Shadows That Haunt

"How do you believe in someone?"

Believe it or not, I have never been able to put my trust in anyone my whole life. I simply couldn't confide, no matter how hard I tried. Something in me just made me think no one cared enough to be told anything. I've always thought that people were hiding their true faces. All those people, so terrifyingly capable, they all seemed to be putting on faces, sometimes they weren't aware themselves. But I can almost always see the extraneous layer on people. Its tough but also very thin and transparent. I can almost always see through people.

Almost.

I wouldn't have used that word three months ago, before I met Lady.

****************

Felix and I stood frozen faced by a three headed wolf that growled and drooled, blocking our way forward. It wouldn't have been a big deal if it wasn't emitting that dark aura that covered the ground like mist and danced like a flame all around us.

"Cerberus", Felix muttered, "Another favorite".

He seemed rather displeased seeing another beast. I figured he must have had enough with Nosferatu.

"I'll deal with this one", I stepped in because well...why not?

"Quite the contrary. We can't waste anymore of our time, Seraph", he pushed me back by my shoulder and unsheathed his silver sword. He then chanted something under his breath that imbued some sort of magical energy in his sword. He then moved with the speed of light, approaching the Cerberus, dodging all six of his eyes and severing his head clean.

He sure wasn't pulling any of his punches but just as soon as he'd separated the head, the Cerberus evaporated into a black cloud and faded away through the crevices of the palace walls.

Felix frowned, "Shadows, of course".

"Felix...?"

Soon some dozen Cerberus were peaking through the windows of the hallway. I turned around to find the same situation. We were surrounded. Before I could analyze the whole situation, one of them sprung at me and almost lopped my head off. I managed to get out of his way and was saved with just a bleeding cheek.

"Seraph", I turned to Felix who grabbed my arm, pulling me up, "We're running for it".

I did like the sound of that and without thinking anymore, got up and the two of us headed off. The infinite hoard of wolf heads chased us all through the endless hallway. We kept hopping like rabbits all the way with those scary, yet dumb wolf heads on our tail.

I was soon out of breath but Felix let me relax and dragged me into the air with him. I was just flailing behind as Felix took care of getting us to a safe place. In fact, we never found a refuge from those hunters and Felix decided to stop running at some point. It was quite obvious we couldn't outrun them. He was rather annoyed and was cursing all sorts of spells. Finally when we stopped, he summoned a huge brick wall that separated us from those beasts.

"Ah, good work, Felix", I decided it might lift his mood.

I suppose it did, he smiled at me like always and was back to being the normal Felix for a while as we walked on. Those beasts weren't following us anymore.

"I guess that did the trick, huh?"

"Hmm, I imbued a shadow repelling magic in all the surrounding walls as well so they can't get close to us anytime soon anyway", he replied.

"Yeah but we're still walking, aren't we?", I figured we were supposed to find a way out but the maze continued.

We kept walking and looking around in that all too similar hallway. We exchanged a few words here and there but otherwise continued on. The wolves eluded us and at least I was pretty confident we won't be seeing them anytime soon.

"I remember the first time I killed a wolf", Felix reminisced and smiled, "I was 11. It appeared in one of our fields when I was playing there. I didn't want to kill it per se...but I guess I had no choice back then. I mean, I'm sure I didn't want to die either. I can only recall it's crushed body at my feet, I can't remember how I managed to put it down, but I did. In the end, I did survive. That was...fascinating".

I listened to him speak silently and without a single hint of any expression on my face. I kept walking with him and when he was done with his story, we stood in front of a doorway.

We were just standing in front of it, preparing to open it when we heard a quaking sound from the walls. The shadows were back. I felt almost sleepy at this point and even the sound didn't scare me.

"Seraph", Felix looked at me as he hurriedly opened the door which led to some abyss downstairs.

I emptily stared at the stairs that disappeared into darkness as Felix stood waiting.

The Cerberus were beginning to crumble the wall behind us and any minute now, we'd be food for them.

"Seraph!", Felix brought me out from something of a dream state.

I looked at him and then at the stairs and proceeded towards them. He followed behind me and shut the door close on all those shadows.