Preternatural (Worlds & Secrets)

by Lloyd Harry-Davis

  “You three…” he croaked in a broken, superior, English-accented voice that sent backbiting needles piercing my skin.

  “You’re Trailian,” Jade said, spellbound and awestruck. We slowly moved back.

  “Not leaving already, are you?” he asked sarcastically; his eyes suddenly dimmed to a complete black that spread to all corners of his eyes.

  “You wouldn’t want to have come here for nothing,” he growled. He was suddenly joined by two women, both tall and elegant with blanched skin. Margaret had hair like Mychaela’s, long and straight, that seemed flawless and dangled just above her waist, held in a tight ponytail and without a single strand out of place. She had on tight fitted black trousers with tears where her knees would be, and in addition, a plain black tank top and black boots that rose to her shins with silver straps. Her eyes were just like her husband’s, Trailian – purple and mystical.

  The other woman, Fernanda, was dressed similarly to Margaret and had a head full of black, frizzy hair, spiralling out of control down her back. Three other men then approached. One of them, Ricardo, having thick, black, messy hair like Jaden’s but dressed in a similar formal way like Trailian. Another (Alessandro) with long black hair; two strands tying the rest behind his back and two other strands dangling on both sides of his face. He had long black overalls with black trousers and a quiver of arrows behind his back as he held his bow. And the last, Allyn, looked devilish. His hair was cut short and he seemed bigger and more muscular than the rest. His jaws were very well defined and his staggering height made him resemble a brutish giant. His shirt alone defined the muscles of his chalk-white torso. His short dark hair contrasted completely with his face and his black trousers only made his stature look more muscular. None of them could have been above thirty. Figuratively speaking of course.

  “You’re the one who killed our father,” Jaden mumbled as we continued to stumble backwards.

  “Well, don’t be surprised!” he said enthusiastically. He seemed sadistically playful.

  “I’ve killed hundreds of people – your father shouldn’t be any different,” he said with a cheeky grin, showing his immaculate teeth. I noticed he had pointy canines like we had.

  “They were people!” Tammy spoke back fiercely. Trailian stroked the stubble on his chin and looked down over the edge of his nose at Tammy, before playfully responding: “Tamzine!” He knew her name? “It’s been ages since you and the Roxeths ventured off to us, no?” he said gently.

  “Do you remember this place? Hm? Where you escaped from us the last time?” he asked, stroking his chin and squinting at them.

  “And, uh, how is the lovely woman? The one who helped you escape. Have you contacted her recently? Because if you have…tell her the armistice is over. We need her. And we’ll be coming for her.” He glided down the steps and gently walked around Tammy, whispering in her ear, loud enough for us to hear whilst fiddling with her hair.

  “I have no idea who you’re talking about. And you’re lying, we never ventured off to you – it was against our will,” she replied, staying immaculately still with a disgusted look on her face.

  “Yes, but that doesn’t justify the fact you were once with us does it, Roxeth?” he said, uncommonly fast. I was stunned. The Roxeths worked for the Barons? That wasn’t accurate. It couldn’t have been.

  “You can’t hurt us,” Robbie spoke boldly.

  “Yes, yes, it is quite impossible now,” Trailian stopped and exhaled deeply. He moved back and stood at the podium.

  “I’m not interested in you three at the moment. It’s all about the daddy’s babies,” he said, with another playful grin of horror. But his smile slowly receded as his eyes squinted at us.

  “I know you people are supposed to be special, but could you have actually started your centuries of immortality and youth at that age?” he asked curiously as he leaned on the podium.

  “Physically, you can’t be more than fourteen,” he said yet again disbelievingly. Jaden, Jade and I looked at each other, hopeless. We had no clue what he was ranting on about. But there was no conning this man; he had seen our lost facial expressions and suddenly gasped wildly.

  “You have no clue what I’m on about, do you? So you might actually be fourteen,” he said, with his unprecedented eyes as large as mine, enlarged in terror with a grin growing below. I gulped uneasily. He was speaking more to himself than to us.

  “But that’s impossible, you couldn’t have been born fourteen years ago if your father died –”

  “Don’t you dare speak about him!” something forced out of me as I stepped forward, with my hair blazing red and my eyes glowing ruby. Jordan immediately grabbed a hold of my warm body and reeled me back. Trailian looked down at us in severe examination.

  “Tell me, boy, have you heard of the Revolution that took place; the event that led to our demise and misery in this place?” he asked with his hand to his chin. We kept silent and all we could hear was the damp dripping of water.

  “ANSWER ME!” he yelled. We jumped as his voice amplified throughout the entire cavern and as it overlapped with whispers and different pitched tones. His eyes were a lifeless black, through which we could see nothing. His face was in a vicious snarl as he bent towards us from the platform. Our hearts all skipped a beat and I felt as if mine had just been cut out.

  “Yes,” Jade then answered in a small voice. Trailian stood upright and resumed speaking as if nothing of his malicious outburst occurred.

  “Right, good. And do you know how long ago this was, my dear?” Jade stammered and looked at Tammy and Robbie. They shrugged hopelessly.

  “I don’t remember,” Liam said mind-numbingly, as if it was an abomination or impossible for them to have forgotten. Trailian took a hollow step down the crumbling granite stairs.

  “Two thousand –” his heel clicked on another step.

  “– Six hundred –” he took one last step and faced us from his higher-up position.

  “And fourteen years ago,” he calmly ended.

  “And why should we care?” Jaden feistily responded. Trailian suddenly threw his head back in a cold, menacing laugh that sent spiteful cracks through the columns.

  “My dear child, I hope you’ve been told I killed your father in the revolution, yes? ME! SIR TRAILIAN! And if so doing – which was two thousand, six hundred and fourteen years ago, I must add…” he left us on edge, on severe suspense.

  “Then how could you three be alive if your father died two millennia ago? Unless of course…you were born then.” Our faces froze. Hell. We had no idea of how long this war had taken place. It never occurred to us to ask. But he couldn’t have been saying what I think he was – that was beyond impossible. This was taking the alien excuse way out of context. All of the others were now looking at us as if we were something they couldn’t believe. Jaden, Jade and I looked at each other disbelievingly.

  “N-n-no, no, no. You’re delusional. We’re fourteen, she’s sixteen!” I retorted.

  “No, boy,” he said sternly.

  “You-are-precisely-two-thousand-six-hundred-and-fourteen-years-old!” he rambled in a strict breath.

  “Well, technically your sister’s two years older than you two but what baffles me, is how you’ve been alive all this while. I mean, I knew we would have had to break out a hundred years after the Resurrection. But it never occurred to me that you three fools had been alive all this while…unless…” he drifted the sentence off to himself. He took five rapid steps down and circled us, moving around my siblings and me like mist, centimetres from us.

  “You all still smell like magic too,” he said disgustedly.

  “So, the great mage survived,” he muttered to himself. I huddled with Jaden and Jade. How could this have been real? Why couldn’t I remember any of this – any of my two thousand, six hundred and fourteen years of living? Worse yet, mum. She hadn’t told us. She knew. She lied.

  “I have no clue, however, why you can’t remember this nonsense,” he said as
he walked back up to the podium and somehow psychically answering our questions.

  “You sick liar, Trailian!” Liam hissed.

  “Only three of you are to die today,” he spoke coldly. My heart was stabbed with terror and Jaden and Jade seemed just as petrified as me.

  “Well you aren’t going to touch them,” Liam immediately said, stepping in front of us.

  “Foolish boy, you have no idea what you are doing or talking about!” he then maliciously snarled, causing all of us to take a few paces back. “You have not even a brain cell of the mess you are so willingly DIGGING yourselves into…if these three don’t die,” he spoke, as he so languidly slipped down the stone steps again. His eyes quickly rested on Tarmo, whose misty eyes began to glow.

  “My dear boy, do not even bother. That future is unpredictable, yet imminent. Fire will fall and the Earth will fade. I am telling you, if you knew what I meant – you’d permit them to die.”

  “They’re completely innocent!” Tarmo and Jordan then stepped up.

  “Innocence doesn’t justify the forthcoming future. I kill, yes. But there is ALWAYS A REASON! I’m not here for any of you except them!” he spoke viciously, his dark eyes fixed on us and saliva hungrily dripping from his mouth as he shouted. My heart began to thunder in my chest. “So you all might as well return to your homes and leave me my prize!”

  “You’ll have to go through us if you want them!” Mychaela spoke, joining the others in front of us. Trailian’s playful smile receded as he saw Mychaela, his eyes squinting as he examined the princess.

  “And who…might you be?” he asked, his eyes completely narrowed as he tried to figure her out.

  “None of your concern. You’re not touching them!” Trailian exhaled deeply and rested on the podium, tapping his nails against his teeth.

  “You don’t want help? Fine,” he snarled underneath his breath. He simply looked towards the distant Grinners.

  “End them,” he spoke. From afar, all the way at the back, the Grinners took off in flight. What were we to do now? Aemilia took in a long deep breath and blew at the wings of the Grinners. They were instantly clipped together and they fell with thuds. Jordan rushed to them with all the speed she could muster and let out her fury against them, swift and exceedingly fast. Mychaela quickly joined in, using her acrobatic and offensive combat skills like a deadly weapon whilst Aemilia fought alongside her.

  “Alessandro, take care of Liam,” Trailian quietly instructed. The man nodded. Tammy instantly picked up what Trailian had said.

  “Liam, look out!” Liam looked ahead of him quickly. To his amazement, two long arrows with stone spearheads had stopped inches from his chest, floating gently in front of him. “Tammy?” he asked. “It’s not me.”

  All attention was suddenly on Jade. Everybody looked at her as she stood stiff with her purple eyes staring at the arrows and her jaws clenched. Robbie looked at them. His eyes lit to their superb hazel. The two arrows suddenly started to split and replicate into at least a hundred separate ones. Robbie lengthened them and thickened the sharp arrow heads. He took a long blink. Jade knew it was her turn to cooperate.

  She turned the arrows around. We could all clearly see that she reeled them in as they tilted backwards towards the sky. Then, Jade let go of the telekinesis holding them like a slingshot.

  “Aden!” said Jojo. My eyes and hair lit to marvellous red. The arrows were set ablaze with my incoherent thoughts of igniting them. The arrows started to descend towards the Barons with speed, cutting through the air. All at once, the flames turned a dark purple and black before immediately disintegrating into soot. Trailian chuckled undertone.

  Liam and Trailian were suddenly found in a dual of thick, ricocheting static electricity and beams of vicious black-purple fire.

  Alessandro held his arrows steadily, ready to stab and kill. He suddenly struck Tarmo with his arrows first as he lunged towards him. Tarmo quickly somersaulted over him, sprang off from his shoulders and landed steadily on the ground. Mychaela, Jordan and Aemilia were still tag-teaming against the nine Demon Grinners, surprisingly being able to take them all on in a series of coordinated, fluid martial art movements. Alessandro came shooting back towards Tarmo but he merely created a ray of chakra energy, bursting out of his hands which he used to lock Alessandro’s hands and arrow.

  “Liam!” Tarmo yelled. Liam looked back at Tarmo and then back at Trailian – both wanted him. Liam shot out rays of electricity from both of his hands: towards Trailian which countered his mass attack of fire and dark energy and towards Tarmo who absorbed it and channelled it as deadly static passed into Alessandro’s system. Fernanda pounced on Jaden who roared at her with elongated, serrated animal teeth. His animal strength kicked in but he didn’t Shifftocast. After Fernanda attacked him, the pair maliciously rolled around in a ball, crashing into columns, scraping against the floor, smashing into the face of the cliff – the pair were worse than animals as they brutally fought. Jaden pulled her by her hair and she would pin him on his back before he would get back up again and crash her head through the granite cliff surface. Nothing worked against her. Margaret stood in front of Jade and grumbled. She advanced swiftly on her. My sister attempted to make a strike but Margaret had disappeared. She suddenly swiped Jade from her feet, about to grab her by the collar and drag her from the floor, when she was suddenly repelled by Jade’s telekinesis. Margaret was sent flying away in a jolt. Jade leaned backwards, managed to push herself upright again and finally flew off upwards. She rushed to Margaret and smashed her into a glowing marble column, knocking it down like a towering Jenga puzzle fortress.

  Robbie, Jojo and Tammy were a deadly machine that operated in three, taking care of Allyn in a series of swift attacks too quick for my eyes to pinpoint.

  Liam flexed his hands and electricity wrapped Fernanda in a cocoon. Suddenly, Liam’s focus on electrocuting her was broken as Ricardo tackled him wildly. He disappeared and reappeared behind Liam.

  I was the only one currently free of a raging fight. I was scared; I had to protect myself because everyone else was busy, switching enemies every other minute. After all, I was the prime target. Ricardo took Liam by the throat and flexed the muscles in his hands. I looked around and saw Liam suffocating. I shot my hands out and vines from the ground tore through the surface, entangling themselves around Ricardo, especially his neck. I clenched my fists and the vines ejected thorns. As Liam was let go and Ricardo was being choked, I lifted myself off of the ground and span speedily, mid-air, towards Liam’s attacker with a gale of air around my elastic body. On my fourth spin, I landed in front of him and performed a series of moves my body executed before my mind realised what was going on. I kicked him up in the face, my leg stretching all the way up almost vertically and then away with a strong blow to the side of his head. These must have been the reflexive changes Dorian was talking about.

  “Oh. Thanks, A.J.,” Liam said gratefully.

  “Anytime.” I suddenly looked around.

  “Where’s Trailian?” I asked, panting. Liam looked up and saw him jumping from column to column, heading towards the exit.

  “Everybody DUCK!” Liam yelled. None of us hesitated to hit the floors as he emitted a series of electric shockwaves that encircled the entire Cavern. The Barons were temporarily paralysed, the Grinners were left on the floor in spasms of electricity and Trailian was knocked out of the sky.

  “RUN TO THE DOORS! CLOSE THEM!” Liam yelled.

  “Hang on! Since Jojo can’t teleport –” My hair streaked to brown whilst my eyes shone an emerald green. I stomped a heel into the ground and shot my fists out towards the entrance. The earth instantly rose like a spring and we were sent surging upwards by the Earth. We soared through the dark sky effortlessly and landed on the lookout point with firm stances. We immediately sprinted to stand outside the Cavern doors. Alessandro regained consciousness. He stood back up, stretching his hand backwards to take his bow and an arrow. As he brought an arrow in front of him
to slide into his archaic bow, he deliberately ran a long, deep slash through his forearm. Dark, reflective, oil-black blood was smeared on the arrowhead and oozed to the floor in gleaming droplets. Suddenly, with his pinpoint accuracy, he shot the arrow through the air, cutting its way through the cave and piercing me perfectly in my right shoulder. I immediately began to feel a numbness yet shooting pain in the upper right side of my torso as I set my first foot out of the Cavern. It wasn’t an ache you’d expect from a piercing wound but it felt like a stroke. It was making my joints and body stiff. I groaned and yelled loudly in agony as I fell to my knees.

  “Quick, pull it out!” Liam yelled to Mychaela as we stood outside of the Cavern on the bone-ridden ground. Mychaela precipitously ran over to me. The others ran back to the door as Trailian got up and attempted to escape his prison. Jaden caught sight of him drawing closer. Suddenly, his face turned in all ways monstrous, like that of the Grinners’ who were venturing towards us. Jaden immediately Shifftocasted into what looked like a large yeti ridden in fur and horns. He dragged the doors closer together at a much quicker pace with tremendous strength.

  Behind Jaden, the shooting agony seemed to spread to my lower arm as I yelled in horror from the torture. Mychaela was frustrated as she tucked her hair behind her ears.

  “Aden, I’m sorry about this but –” she broke off the arrow head, grabbed a firm hold of the arrow and sturdily yanked it out. I cried out more as it came out but Mychaela was dumbstruck. The tip of the arrow had black blood on it and my white shirt was being stained by a black, ink-like substance. I ripped the shirt open and looked at my shoulder, dazed, confused and traumatised – it was my blood. It had to be. As Trailian rushed on towards us, the doors were inches away from each other. But by the time he had jumped onto the lookout cliff, they were locked together. The thin gap in between the two rocks had emitted the slightest sealing sound and soon became a faded scar. We collapsed to the ground as the pain in my arm receded to that of a casual wound and the others stayed shocked on the floor. It was done. That’s all I was thinking, it was done.