Preternatural (Worlds & Secrets) (44 page)

“Incineration field,” Liam spoke. 

“It gains energy from the water – it’s spiritual. We clear the water, we disable the defences,” Jordan added.

“How did you guys know?” Aemilia wondered.

“I could feel it on my skin –”

“I could smell it; there’s a type of smell energy has,” Jordan then quickly said.

I turned to face the water, blocking us
from the Cavern doors.

“Let me handle it,” I spoke timidly as I stepped in front of the crowd.
My hair shone a brighter blue than it was and for the first time, turned azure. My eyes glowed a static sapphire that seemed close to Liam’s. I began to throw my arms forward and around my shoulders like two rotating wheels. The water was being pushed in a series of waves that soon became tidal from the back of this bowl-like area. The water around this patch of land that prevented us from going anywhere was being rolled towards the cavern doors. I then slid my hands upwards, as if rubbing them against a wall. The water rushed up the cliff, like jets rapidly ascending, and finally stayed on the cliff’s brim like a blanket rolled over a bed.

I clos
ed my eyes and relaxed. We looked down from the edge of the patch. Except this was no patch of land. In fact it wasn’t even a patch. We were suspended on a vertical, upright, monumental rock, high off the ground. We seemed to be approximately twenty metres high. The ground further below was covered in swaying mist above a thin layer of fragmented human bones, skulls and gravel, but our eyes drifted from the ground to what lay a few metres ahead.

There it was:
the Cavern of Worlds. The large serrated crack in the cliff (that stretched all the way down before widening) was bordered with two large rocks, connected to the highest part of the cliff. The rocks were a grim grey and looked completely stiff and sturdy, etched
in Celt marks covering their entire surface. Even from here, we could visibly see writing in a strange language carved
into them. Everything felt ominous, even the silence. The invisibility of the incineration field had been disabled and we could now see the its semi-visible grey structure, projecting from the top of the long crack all the way down to cover its perimeter.

“
What does that say?” Aemilia asked curiously. Mychaela took a step forward.

“
I’ve studied the ancient history. I think I can make that out,” she said. But by then, Tammy had already figured out what it stated. She struggled to bring herself to recite what was in front of her. We noticed that some sort of trouble had found the pair as Mychaela’s eyes swiftly became perplexed and confused.

“
What? What does it say?” Jade asked.

“
Blackened skies and darkened blood will send them to their graves,

Nightmares, grief and darkened
skills shall meet them in the waves.

His reign will end, the light will fail and
the dark will clearly rise,

But to stop the omen and complete the circle, they must surely die.

We were baffled. Puzzled.
Mentally destroyed
, even. The ambiguous rhyme and warning that had been engraved into the walls of the Cavern left an ominous feeling in us with no hope whatsoever.

“Do you have any idea what it means?” I asked Tammy with worried eyes.

“No,” she replied, just as frightened. “I have no clue who it talks about. There are so many people it could be referring to.”

“But whose reign is it talking about?
My father’s?” Mychaela worriedly asked. Tammy shook her head, trying to speak even though no sound came out. She was just as baffled as us. We adjusted ourselves to stand in a line.

“
Hold hands for a minute,” Jordan said through the silence. We did as she asked. Her blonde hair inked itself to a dark
wine red and her eyes became a bright orange colour. All of us sharply recoiled as we were being filled with energy and stamina. We could feel it surging from our tailbones to our brains, circulating around haywire
in our bloodstream. We let go and Jordan didn’t look drained in the least. We looked at our hands. There was a mystical glow moving around in our veins that seemed to enhance the efficiency of our abilities.

“Just in case thi
ngs get messy,” she said.

Well that was reassuring, Jordan. It’s not like you’re insinuating we’re going to die or anything.

Jaden was the first to take the lead in jumping down as we broke out of our hand link. As he landed, his eyes turned hazel and his black and white hair became more defined. He landed in a squatted stance with his right leg outstretched and the other tucked in. His hands were pressed against the floor firmly and before he knew it Jordan, Tarmo, Aemilia, Robbie and Liam had landed behind him with bent knees in half squats. It was the easiest way to break their fall. Jade and Tammy created slits on the sides of their pencil skirts as Jojo teleported herself below with them. Finally, I jumped down, hovering with a lively breeze around my legs before I let my feet touch the ground.

T
he Cavern wasn’t that far off but it was more intimidating now that we were on level ground with it. Everyone stood up straight and boldly. The crunching that sounded on the floor from us stepping on the shards of bones was monotonous and unavoidable. But with each crack, my heart thumped. Finally, we stood face-to-face with the partly-grey force-field.

“
How do we get through?” Jordan asked?

“
A touch should do it,” Mychaela said.

“We’ll be incinerated,” I quickly pointed out. Liam shook his head.

“The defences have been disabled,” he mentioned.

Liam edged forward to it, tapping his
index finger on the shield’s surface. The tiniest ripple did it. We stood back and watched the force field scale away into inexistence as a chill settled in my chest.

Our hearts were drowning in fear and
worry. Now we knew there was nothing separating us from the Cavern. We could even
enter
if we pleased.

“
Are those gargoyles?” Mychaela asked, looking up at the middle section of the Cavern’s rock doors. All our heads drifted upwards as we examined what she was talking about.

“
They do
look like gargoyles, don’t they? But…they’re not. They seem a little too human-like to
be
them,” Tarmo answered. Perched on the walls, with their hands and feet pressed against the rocks but looking as if they were about to leap forward, were nine rock figures; five on the left door and four on the right one.

“
Alright, snap out of it, guys!” I said enthusiastically and loud enough for the others to hear. “We’re eleven,” I continued, “five of us can take one door and another six can take the other.” I ended. We immediately broke off into groups. We were eager to get this job done so we would never again have to think of this horrible endeavour. Jaden, Robbie, Jordan, Tammy and I took the left and the others rushed to the right.

“
Ready?” Jaden yelled over to them. We had no
idea our voices were awakening something dangerous.

“
Ready
!” they replied. We dug our fingers viciously into the rock doors, emitting a series of not-too-long cracks. The Celtic patterns and arcane writing on the Cavern doors immediately lit to a multi-coloured light through this dark world due to our auras. We were doing it, we
heaved
.

“
HEAVE!” we yelled.” We groaned as our supernatural Vernaescian strength, combined with the extra energy Jordan had given us pushed these doors together. We knew
these rocks were bound with something beyond Vernaescian knowledge because we would have already been able to budge these in three seconds. I mean, come on – we were eleven aliens!

The doors weren
’t so
far apart, about a few feet away now. We were almost about to complete this. I could already feel my heart easing with joy. But then, all that stopped. All I knew is that I had been taken and thrown into the Cavern at a vicious speed because I could feel the air rushing against my face and my entire vision had become darkness. I wasn’t thrown that far in, I could still see the light and the others outside. Had something attacked me? Everyone stopped in shock.

Thump!

“
WAIT
! Where’s Aden?” Robbie voiced out, soaked in fear as they all began looking around.

“
Guys, I’m in here,” they heard my voice echoing. I got up and wiped the blood from my nose and slowly made my way to the entrance when suddenly, Robbie was sent flying towards me and landed on the floor with a thud.

“
What’s doing that?” Jordan asked. Everybody stood on their guards – and then Mychaela pointed out the worst.

“
Everyone…where are the gargoyles?” she said, a half terrified tone in her voice. And she was right, they weren’t there anymore. The others turned their backs to the Cavern and faced the rest of this bowl. Without warning, nine figures precipitously dived and grabbed each of the nine remaining. With a jolt, they were sent flying into the Cavern as well. At least we were all next to each other now. The actions were too swift to see who the predators were, but the nine figures stood at the entrance, facing us as silhouettes. Bright light from the outside world hit their outlines, causing us to only see them as dark entities. They slowly
marched onwards and stayed stationary, barring us from exiting the Cavern. But as they advanced inwards, we saw them, what they really looked like, with the light from outside reflecting on their sides. They were Demon Grinners.

A
ll nine of them
.

“
With all due respect, the poem was threatening enough to warn us,” Tarmo spoke lightly as a soft banter.

“
I don’t think
now’s
the time for jokes, Tarmo,” Liam quavered. The others stood up. I ignited both of my hands with loud rustling flames but the fires were immediately stolen by the darkness of the Cavern.

“HEY!” I yelled outrageously. But I was stopped in my tracks.
The fire was turned into gleaming white electricity which was taken in all directions of the Cavern.

As the
lines of static retracted themselves from my hands, they lit enormous white columns that stood on our left and right hand sides, facing each other like opposites. I swallowed so hard that I almost swallowed my throat in the process

“
Guys, look up,” I pointed upwards timidly – all we saw was a void sky, complete with a blanket of moving blackness. It was bitterly cold and as we inhaled and exhaled, frost forced its way out through our gritted teeth and nostrils. We looked towards the depths of the Reincarnation Chamber and noticed the floors were covered in the same fossils as outside. I looked out and realised that we stood on a large rock that was a sort of lookout point – another cliff. Behind us, the Grinners all remained in their positions, immobile. They didn’t even attempt to kill. They just guarded.

The light from the pillars helped us
to see the entire cavernous chamber. Although there were columns on our left and right, there were no walls or roof. There was nothing in between the columns either. They merely seemed as if they lead into oblivion. All I could see between each pillar was an intense, void black that I had to tear my eyes away from for fear of going mad
.
I kept wondering
where
it could possibly lead to, or whether they were just barriers to keep us in here.

“
What do we do?” Mychaela asked. Suddenly, the Grinners ejected their wings and flew over to us precipitously, pushing us down. We immediately landed on our feet, our reflexes kicking in during the final second. We ran as far as possible from them down the Cavern. They stood atop the cliff and again stayed stationary – this time at the brim of the lookout point.

“
What if they close the doors?” Jade asked worriedly.

“
They wouldn’t
dare
,” Liam said as we ran further down.

“
How can you be so sure?” I asked back.

“
They’d trap the Barons in here with us and prevent their masters from ever escaping.” We stopped running as we hit the stairs to what seemed to look like a podium of marble. The staircase winded up a few feet high like a snake, made of a rocky granite and entrenched in ancient cracks. The railing was white and chalky – bone. Our hearts were drumming. It seemed impossible to get out now. Unless maybe…

“
Jojo, why don’t we teleport out and lock them in?” I whispered. Jojo tried teleporting. But merely stayed in the same place and shed off green embers.

“
I – I
can’t
! It’s an anti-teleporting zone!” she said worriedly. We stood at the foot of the stairs when I saw something above the podium; a book.

I
gently climbed the few steps and the others stayed below on the bottom floor. I flinched as I drew closer and closer to the arcane book and finally stood paces away from it. It was already opened and I read slowly, not fully understanding the title of the chapter that stared me in the face or knowing its actual pronunciation: “Re...Print...asisal. Re–Printsisal – Reprintasisal. I wonder what that is,” I muttered.