woman set down the boy, pausing a moment as her eyes laid on his teary face. A twang of pity strung in her heart, and she decided not to leave him tied here. 

“What are you doing?” The man asked as he watched the woman untie the ropes on the boy. 

“He is never gonna get out of here without a map anyway, the least we can do is let him stretch his limbs.”

The man wanted to tell her their was no point if the demon took ahold of the body already, but recalling how this boy was innocent other then the sickness he caught, he felt a bit of pity as well. 

She left the blindfold, giving one last pity filled look before turning and walking back the way they came. Any pity she had gone the moment she looked away and began looking forward to their next task for the day. The man followed closely behind, map in hand and a backpack of supplies on his back.

–

Neal did not dare move in fear of the person changing their mind of untying him. Once he knew they were gone he reached up to take off the blindfold over his eyes.

His eyes take a moment to adjust to the light before he could take in the unfamiliar surroundings. 

Once he could though, he was unsure what to think. He had been placed in a small dent in what looked like a tall stone wall. A  mountain? 

His eyes continue looking around and he finds himself staring straight off a cliff. It only took five but scooches from where he sat to have his legs dangling off the edge. 

The small path along the stone mountain led both up and downwards, it being very narrow. He could see from where he was many holes in the rock, big ones as if their were many caves. Many not having a little path leading up to it. 

Their seemed to be many other mountains of stone as well, all connected in someway. He can not tell where the ground is, nor could he find any greenery.

The sky was clearly beginning to get dark, and as the sun begins to set he noticed the way down got far darker then the way up. Almost pitch black already where the mountains met the flat ground. 

He debated chancing it and heading down, but a animals cry in the distance stopped him. 

It was not close, but it was terrifying. As if a hungry beast had just caught a baby rabbit in its jaws.  A shiver went down Neal’s spine at the imagery that popped into his head at this.

Up it is then. 

–

It was not long for it to get dark, and even with using the wall for guidance Neal still had trouble taking each step forward. After all his legs were shaky, and he was terrified his next step would be his last. 

He takes a deep breath in to relax himself, trying to reassure himself he will be okay. Once he calms himself down enough he takes another step forward.

Then suddenly he is falling. 

–

–

_

–

“Ah, shit!”

Neal curses, breathing heavy as he tries to calm his quickly beating heart. His arm aches from his bodyweight. While the palm of his hand burnsfrom where his cuts met with the dirty stone he had managed to grab onto.

Bellow him was a oh so inviting arrangement of sharp stone spikes. How terrifying! If he had not been desperatly clawing at the air around him trying to grab onto something, he surely would have missed this stuck out piece of stone and fallen to his death!

As his arm became unable to bear his own weight, he quickly looks around for where he could go. He finds a gap in the stone in front of him, and without a second thought he swung himself towards it and got into it.

He crawls through the small tunnel like gap. Finding the air getting colder and colder and he went on.

When he finally made it to an opening, he did not expect to come into a room of pure ice! Half of the room had a large block of ice attached to the walls. Inside of it was a silver crystal egg coated in jewel like scales. The egg is about the size of two newborn infants. It sparkles like a jewel in the faint blue light that seems to be coming from the ice it is encased in.

“That egg….it had a heartbeat in it..faint but its there”

The familiar voice enters his ears, but he does not get mad this time. Instead a lookg of suprise crosses his face, an egg? He could have sworn that was just a pretty jewel of somekind. Then again it had been his first thought due to..how could an egg survive in such a cold place? Their was no way it was alive, yet the voice was telling him it was?

Without a second thought Neal throws himself against the wall of ice. Banging against it and using whatever he could to chip away at the ice. Quick to pick up a rock near by and smash it as hard as he could against the ice.

An hour passed and he had managed to get a dent in, the ice now covered in his blood. His nails broke deep into his fingers, his hands had begun turning blue and various scrapes from before contuned to drop blood as more cuts were added from ice shards grazing his skin.

The heat of the blood seemed to help in melting the ice a little as he chipped at it, not caring at all for his well being as he went at the ice again and again.

Then he managed to get in! He got to the egg! Glee fills his heart as he reaches out with shaky hands and grasps the egg, taking it carefully out of the ice. Once he pulls it from the ice, he is quick to bring it close to his body.

He falls back down on his bottom due to exhaustion overtaking him, his brain screaming at him that everything hurt so damn badly.

He can not help but feel relieved at having the egg in his arms.

Why did he go to such effort? He was not sure, but hearing their was life in this egg…he could not just leave it be. This egg that seemed to be abandoned here, just as he had once been. He really could not help himself.

The ice began to melt, but he paid no mind. Instead drifting to sleep with the egg held close to his chest. He swore he could feel the small heart beat inside the egg as he held it.

It gave him a bit of comfort, and he soon feel asleep.

The egg gives a faint glow, warming up in the boys arms. What had been unmoving for many years, shifted slightly.