Shades of Grey

LOCATION UNKNOWN— DECEMBER 1843

I though immediately of Simon and the words he had spoken to me… “You will make a beautiful Creature one day…”

“So, in this world… the Queen really is me?” I asked. My mother nodded.

“This is the future, should you fail against him.”

My mother looked at me with sad, omniscient eyes.

“How?” I probed gently. “How can I guarantee my success?”

She turned away, unable to say any more.

“What happened to Forma?” I asked. “Did I ever find her? Is she featured in this world?”

My mother shook her head.

“Maisling Fairies were hunted down and eliminated during the same time that Hunters were imprisoned, back when the Queen first began to lose her mind. Forma was the first to go. Public execution in the city square.”

I stood up, and kicked the wall, screaming in exasperated horror. My action garnered several laughs and cries of annoyance from the other inmates. My mother simply sat and waited, empathetic of my vexation.

“Grey, I know how you must feel, but you must remember that in this place, nothing is what it seems. You can do anything here. If you can imagine it, then it is real!”

I looked up at my mother, her face so vigorously fervent, her words so strategically emphasised…

“If I imagine it?” I queried for clarification.

“Yes! You control everything here!”

Suddenly, my mother froze and began convulsing as though a parasite were snaking through her body, burning everything in its path.

“Mother!” I exclaimed. I raced to her side to try and assist her, but her movements were too strong and with one flick of her hand, she sent me across the cell and into the opposite wall.

I recovered and looked at her just as her convulsions ceased. She gave me one last, peaceful look right before a light began to glow from inside her chest. Then, in an explosion of blinding luminance, she dissappeared.

“No!” I shouted, dumbly reaching for her.

The guardsmen suddenly appeared and opened the door, having heard my exclamation.

“Everything alright here?” the guards queried.

“What happened to her?” I cried, touching the spot where she had been sitting. “There was a light inside of her…and then she was gone!”

“She must have revealed too much,” responded one of the guards. I turned to him, my interest piquing.

“Too much about what?” I asked.

I was met with a swift jab of the guard’s spear into my gut.

“Shut up!”

The other guards kicked me in the stomach as they left the cell, leaving me to sit on the cot where my mother had sat only moments before. I paused in thought when my hand then ran over the sword I had ascertained in the forest, still locked in the compartment on my leg. I then looked to the cell door and got a bold idea.

Focusing as deeply as I could, I swung the sword across the bars and watched in elation as they broke easily. I held the sword strongly in my hand and in a display of confidence I dared to leap from the third level, landing gracefully on the floor below to the shock and infuriation of the guards.

“How’d you get out of your cell? Nobody ’as the key to that cell ’cept me!”

Solomon produced the key in a childish display of discontent. I merely swung the sword listlessly through my hands, smiling. Solomon’s mouth then pursed angrily as he came to the right conclusion.

“Get ’er back in a cell!” he ordered.

The guards then circled around me, attempting to ‘restrain’ me. I leapt upwards into a roundhouse kick and knocked all of the guards to the ground in one swing, landing cleanly on my feet afterwards.

“STOP!”

All activity in the prison ceased as more Treptik guardsmen strode forward, followed by Queen Grey, King Lanek and a simpering Evan.

“Do you see?!” cried the Queen, clutching her stomach. “Do you SEE the danger of Hunters?! That will be at least five thousand Vicams to replace all of these guardsmen! DAMN YOU!”

The queen strode towards me, her hands raised in pretentious resentment.

“Where is Forma? My Forma?” I asked in soft hope that the Queen would be able to relay something.

Instead, her eyes widened in horror and she turned back to Lanek and Evan.

“Did you hear her?! She uttered the name! SHE SPOKE THE FORBIDDEN NAME!”

The Queen suddenly leaned in towards my face, leering at me.

“She is long dead.”

“She was your Maisling: your friend.”

“She was a liar and a cheat! She wanted my power! I said goodbye to her long ago!”

Evan then walked forward, gently touching his hand to the Queen’s shoulder.

“Compose yourself, highness,” he reasoned plainly.

“But she…she…oh no!”

The queen then stumbled on her feet and collapsed into Lanek, gripping her pregnant belly.

“It’s time!” she cried. “It’s time!”

“Hurry!” ordered Lanek. “Move her to the royal chambers!”

“No time!” contradicted the Queen. “He’s coming now!”

Immediately the room was a flurry of activity. Three of the Treptik guards restrained me while several others went to fetch blankets and water. Lanek leaned the queen back against his strong body as Evan crouched in front of her.

“Alright Your Majesty, you’ll have to relax…” he said in a calming voice as he prepared to deliver the baby.

The Queen screamed as her contractions began. I flinched under the strong arms of the Treptiks. It was a bizarre experience to hear my own screams and see such a pained expression on my face, yet not being the one experiencing the pain. The Treptik behind me shook me violently as he noticed my discomfort.

“Watch. You witness history,” he commanded, gripping the back of my neck and forcing me to observe.

The other guardsmen returned with blankets and water, whereupon Lanek began daubbing the Queen’s face gently as she began to perspire.

“Breathe evenly, Highness,” cooed Evan.

The queen did her best to breathe gently, but the temperature in the dungeons was much higher than anyone would want when delivering a child and her breaths became longer and more laborious. After a few tense moments, she leaned back limply on Lanek’s lap.

“Grey?” inquired Lanek.

Suddenly she gave a horrendous, blood-curdling scream as a muted light began to glow in her stomach.

“My God, what is this?! Evan, what is happening?!”

Evan stood, dumbfounded at what he saw but trying to appear as though he knew precisely what it was. He turned to the queen’s side and knelt over her, gently putting his ear to her belly. He then took several steps backwards, a strange look of exhilarated horror on his face.

The queen was silent for a moment, when suddenly her stomach began to buckle as though something were trying to claw its way out. I then had to cover my mouth in shock and revulsion as the child suddenly ripped through her skin in a blast of red light.

Everyone was silent in horror as the baby crept slowly out of the queen’s quiescent body, sniffing the air and staring at each of us as though we were its first meal. Its steely, hungry yellow eyes looked over each of us and I gasped when its gaze reached me.

The child was not a child at all but a Hybrid between a Graylight Dragon and a hideous, deformed Vanguard Vampire in its disgusting bat form. The queen lay dead in Lanek’s arms as the monstrous child climbed out of her lifeless body.

“What is that?!” Lanek cried, backing away in disgust.

“That, your Majesty, is your child,” responded Evan in a voice of anodyne malice, not daring to remove his eyes from the writhing, snarling creature on the floor. His expression was strangely paternal…

Lanek then began to gag and raced out of the dungeons, retching as he went. Several guards followed him while the rest remained, waiting for orders.

“Kill it,” said Evan simply.

I cried out in horror as every Treptik in the room swiftly stuck his spear into the wailing monster. I had to close my eyes at the sight and then cover my ears at the creature’s excruciating wails, trying to erase what I had seen from my memory and quell the sick maternal concern that had risen in the process.

Once the creature’s screaming evanesced, I felt the Treptiks release their hold on me and then heard them shuffle away. As the noise died, I dared to open my eyes once more and found that I was now alone with Evan as he stared at the motionless body of the queen.

“What a pity…” he mocked. “She was such a stout ruler, despite her shortcomings as an intellectual.”

I took several breaths to steady myself after the bizarre display I had just witnessed, turning solidly towards Evan and speaking pointedly.

“I’m going to ask you questions. I want you to be frank and not dodge them. Answer directly.”

Evan cracked a smile, impressed for some reason that I would take charge in such a manner.

“And what if I don’t?”

It was my turn to crack a smile.

“I suggest you do.”

Evan gave a knowing laugh and then gestured to me.

“Fine then. Ask away, little Boeotian.”

I gripped the hilt of the Longsword in preparation.

“What is this place?”

Evan furrowed his brow.

“It should be very familiar to you. You are where you have always been.”

I frowned. That was strangely cryptic.

“I told you to be direct.”

“That’s as direct as I’m allowed to be. Now, your second question?”

His eyes flashed a light silver: the same colour as Natara’s eyes. I set my jaw. I knew now I was questioning Natara directly.

“Why does the queen look like me?”

Evan let out a lightly malevolent laugh.

“She is what you fear to become.”

My stomach wrenched. How could she have known that?

“Why are you here?!” I asked with astute directness, trying to quell my desire to retch at the malodorous aroma of the Queen’s blood and the King’s vomit.

He bent down so that his eyes were level with mine, speaking in a hoarse voice that I could barely hear.

“Because I am always in your thoughts.”