Chapter 3

After some time spent with his mother downstairs, Carlin had ventured upstairs to relax and decompress in his bed. He threw himself on the soft cotton with a heavy sigh, melting into the furniture. The heavy ache in his heart was still ever-present but it wasn't as heavy as it had been in the moment. His mind drifted back to that voice he had heard. 

The voice spoke with deep power, years of reign and strength bleeding into every syllable uttered by that presence. When the voice spoke, he felt it in every cell of his body. It wrapped around him completely, as if a maternal being was holding a small child, consoling them from a storm.

Too exhausted with the strength it took to recall the voice, Carlin had pushed the event into the far recesses of his mind, rising on his hands and knees to crawl under the heavy weight of his comforter. He pulled the grey cover up to under his chin as a deep sigh left him. He reached out a smoky hand to flip the switch on his lamp, letting the serene silence cradle him to unconsciousness.

At first, bright white. Carlin was flying, he noted. Not flying, but being guided. Hurdled by a strong force towards a sky blue orb. The white tunnel bled in with the blue almost appearing as if the colors were reaching for each other. Carlin thought he should be scared, but he wasn't. He felt eerily calm. As if he had always done this. He tried to reach out but realized he didn't have a hand. Or an arm, for that matter. Or a body. He was energy. Pure unfiltered energy. His soul felt weary as the blue creeped closer and closer. 

"Awake."

Amber eyes shot open with a start, a cold, damp sweat coating Carlin's face. His breaths came short and fast, his lungs working overtime to grasp what the  hell  just happened. He chose that moment to sit up, breath still continuing in staccato. That voice. That command of being he had experienced earlier in the day.

He willed his breathing to settle, focusing on slowing it rather than panic. He took a deep breath in slowly through his nose for five seconds, held it for four, exhaled through his mouth for five and stopped. Before Carlin had the chance to begin the next step, ashy smoke billowed out through his mouth with a sound resembling a train stopping. His beathing returned to normal almost immediately. Another breath in, breath out, the same smoke pouring out of his mouth. The young man leaped out of his bed, the heavy comfort of his covers being forgotten and tossed aside while the being placed his feet on the floor.

Carlin crossed the room to a full-body mirror where he saw it.

Instead of his usual flaxen globes, the sclera had been absorbed by this color, no iris in sight. It was the middle of the night, but Carlin could see as if it was bright as day.

A pounding sensation shook his eyesight as he reached up to cradle his temple. Black spotted his vision. The voice came again, stronger, seeping into every fiber of the Fae's body.

"My child, don't be afraid."

The gray-toned man searched around his room for evidence that wasn't alone in this place, but he saw no evidence of anyone. He was sure somebody spoke. He turned towards his reflection in the mirror just in time to see a darker version of himself, with eyes that seemed to radiate more than his own. His reflection's mouth opened as it spoke in a voice that was not his but he recognized.

"Please don't search for me, boy. I am not in your presence. Not physically."

"Who are you?" He asked.

"I am called Goliath. I am you, but not. I am everything but nothing all at once. I am life and death itself."

Carlin shook his head. He cracked his palm against his own face. He then proceeded to pinch himself as his own darker reflection appeared to him, unmoving and unimpressed.

After the realization that he in fact was not dreaming, he stood up straighter, leveling with the mirror. 

"That is so fucking creepy."

The reflection spoke. "Now there is no need for that kind of language."

"Sorry."

"If you wish to know the truth of what is happening, go to The Place Where the Darkness Swallows the Lamb. Bring with you a person of importance, someone you would tell the darkest of secrets, the nastiest of crimes. You have until first dawn."

"Wait!" the Fae boy started. "Who are you, Goliath? How do I know I can trust you? Where is the lamb swallowing darkness thing?"

The reflection smiled. It wasn't his own smile, but one of a weary mother who was comforting a small child. "The Place Where the Darkness Swallows the Lamb is where you spent your days playing as a small boy. It's the sanctuary of your heart; your second home."

The ash-skinned boy's reflection wavered before returning to normal, his own shocked expression greeting him. The next few moments were spent in silence, the only sound and movement in the quiet space the sound of a white fan blowing cool air in the direction of the bed. Carlin considered going back to bed and sleeping for the next 20 years, but that same heavy feeling in his heart was back. It was trying to urge him forward. Now that he looked back on it, the burdened weight of his heart was strong when he was speaking to this so called 'Goliath'. Suddenly the words of the mysterious creature resurfaced in his brain.

'Bring with you a person of importance.'

"Someone I would tell the darkest of secrets to..." He pondered to himself. Carlin brought a hand up to his mouth to think ponder on who that would be. A split second later, his face lit up in excitement.

"I know exactly who to bring." He announced as he paced over to his bedroom door, grabbing a sweater and slip-on shoes on his way out. 

A determined expression crossed his features as he left the home, the being in mind only a small walk across a few blocks away.

Quietly, he slipped into the night, fresh memories of an important conversation running amuck, golden eye glowing the brightest they've been all night.