38. Chapter 37
38
Chapter 37
Julen
Julen plunged into a black river. He kicked his legs and breached the surface, gasping for air now that the river didn’t consume him. He wiped his eyes and looked around. His gaze landed on a waterfall in which slow globules of the black substance fell. A waterfall? The glen! The rock formations and waterfall of the glen in Cupidor were before him, but they were black - a nightmare version of the place where he had fallen in love.
Julen swam to the fall. Instinct told him to go toward the rock shelter. As he swam, he looked up at the vast nothingness he had fallen from. Bolts of magenta and lavender lightning slashed across the sky. It was beautiful. Eerie but still magnificent to look at. He didn’t feel the same kind of despair that he felt in the dungeon with the creatures. This felt different. He felt closer to something benevolent.
Julen swam to the fall, dived beneath, and emerged in the black alcove. Again, it was just like the rock shelter in Cupidor but completely black.
The black stone of the alcove glistened with a marvelous purple sheen. Why is this beautiful? Aren’t I in some kind of nightmare version of Cupidor? Everything was a replica of the alcove in Cupidor except for an opening at the far end of the rock shelter. It looked like a tunnel. He inched closer and entered .
A sharp howl ripped through, piercing Julen’s ears. It sounded like a woman screaming. He looked ahead and saw a bit of light—an exit. The soprano scream shuddered down his spine, but Julen continued down the path and finally reached the other side of the tunnel. It opened up to a pit filled with the same kind of sludge that surrounded the dungeon he was in with the creatures. Lightning ripped through the space, and the ground shook beneath him.
Julen looked down and realized something was trying to break through the swamp’s surface. Its high-pitched howl filled his heart with sadness. It thrashed in the slime, its limbs reaching for the surface, but a thick film trapped it. The panic-stricken howl sharpened and bled from one cry to the next, becoming a long, cacophonous scream.
The screaming sounded so human. Julen’s heart hurt watching this pathetic thing struggle before him.
Julen kneeled and thrashed at the ooze, desperately trying to break in and grip whatever twisted beneath the surface. The walls and floor of the dungeon had been impossible to break through, but he had to try. He chopped at the ooze in a frenzy, growling and gritting his teeth as he clawed at the slime with his fingernails, trying to rip open a passage.
His grunting morphed into a shout of desperation; whatever was in there, Julen had to help it. Julen clawed at the slime. His finger broke through! YES! He clenched his fists about the thick film and pulled with all his strength. Two chunks ripped away, sending Julen sailing backward.
What looked like a hand poked through one of the holes Julen had created and disappeared again. Julen ran back, fearing the rips would close again. He gripped the edges of the two openings and pulled again, his only thought being to free whatever was inside. He could hear a tearing sound as he pulled desperately. Soon, the pulling of the two holes formed one large opening.
Julen plunged his arms deeper into the inky slime. His hand gripped a limb, and he tugged. He had successfully pulled out its little arm when the sludge began sucking the tiny creature back in, and a tug of war started between the ooze and Julen. He was relentless; his arms and back ached. He feared the thing inside would rip in two, but he wouldn’t let go. He steadied his stance on the rocks, gripped hard, and finally freed the little being. Julen cradled it in his arms. The sludge covered it completely, and Julen frantically wiped it off what he assumed was a head. Julen froze when he saw its face. It was a child. It was him…
Julen blinked, and suddenly, he was inside his childhood bedroom. Before the coup, before the castle, before the killings and the imprisonment of so many. He looked at the walls, the familiar color of pale blue, the windows adorned with long navy-colored tapestries. The bureau that held his clothing, the image of Vexora carved into the right door with the sun and moon on the left. The glowing stone on the bedside table was the only thing that wasn’t a perfect match. Typically an ochre shade, it now emitted shades of purple and magenta, matching the color of the lightning.
A faint cry startled Julen out of his wonder. He crept to the foot of the bed and saw himself as a child. He was weeping over tattered pieces of paper, his little hands clutching them, carefully trying to put the pieces back together.
Julen recognized the paper. It was a set of paper dolls, Lapistrean Ladies in Waiting, that Souzie had secretly gifted him for his seventh birthday. He had tucked them under his bed and would play with them after his parents slept. One night, his mother interrupted him. She turned and left the room, and moments later, his father barged in, ripped the dolls to pieces, and beat Julen.
It was the first time that Julen was revealed for who he was, and that awful moment stayed vivid in his mind. After that, Julen constructed a wall, shielding his truth, that would slowly fortify throughout his youth.
Julen knelt by the little boy who wept on the floor. He caressed the boy’s back. His younger self turned to face Julen, exposing the bruises still darkening on his face and body. Julen closed his eyes upon seeing them, hoping to stop his tears. He opened them to see glistening bright green eyes looking up at him.
“They’re gone. They’re all gone.” The boy turned back to the scraps of paper before him. “I loved them.”
Julen could feel the dampness of his cheeks. “I know you did. I’m so sorry.”
“I can never have them again.” The little boy clutched the pieces of paper.
Julen took the boy’s hands and held them. “These are gone, but there will be other special things that you can cherish. In time.”
Julen wanted to tell the boy Souzie would be the best friend anyone could ever ask for. Dacias would come into his life and show him that love does exist. He wanted to say it all, but his heart was breaking, and he couldn’t get the words through the emotion clogging his throat.
The boy shook his head. “He’ll hurt me if I do.”
Julen looked at the boy’s face, swollen by the hands of that monster. How could his father hurt a boy so small? So scared? So desperate for approval?
Julen wasn’t like his father. Not in the slightest. To hurt a child like this, to see the wounded tears, and to continue with the abuse. That was a monster Julen could never become. Never. Even when he lost all control and let out every bit of rage he ever felt in one moment, he could never do what his father had done to him.
The boy’s head fell, and he whispered, “I wish I weren’t like this.”
The words were like a knife to Julen’s heart. No. He wouldn’t let this boy believe that—not today, not tomorrow, not ever.
“Look at me. You are perfect. There is nothing wrong with you. Nothing .”
Julen meant it. He believed it. He didn’t know if he’d ever leave this place, but if the boy could see him, maybe others could, too. Perhaps Julen existed now in this realm to be the parent his childhood self never had. And he would be. “I won’t let him hurt you. Never again. I’ll protect you.”
The boy looked at Julen. “Promise?”
“I promise.”
The boy smiled. Julen picked up the pieces of paper and said, “I think we could salvage some of these, don’t you?”
The boy nodded with excitement. His tears subsided, and a great big smile stretched across his face.
Julen continued, “Let’s find the paste. If we glue the pieces to vellum, we could cut around them, and the ladies will be good as new.”
The boy jumped and ran to the little desk beneath his window. He reached for the paste and then froze when a pounding on the door began.
The boy dropped the paste, the bottle shattering on the floor. He crouched at the foot of his bed and whimpered.
“Don’t worry. Nothing will happen. I’m staying,” Julen reassured the boy.
The pounding continued, growing louder, and the door began to splinter. It cracked in half, and a snarl sounded from the other side.
Julen steadied himself. He had to be strong for the boy. He needed to protect him.
The door broke to pieces, and what entered was a monster so grotesque that Julen nearly buckled at the knees. It was the monster version of himself from the crystal. The monster that Julen’s reflection morphed into. The beast had a long, sinewy body with slimy, ghostly pale skin, glowing green eyes, and black tendrils curling about its harsh features.
He sneered and spoke to Julen with a low, bone-chilling voice, “Brrrroooooooken.”
Julen coughed, then steadied his voice. “No .”
The beast growled. It looked at the boy and let out a scream that shook the room. The boy cried and cowered under his bed.
“I won’t let you hurt him! You’ll have to come through me first.” Julen began to step closer to the beast.
The monster bellowed again. “Brrrroooken.”
Julen shook his head. “NO! If you come closer, I’ll kill you. I swear.”
Could Julen use his power? He couldn’t manifest in the dungeon, but nothing made sense anymore. He stretched his arms to the side and felt the winds swirl about his hands.
The beast growled again, its fangs stained black with sludge. It hunched forward and glowered at Julen, then charged.
Julen held steady. His heart pounded, and he felt the cold air of his power circle him. He curled his fingers, and the power surged through his muscles. The monster leaped to pounce on Julen, who whipped his arms forward and shot the beast with a gust of wind so strong that it blew a hole through it. The monster fell to the ground, and its body slowly dissolved into sludge and seeped through the floorboards.
Julen turned to the boy, who cried as he looked at him. The boy smiled, his tears began to sparkle, and he slowly dissolved into a mist of glowing purple. Julen reached for the boy, but he disappeared, and the purple particles surrounded him. He could feel them entering his pores, hair, and fingernails.
The veins in his arms began to shimmer with accents of lavender. Julen became aware of the blood flowing throughout his body in a way he never had. There was a power that traveled through his bloodstream and filled his being. He closed his eyes and let the power overcome him. His senses felt heightened. There was movement around him like the world moved, but Julen’s body stayed still.
When he opened his eyes, Dacias hung before him, gasping for air.