16 : The Room Hidden Away

Drakon walked along the corridors like a ghost. He was lost; he needed a distraction. He needed something to drive his thoughts away from the king's death and his own recent kingship. He slipped fast a door and continued walking. Somehow, he ended up in the training room.

It was empty. With the whole castle in frenzy, even the regulars and trainers were absent. Drakon unsheathed Glassthorn and started attacking the dummies as hard as he could. Somewhere overhead, thunder struck, but he tried to forget everything else and for once, focus on the activity at hand. The torture prevailed. Gashes covered the first, it's hard skin rugged. He hit as hard as he could, putting all his mind and energy to dismantle it. His body was sore from all the work, and it still was not worth it.

Drakon moved on to another. Then another. Then another. When he was done with them, he wasn't actually done yet. His body ached, and his mind raged. He couldn't calm himself down. He couldn't curb the growing fire that threatened to burn him alive.

Drakon growled in frustration. He had to let out the pent up thoughts and feelings. Anything to save him from his own mind. He threw away Glassthorn, and hit the wall with his clenched fist. One hit. Two hits.

Suddenly he fell back. There were cracks on the wall, starting from where he'd hit, and emerging in all directions. Drakon decided to abstain from torturing it anymore. Even the fucking wall was so fragile... Disgust whirled up within him. Picking up his sword - Glassthorn - he left the training room, shutting the door behind him with a bang.

Thankfully, he didn't meet anyone in the corridors, or else he was pretty sure that there would have been a murder. His sadness was more of the venomous sort and he couldn't control himself when it took over. He was pissed off, and killing someone made him feel better, that at least he had a life when a person just lost it.

In a dark and unadventured corner of the castle, Drakon walked. He would stay there until he was ready to face them again. He opened a random room and slipped in, hoping to find a nice, little bed. His hopes fell. It was a fucking library!

However, what shook him was the floor. It had symbols – weird, intricate ones – drawn within a circle. It wasn't on a carpet, but on bare floor. Drakon knelt down, touching one of the marks. They were drawn with chalk. He could easily rub one of them off. On his finger, lay milk-white chalk dust. No other particulate matter. That could only mean one thing. Someone had drawn those recently. And yet, that part of the castle was supposed to be empty. The symbols didn't look, didn't feel like they were mere decorative patterns, but as if they held some deeper meaning. Perturbed, he stepped out of the circle of symbols and studied the books in the library.

None out of the ordinary.

Drakon shook off the troubled feelings. More like, he tried to shake them off. Damn, why was everything so confusing? Why was everything so hard to understand? He again hit the wall against which he was leaning.

Crack.

He stepped back. Everything was going crazy! Everything! The world was full of crazy, stupid, fragile, weak things and he was stuck amidst them. He wanted to escape from everything – from the crown, from his death, from this place, from this whole wide world, from himself – but he couldn't!

Just like that day, he ran away from the castle.

Just like that day, he ended up at the lake, screaming for someone to allow him to go far away and never come back.

Just like that day, but so unlike that day, he saw her again.

He didn't speak to her. Just stared, analyzing. Trying to see, trying to feel. Who was she? Was she, with her wide eyes and worried face, his enemy or his friend? Drakon wanted her to be his enemy, so he could despise one more person. But he wanted her to be his friend, to speak to him, calm him down, and reduce the confusion in his heart and mind.

But she couldn't help him! It was beyond her capability!

He felt like tearing himself apart; if only it would save him from enduring things anymore. Because ... he couldn't stop blaming himself. As if...it was because of him that the king had died!

That night was the hardest. The demons that he had locked inside of him had unleashed themselves and he didn't know when they would stop torturing him like they did.