The Dark Order 1.4: I've Been Having Dreams Lately...

Begin with Chapter 1.1

Click here to jump back to Chapter 1.3

It had been a few nights since Maggie could get a glimpse of sleep. The body aches are constant and numbing; she's lethargic, but she's been way too paranoid to rest ever since that day. Since then, she's struggled from one town to the next, one city to another, and it's all the same.

They keep coming after her.

In Portertown, she sneaks her way onto a train. Its final destination is the Eastern Realm, the Valta Train Station; however, it will pass through two Northern stations first. Ramdale and Godrick Square.

The two knights are on high alert for the young witch. Inside a full car, they inspect every person moving from one car to the next. Sneaking around the train, Maggie finds and hides in a vacant private coach suite, out of view of the peeping glass.

Her journey will lead her to Godrick Square; she has family there, and maybe she'll finally get to rest for a while. She'll be safe there, but right now, she can relax, even for a train ride. She pushes herself as far back against the wall as possible and sits with her arms crossed, knees to chest. She rests her head on her arms as she closes her eyes.

Even with the roaring locomotive with its glaring grind on the tracks, she slowly drifts off, and her body begins to relax, and before long, she's sound asleep.

In one of the actual coach suites, it's the Needle and Glass Holy Knights. They're standing, peering around.

"The girl..."

"Must be found soon. She will be..."

"Very displeased, indeed. We'll..."

"Be punished severely."

Without another word, they nod at one another, and they each set off. Out of the Coach suite, continue their mission.

.

..

...

....

Maggie has since laid down, still, by the door. She has her back against it as she lays completely spread out, eventually dozing off. Just outside her door, the Glass Knight peers into the coach suites, searching for her.

The coachman comes out of the car up ahead and notices him. "Excuse me, sir!" He storms over, displeased. "Sir, you can not walk around gazing into our occupied suites. It's an invasion of privacy." The knight grunts as he goes to look into Maggie's cart. "Sir! If you look into that suite, you will be kicked off the train. Step away from the window, please." Not yelling, but he's stern.

The knight grunts before he storms off. The coachman peers into Maggie's suite before looking shockingly toward the cart the knight entered. He looks back inside, he sees Maggie's head as she lays out on the floor. He looks around to check for onlookers before the vacant sign turns to occupied and the door LOCKS.

The coachman walks off.

.

..

...

....

After her mom left to travel farther North, Maggie spent more time in her room, looking through her things and borrowing the comfortable. One day, while rummaging, she stumbled across a locked book, buried deep in her mom's closet.

She inspects it. The book is bound in an Amethyst, rainbow-reflecting scale of some sort, rough and rigged, it resembles reptilian skin. Burned into the cover center is an arcane circle. In the four corners, there are gold-plated circle slots.

She sits on her mom's bed and continues examining it.

The slots are missing pieces, which, after further inspection, are the mechanism used to unlock the book. She searches around for the pieces, but her efforts end with disappointment. After getting the room reorganized, she decides to hold onto the book.

The book sits in the corner of the room, in a rocking chair. Maggie is sound asleep. The room is pitch black, absent of noise. Suddenly, a RED SPARK lights above the book...

ANOTHER.

ANOTHER.

Then a RED ARCANE CIRCLE BURNS ITSELF INTO REALITY, PULSATING LIKE A HEARTBEAT.

There's a faint whisper in the room, but it's inaudible. Maggie started to toss and turn. THE FAINT WHISPER continues. It's calling out. This time, she hears it.

"Magnolia!..."

MAGGIE WAKES UP STARTLED AND FRIGHTENED AS SHE DISCOVERS SHE'S NO LONGER IN HER BED. SHE'S IN THE MIDDLE OF A BATTLEFIELD.

DEATH IS EVERYWHERE.

FIRES.

FIGHTING.

BETWEEN ELVES AND ORCS.

SHE'S FROZEN IN FEAR BEFORE A RED ORC, MUSCULAR AND HARD AS A BOULDER, ATTACKS HER. SHE DODGES SUCCESSFULLY, GRABS A WEAPON, AND IS ABOUT TO ATTACK BEFORE HER CHEST IS PIERCED WITH THE BLADE OF A SPEAR.

She wakes in a panic and pulls on her clothes. When she looks around, she finds herself now in a grand-scale bedroom. The walls are marble, there's a crest ENGRAVED into the wall in Gold. It's an ELDER OAK.

She hurries out of the bed, peering around. A faint light coming from an open room adjacent to the bed. She cautiously walks over, walking out onto a balcony of a magnificent castle overlooking a KINGDOM. A full moon SHINES BRIGHTLY on her. In the background, there's a world COVERED IN FORESTRY.

Screaming and crying from below, PULL HER BACK. She looks out as fires are set and the homes below are destroyed. Maggie returns to the bedroom. Hurrying to the bedroom door, she opens it slowly.

There's darkness in the hall except for randomly lit lanterns. The castle was attacked. She fights the urge to exacerbate as she steps over the carnage. Bodies of Men, Women, and Children have been butchered. There are limbs of others lying around the hallway.

She shivers in terror, nearly crippled by fear, eventually finds herself in a THRONE ROOM. It's been destroyed. She notices TWO BODIES lying in a massive pool of blood. As she approaches, she gags when she realizes that she's one of the two people there, brutally murdered.

Her corpse stares at her, its eyes penetrating. Suddenly, it blinks, and Maggie shudders. It begins speaking, it's inaudible -- RUN!

Maggie JERKS around, looking behind her. There's nothing there.

The corpse continues speaking. This time, it's as if the voice is directly next to her.

"RUN!"

As she starts running out of the throne room, something crashes past her in a wild frenzy.

She desperately runs away, turning corners at random. The LOW, HEAVY, GROWLS are behind her. She looks back. Her eyes GROW LARGE. As she races past a flaming cauldron, the shadow of what's chasing her overtakes the wall, its massive frame shouldering the cauldron; it spills out, igniting a rapidly moving fire.

At the end of the hallway is a spiraling staircase. She crashes down the steps as the rage from the beast echoes through the stairway, almost paralyzing her. Stepping off the last step, she ended up in a hallway of doors.

She tries the doors, one after another, but they're all locked. "Fuck... Fuck." She keeps trying before the growl can be heard loudly from the stairwell. There was one last door at the end of the hall, but she wouldn't make it in time.

In the corner, there's a large stack of pallets and boxes. Her only option. It's the pallets or faces her foe. Squeezing behind them to keep them from falling, she holds steady. Waiting.

There's a heavy THUD at the bottom of the stairs, followed by a bone-rattling growl, so close it forces her to silence her breathing. There's metal scratched against the stone, she can hear the sound of its snout, inhaling deeply, searching.

The voice returns, "DEATH." She's pressed back in the corner, trembling. "DEATH." She clinches her mouth. "DEATH IS COMING!"

The monster in shadow CRASHES through unseen.

Maggie RISES in a panic. She's in the train car. Her clothes are drenched in sweat, she's running a fever. She's hyperventilating, she grips herself, and pushes back into the corner, like a terrified child. She takes deep, counted breaths.

She inhales for five and exhales for four. She does this down to one, and by then, she's calmed herself. Deep, fresh air inhales as the loudspeaker sounds and a female voice shouts, "Next stop, Godrick Square Station."

She doesn't move from this spot until she reaches the station. As her suite door opens, she's not her at all, she's a blue-eyed, White woman with Jet Black hair. She moves her way into the line of exiting passengers before disappearing out of sight. The Glass Knight comes into view.

"I've been having dreams lately, where something's coming after me."

.

..

...

....To be continued.

Jump straight to the next chapter:

Chapter Five