"Rachelle!" Faïz shouted.
He immediately went after her, leaving me alone in the middle of the floor. It was over... Everything was over. Asarys and Lexy rushed to meet me.
"Zoe, come on!"
Lexy grabbed my arm.
"It's gonna be okay. Uh… It's just..."
At the moment, I was fighting against sobs.
"I just want to go home."
"Can anyone take Zoe home?" Asarys asked our group of friends, already gathered around me.
They all volunteered, but Victoria decided.
"Come on, Zoe. I'll take you home."
I tried to wish everyone a good evening as normally as possible. Their angry looks at my situation didn't help. I would have liked to leave this ball as discreetly as possible, but unfortunately my languid embrace with Faïz was already making everyone here talk. I was the couple breaker, the one who was given evil looks. Victoria and I finally arrived outdoors, in the parking lot, near the Escalade. I needed a little time before I got inside.
"Victoria, give me a minute, please."
She nodded in an understanding way, opened the driver's side door, and rushed into her SUV, leaving me alone in the twilight. The cool breeze did me a lot of good. I looked up to contemplate a cloudless sky. The moon lit up the stars that shone so clearly, as well as the opaque contours of the Dome. This view slowly calmed me.
At that moment, I promised myself that I would never make a move on Faïz again, and that I would do everything to move on. He had made his choice. From now on, I had to move on and move on.
We left the university less happy than when we'd arrived.
"Do you want me to stay with you tonight?" offered Victoria kindly.
"No, Vic. Don't worry. If you want, you can go back to having fun after you drop me off."
"Actually, I don't really want to anymore."
"I'm sorry about all this. I didn't mean to ruin your evening."
"You didn't ruin anything. I had enough fun for one day."
She turned down the radio volume. The rest of the journey was silent.
Arriving at the Mattew's villa, I was relieved that the evening was already well advanced. Considering the quietness in the house, I deduce that Charles and Lily were already asleep. The marble floor in the entrance hall refreshed my feet, which immediately relieved me. I went upstairs with Victoria, stopping in front of her bedroom door. She hugged me affectionately. This almost made me cry, but I managed to control myself without knowing how.
"Good night, Zoe. Tomorrow is another day," she tried to comfort me, as I did for her when she needed it.
"Good night, Vic." My voice shook in spite of myself. You're right.
I forced myself to smile at her and went to my room. Once inside, I gently closed the door. This room suddenly seemed much too big for me. I didn't turn on the light. The darkness was my only comfort. That was when I allowed my tears to run down my cheeks. Standing in front of the bay window, I observed the vast ocean, calm and peaceful. My head rested against the window and I closed my eyes. I missed Paris. At that moment I felt the need to be with my father and grandmother. My sorrow made me regret leaving, traveling so far away. God, I wished I'd never met him.
Unfortunately, after all I had discovered recently, it was now impossible for me to leave. My grandmother's words came back to me: "Love, Zoe, with all your heart. Love until it hurts you. Then you can say you were alive." That was an understatement! Love hurt, and there was no cure for it.
I turned off my phone, that had been vibrating every two seconds since I'd left the party. I suspected that the girls were worried about my condition, but I didn't have the courage to answer them now. It would wait until tomorrow. I prepared to go to bed. My heavy eyelids closed without difficulty, and I fell into a deep sleep. I sank into the abyss of nothingness.
Where was I? Everything was black around me, and a feeling of cold enveloped me. The echo of my footsteps broke the religious silence. Gradually, my eyes got used to the darkness. A halo of light in the distance seemed to show me the way forward.
"Is there anyone there?" I called, terrified.
My voice echoed in this place, which was unknown to me. When the silence returned, I suddenly heard barely audible whispers all around me. My first reflex was to turn around to determine their origin, but I saw no one. My heart was pounding, so I concentrated on what those low voices were saying, but I didn't recognize the language.
"What do you want from me?" I screamed, losing my temper.
My breathing was suffocating. The lack of oxygen made my head spin. A heavy noise of footsteps, chains, and metal came to my ears. Someone was walking towards me, but I couldn't see anything. A deep and rocky breath became stronger and stronger, an infallible sign that what was standing in the shadows was getting closer to me. I tried to pierce the darkness as far away as possible in order to see something, but I couldn't. Then silence set in again. Only the sound of that breath indicated to me that the thing was right next to me, more precisely behind me. A scream of fear came out of my mouth, I immediately turned around without seeing anything. My only certainty was that I was not alone. Someone or something was right there, right next to me, lurking in the shadows.
"How do you like the darkness, Zoe?" whispered a voice, a few centimeters from me.
My blood froze. The timbre of this one was imbued with absolute evil, inhuman, impossible to describe.
"Who are you?" I mumbled with a jerky breath.
A demonic sneer pierced the heavy silence. I was paralyzed by fear. The devil himself would have disappeared without asking for his rest when he heard this.
"I am the one whose name no one dares to say. I come from dark places to teach fear. I am said to have been begotten by darkness, and today I come to introduce myself to you. If you only knew how long I've been looking for you. I was so eager to get to know the Emerald. You know, I was also once a man made of flesh and blood, a long time ago, I grant you that. It was a different time. Know that when you are born without a soul, your thirst for cruelty is insatiable."
"What do you want from me?"
My head buzzed. I felt so sore all of a sudden.
"I have already told you, I have come to introduce myself, to see the creation of the Lord Creator. Feel the purest spirits in you. You cannot imagine the curiosity you arouse in the afterlife, you immutable thing that nothing corrupts. You are the talisman that can send me back to where I came from and close the doors of evil forever."
His tone increased gradually as he spoke to me. He continued,
"I will make you burn with a fire more powerful than the fire of Hell. This Earth will soon be my home, my palace. Demons and fallen angels will replace humanity. This world is populated by your species, which I consider weak and futile."
Beast growls accompanied his words.
"You are The Maestro," I realized when I heard the barking of an animal beside him, hidden in the darkness.
My body weakened. I let myself fall to my knees.
"The common man calls me that. I am in every respect a remarkable conductor, I do not deny that."
"The world is still spinning, and it will continue to do so. You didn’t succeed the first time, and this time won't be any different. The lost souls will pierce the fog in which they have been astray. I believe in human beings and in the good. If it is I who must burn you in your own fire, then I will do this task without backing down. I will give my life to save humanity, or what is left of it."
The beast that accompanied him started barking and raging in the dark. The steps of this demon resounded again. His silhouette gradually took shape in the vague clarity that surrounded me. He came closer until I could see him completely. Still on my knees, my head on the verge of implosion, I literally fell to the ground when he and his dark dog finally appeared to me.
This corpulent beast of a despicable vision, half dog, half demon, practically made me faint. His red eyes reflected the cruelty of an unnamed barbarity. Th
e sharp fangs of this giant could have devoured me in only a few seconds if it were not held back by two big chains that seemed to weigh tons. I crawled with all my strength away from this monster to escape him, but in vain. The pain in my head prevented me from moving as fast as I would have liked.
Then I heard The Maestro coming closer to me. I turned around to face him. The first thing I saw was his big, imposing boots. The leather creaked with every step he took. That was when he came out of the darkness in turn. Still on the ground, my hands rested on my lips to hide all the disgust I felt when I saw him. The Maestro revealed himself to me.
His skin was a repulsive color. His features were magnified by evil, and his deep wrinkles disfigured him horribly. His rolled-up nostrils reminded me of an animal's snout. His red and yellow bloodshot eyes reflected the banks of the Styx. His unusual morphology added an even more terrifying aspect. There was nothing human about him, only horror. It was then that he gave me a demonic smile that instinctively paralyzed me. The Maestro growled with all his might, victorious, enjoying seeing me like this, discouraged and fragile. He raised his head to look down on the nothingness.
"Is that what this is? The most heavenly chosen one, whom you sent to redeem humanity?" He begins to scream with all his might. "Nothing more than a mere mortal?!"
I woke up in sweat, paralyzed by my nightmare and by the infernal laughter of the demon that still echoed in my skull.
The fresh water on my face did me a lot of good. My headache gradually subsided. All this had seemed so real to me. I could almost have touched him, his presence had seemed so close. It was three in the morning. The villa was still immersed in calm. I turned off the light in the bathroom and went to bed. A draft brushed against me as I walked through the room lit by the moonlight. I noticed that one of the windows was ajar. I could swear that they'd been closed when I came into my room, and I was certain that I had not opened it.
I hastened to close it when suddenly a noise coming from the dressing room startled me and caught my attention. Should I scream now? I had just come out of a nightmare. I had no desire to relive another one.
At the entrance of my closet, I saw a shape. Someone seemed to be spying on me. I wanted to rush out of my room, but my brain couldn't give the order. A slender figure came forward. I could not tell if it was walking or float. She sat on the edge of my bed. In shock, I still couldn't react. I must have been dreaming again. With surprise, I discovered a young blonde and frail woman. Her crystalline skin had soft features. Her hollow turquoise-blue eyes were empty, frozen, and expressionless. Sitting, dressed in a simple white dress with gold stitching, her hands joined on her lap, she seemed to be staring at the ocean in the distance, completely absorbed in her thoughts. Did she see me?
"Who are you?" I said in a calm tone, trying to keep my cool.
She didn't bother to turn her head towards me when she answered me.
"It is so cold now," she confided in an almost inaudible voice.
But damn it, she doesn't want me to bring her a blanket and coffee while she's at it! I lost my way in this bizarre situation. Was I hallucinating? When would all this end? I didn't know what to think or do anymore.
"Where are you from?"
She lowered her head, and a deep sadness could be seen on her face.
"We are lost. Once, we ruled in the midst of a world of hope, where our mission was to serve the men and women of this Earth."
She paused, as if she sought deep into her memory, while I was still standing in front of her with my arms crossed with a feeling of unease. Then, after a few endless seconds, she resumed.
"We are trapped here. It is impossible for us to return to the kingdom of Heaven. Most humans have forgotten the myths and legends of yesteryear, as well as the rituals to protect themselves from any existing evil. On the other hand, they still believe in demons, in demonic spirits. They do not realize that they are feeding them by doing so. Few people remember that we existed even before darkness, but we will die in the absence of faith."
She looked away again. I didn't understand what she was explaining to me.
"What is your name?"
"It depends on the country you ask. Nymph, Befana, or Viviane. In your country, in France, I am called the White Lady."
The hair on my arms rose. Was I talking to a fallen Fairy? A Banshee? A shiver ran through my body. If that was the case, the one sitting in front of me had come to predict my death. The pieces of the puzzle began to fit together. Everything was real. If this Banshee was here when I was awake, it was because The Maestro had indeed come into contact with me. I had seen him.
"Am I in danger?" I hastened to ask her, alarmed.
"Not now, not here, but yes, Zoe, you're in great danger..."
She stopped herself, hesitating to continue. Suddenly, her grief-stricken gaze plunged into mine.
"Like all of you," she said with difficulty.
Her breathing, calm from the beginning, began to accelerate. She was taken at that moment by an uneasiness, but she was fighting to finish her sentence.
"Trust only yourself! The world is changing. We were so strong, we were..."
The Banshee suffocated. I didn't know what to do. Feeling that the situation was slipping away from me, I insisted on gathering as much information as possible that would help us in this war against evil.
"Where…Where is the tomb?"
"Under...your eyes."
Disoriented, I put my face in my hands. I didn't understand anything.
"Is that a metaphor? A clue? Show it to me!"
She turned to me with a look full of distress. Her eyes were of supernatural beauty. Her purple rings indicated how exhausted she was, exhausted from no longer believing in what she had been created for. I had always imagined Fairies with wings, but that was not the case. Suddenly, she began to convulse, twisting in pain. Her forehead was sweating.
"No! What's going on?" I panicked.
I stepped back as she struggled with the pain, totally helpless in the face of this chaotic spectacle. Then she violently flung her head back. Her irises had disappeared, only the whites of her eyes showing. Then the Banshee opened her mouth wide to let out a strident, powerful and unsustainable scream. Instinctively, I put my hands over my ears while seeking refuge in a corner of the room, pressing my eardrums with all my strength. A dazzling light emanating from her body filed the space. My eyes closed in the face of this blinding radiation.
When I reopened them after a few minutes, everything became dark and peaceful again, as if nothing had happened. There was nothing, no more screaming, no more radiation, and no more Banshee on the edge of my bed. My heart, which was pounding in my chest, was trying to get back to a steady rhythm. Emptied of all my strength, I could not get up again. My ears were ringing and I couldn't hear anything. The door of my room exploded against the wall. Faïz appeared, running towards me, his features twisted by anxiety as he discovered me curled up on the ground. I felt his arms close around me. He was moving his lips while shaking me.
"The Banshee," I whispered, without succeeding in articulating one more word.
My body was lifted off the ground. Faïz carried me without any difficulty, holding me so tight that I felt every movement of his muscles. Exhausted, my eyes closed again.
After a few moments, sound came to me again little by little, like a distant echo. From then on, I recognized the familiar voices of Charles, Victoria, and Lily, which nevertheless seemed to reach me from very far away.
"I asked you to go check her room!" barked Faïz.
"I found nothing! There's nothing!" defended Victoria, apparently annoyed.
"You must take her to the temple of the Seventh Earth as soon as she gets better," Charles intervened. "She must consult the Callis."
"I will take her as soon as she is strong again. Until then she will sleep here for the rest of the night."
Footsteps went away and a door closed. I tried to open my heavy eyelids and immediately recognized Faïz's r
oom. He was there, kneeling by the bed where I was lying, as if he were watching a dying woman.
"Hey," I whispered. "Everything's fine."
I lifted my hand, which seemed to weigh tons, and gently stroked his face to reassure him.
"Yet you seem so weak. The dimness of your eyes proves it," he confided in a fragile voice.
"Stop blaming yourself. It's not your fault!"
"I should have walked you home, not left you alone, or—"
"No, Faïz, stop! Rachelle needed you. I'm really sorry about what happened at the ball, for my behavior. It was childish. As for the rest, you won't always be able to protect me. I'm the guiding principle, and it's up to me to take care of you."
I really meant what I said. I didn't like Rachelle, but no one should have to watch such a difficult thing in silence during those few minutes of the slow dance, not even her. I imagined that a big argument had broken out between those two after I'd hugged him on the dance floor.
Suddenly, he straightened up and I followed him with my eyes. Faïz moved to an armchair on the other side of the bed. Apparently very tired, he dropped into the seat. I couldn't help but observe it for a moment. He pinched the bridge of his nose with his fingers. The top buttons on his white shirt were undone, revealing the nakedness of his chest. I realized that it would be difficult to silence my feelings. As I watched him on the sly, he opened his eyes again, looking worried.
"Did the Banshee talk to you before she disappeared?"
"Yes, but I didn't quite understand it. Her words were so messy..."
"What did she say to you?"
"It's still confusing."
I searched my memory to remind myself of our conversation when I remembered something important.
DARK FAÏZ Book 1: Every hero has his legend Page 11