Chapter 10
Conway, Arkansas
March 10, 2017
Brooklyn’s eyelids opened slowly, weighted down by sleep. The room around her was dark, but it was cold and wet. Brooklyn lifted her arms to rub the drowsiness from her eyes, but her hands were bound. She realized they were being held together by a thick, heavy rope.
The girl with tied hands tried to figure out where she was by studying her surroundings, but it was too dark to tell anything except how cold and wet it was.
Brooklyn attempted to pull herself forward with her legs. She didn’t get far, but she did find out something else about the place. There was a giant pit right in front of her. She tried moving back so she could lean against the wall, but all she found was another chasm. She tried leaning to either side before figuring out she was sitting on an isolated spot in the middle of a pit.
There may have been more ground in what Brooklyn was now realizing was probably a cave. What Brooklyn did know was that she was sitting on a relatively small chunk of rock that was most likely high up.
Brooklyn decided to check how high up she was by kicking a big rock off the platform she was on. She didn’t know if she would hear it hit the ground, but she did know it always worked in the movies. Brooklyn found a big enough rock and shoved it with her feet and hoped she wouldn’t fall backward into the chasm.
She waited and waited, she counted the seconds until she finally heard a small thud echo through the pit. Sixty seconds, that’s how long it had taken, meaning the drop was over a hundred feet, though Brooklyn wasn’t entirely sure. Knowing that she was over a hundred feet in the air made Brooklyn shake with fear.
She was terrified of heights. Brooklyn began breathing heavily. She tried thinking of only good things, but all she could think of was unicorns, and Brooklyn had an irrational fear of the supernatural horse-like creatures. Brooklyn was shaking from the cold and the fear. She needed to out of here. A low growl came out of the pit. Brooklyn let out a cry. She was close to tears, but she didn’t want whatever had brought her here to remember her.
‘Just don’t look down.’ A voice in Brooklyn’s head said. The sound of that voice instantly calmed Brooklyn, but she wasn’t sure whose voice it was. It sounded like Finn’s voice, but not quite. It was comforting and helped Brooklyn calm down and relax.
Brooklyn listened to what the voice had said. She began taking deep breaths and stared straight ahead of her. The young girl started to stand, her legs shaking.
As soon as Brooklyn was standing completely, she heard a loud crack from across the cavern. Brooklyn stumbled in surprise and nearly fell off the platform-like rock she was standing on. She heard groaning that sounded like it was coming from a human. Brooklyn heard another crack coming from the same place, a person gasping in pain, and a loud thud and another groan.
“Brooklyn!” Someone yelled. “Are you here?”
It was Atifa. “I’m here,” Brooklyn replied when she realized who it was.
“Are you okay,” another person yelled. Brooklyn didn’t know who he was.
“Who are you?” Brooklyn asked loudly from the other side of the pit.
“A friend,” he yelled back. “The name’s Laz.”
There was another person, Brooklyn could make out a human-shaped lump under Atifa. Brooklyn was about to ask who else was with the two Guardians, but a loud growl came out of the pit. It seemed to be getting closer and closer. Brooklyn screamed at the two older beings to hurry up. Brooklyn curled into a ball in the middle of the rock, making herself as small as possible so she wouldn’t fall off the rock and into the giant pit. Brooklyn’s ear was pressed against the rock, and she was shaking uncontrollably. She was so cold and the voices. There were voices everywhere.
They were saying things, things Brooklyn felt like she should remember, but she couldn’t recall any of them. The voices felt so familiar. Her head was pounding. She put her hands on her ears and tried to shut out the voices, but they only got louder. Brooklyn began squirming instead of shaking.
Atifa stared at Brooklyn’s small form in the middle of the cave. She could tell Brooklyn was terrified from the way Brooklyn was kicking at the ground and cradling her head in her hands. The Empathy Guardian looked at the man standing beside her and asked, “How the Hell are we going to get her over here?”
“I don’t know!” Laz yelled. “I can’t fly, can I?”
“Well, I can’t either!” Atifa rolled her eyes at Laz. “We have to get her out, she’s terrified. Can’t you tell?”
“She’s not scared.”
“What? Look at her, she’s terrified. Brooklyn’s scared of heights.” Atifa turned her head to look at Laz. There was ice in his eyes, ice, and fear. “What’s wrong?”
“When we came here, this place, it seemed so familiar. I realize now that we’re standing in the Cavern of Despair. You can hear the voices of those you’ve killed with evil intentions,” Laz explained. Atifa turned pale and looked at Brooklyn closely. What was she hearing that made her so scared. Brooklyn hadn’t killed anyone, yet.
“I don’t understand it, but she must be hearing something,” Laz said, shaking his head in confusion. “She’s lived a mundane life, but she hears the voices. You and I can’t hear them because we thankfully aren’t in the middle of the pit, where the spirits are trapped. What would want to keep Brooklyn here? I didn’t think anything but the vengeful spirits of those killed in bad blood was here.”
“We can figure that out later, right now we need to figure out how the hell we’re going to get Brooklyn over here,” Atifa scolded.
“Right.”
If only she had an escape. If she could roll over and stop hearing those voices. Brooklyn was tempted to pull herself to the edge of the rock. She wouldn’t hear the sounds of the tortured dead anymore. Brooklyn grabbed the side of the platform and began pulling herself towards the edge. It would be so simple to fall off. Such a simple escape from the voices.
Her chest was off the rock, then her torso was off, and the only thing that was keeping her on the ore was her toes.
“Brooklyn!” Someone screamed. Another one of the voices. “Don’t do it. They’re just voices, they’ll stop as soon as we figure out how to get you back.” The person continued.
Brooklyn didn’t hear that though. Instead, she heard encouragement to throw herself off the rock that might as well have been a cliff. She heard the voice say, “Please, go. No one else needs to be killed by your worthless self.”
Then, Brooklyn was falling, but something grabbed her right ankle, and she was being pulled back up to the top of the cliff. When Brooklyn was all the up, she was facing a giant, monstrous dog.
Brooklyn’s eyes went wide with fear as the dog stood with its four, black paws surrounded her. Two on either side of her head and two beside each of her legs. Its enormous tail slapped the rock repeatedly. It was growling ferociously but stopped the moment Brooklyn began to scramble back to the sanctuary the pit would give her from the voices, instead it began to howl.
The voices stopped as soon as the dog finished its long scream. Brooklyn stopped moving and stared at the mutt. It leaned its head down, so its massive maw was right next to her ear.
“Remember who your friends are, girl,” it said. “The only reason you are here is that you needed a reminder of who your friends are.”
“What?”
“Remember, the king loves you. I will return you to the Guardians. Your wound is healed, and I have changed the others’ memories. You are the only one that will remember this. Goodbye, Queen,” the dog finished, ignoring Brooklyn’s question entirely.
Brooklyn found herself sitting in a booth in a restaurant. A plate of Caesar salad was sitting in front of her. Atifa and Laz were across from her, and another girl sat beside her. Brooklyn was confused for a minute, but then what the dog said came back to her. She was the only one that remembered their experience in the cave.
Atifa and Laz were stuffing their faces with bread, and the girl sitting next to her was sitting quietly and taking small sips of her water.
“Who’s she?” Brooklyn asked pointing to the girl next to her. Atifa gave Brooklyn a strange look.
“You mean Lyvlen, Laz’s daughter,” Atifa said, raising her eyebrow. “Are you okay?”
“Yeah, I’m fine,” Brooklyn replied. She shoved a piece of lettuce in her mouth and smiled at Atifa while Lyvlen watched the young human girl closely.
Lyvlen wasn’t sure about Brooklyn, there was something off about her.
