Madness in the Darkness

In the fear of the moment, Beech climber on my shoulder while I just walked towards the light of our key. Unaware of where I was standing, I took every and each step more carefully than the previous one... But I was so slow that the light of the key soon looked like it was kilometers away, shining like a little star amidst the great darkness.

It was very strange, even the darkest nights I could see my body, but here in this room, I couldn't... All I had was the sensation of the darkness and the wind over my skin, as well as the solid ground beneath my feet. We judge people for being afraid of the dark, but this was on another level of darkness... It's a darkness in which you will want to have a friend by your side, to protect you from anything that hides in the dark... But when I needed it the most, he disappeared from my shoulder, I couldn't feel his weight on me anymore.

"Beech? Beech?! Where are you? It's too dark for me to see!", I shouted while desperately looking around for him... It was futile, the darkness was too much for me to see anything at all, the fox was long lost on it. What truly was strange was the fact no answers came back to me.

For a moment, I tried to search for it, going back to the doorway we came from... But the doorway was nowhere to be seen... I had no reference points, I had no voices, I had nothing to hold onto... I was lost in the darkness.

In the desperation of the moment, I became aware of every single breath that came in and out of my body, I could hear every heartbeat beating faster and faster, and the light of the key was lost from my sight... That's when someone suddenly touched my shoulder.

"Sister... Wherever you are, I will always support you", a voice said. It... It was nostalgic, it was my brother's kind voice...

"You... How did you know I was here? How did you get here?", I asked while looking at him. For more strange than it seemed, I could look at him in the darkness.

"It doesn't matter... Let's go home... Let me take care of you... Let us take care of you... It's too dangerous here", he said and then my father and mother appeared beside him... And the doorway behind them. It was the exit from here.

"But... I need to-"

"What's more important than your family, Dagger? We're here for you", my father said. That... That was not his words, I was sure of that... He would never say that after what I did to us... To our family...

"I reached too far... I reached too far to go back now. You said you will always support me, right, brother? Then you will understand what I am doing... Even if you disagreed when I came searching for you", I said and turned around to search for the light of the key.

"Dagger... Dagger... I always said I will always support you... But... This is out of reach. This is impossible. What you seek... It doesn't exist...", my mother said. I huffed a little and sped up to escape them.

"Of course it exists... The feeling, my love for her... It's real", I answered them, but they insisted on arguing against me.

"How can you be so sure... After so many years? Your love might be real. But who said she wants to see you again? Weren't her soldiers there? Her soldiers were marching, burning a city down just to arrest you..."

"What? It wasn't her... It wasn't! It was troops of her father. They were following his orders, not hers", I said. It was strange, I should be far away from my parents and brother now, but the voices were still following me, side by side... As if they were all in my head...

"Not so sure about that, aren't you? You're too immature to see the truth... Even if your stupid love still exists, it's now one-sided. She has grown up, she knows that this love she felt once is wrong. And so you will learn too, eventually..."

"There's nothing wrong with that... Love doesn't know rules, for each person it's unique. You can't call it stupid and so she knows that as well... It would take more than the common 'knowledge' to overcome her stubbornness and maturity"

"Two years. Two years, Dagger. Who knows what she has been through? Who knows what could have happened to have won over her stubbornness?"

"Stop. I... I won't hear your nonsense any longer..."

"Nonsense? Or perhaps a reasonable doubt?"

"I said for you to stop!", I shouted to them once looking all around... And there were many other people there, looking at me directly into the eyes.

"You're weak to not accept the truth that's in front of your eyes, Dagger"

"What we should expect? It's a woman we're speaking about, of course, she's weak!"

"Dagger, what a worthless warrior... Barely knows how to fight"

"What knightess? She's a motive of shame for Coventry, can't even be called as knightess..."

"Please...", I begged while I heard their complaints about me. "Please, just stop"

"We don't need to stop. The truth must be told for those who can't see. You were not even capable of defending Jeffrey... How can you possibly defend the princess you say you love so much?"

"I-", I tried to say something, but stopped myself... A line from before echoed in my mind for a second after I heard the truth about Jeffrey...

"Nonsense? Or reasonable doubt?"

The voices stopped... They faded away as if they were a conversation happening kilometers and kilometers away from me... Yet, I could still hear every word they were saying... As if there were people whispering behind my back. This... This was different from the many whispers I had ever heard about me. It's... Unnerving... Unsettling... It makes me crazy...

"Why they can't shut up?" I asked myself a few times... Until a voice came to me again. Unlike those of before, it truly seemed to come from within me... But at the same time, was a dark figure in my front, moving its lips while saying:

"There's only one person who can make them shut up if they are not going to shut up themselves...". Its hands then moved to the handle of my sword... And brought it to my hands... I stared to the blade, shining perfectly in the dark. This was a nightmare. A nightmare inside my head, I was sure of that... Silence them here will not kill them in real life and will destroy the monsters within me...

That's what I thought... That's what I expected to happen... But when I came with the sword cutting through them... The last thing that I ever wanted to happen, happened right in front of my eyes by my own hands...