Series: Charmaine Pauls
Total pages in book: 74
Estimated words: 70056 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 350(@200wpm)___ 280(@250wpm)___ 234(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 70056 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 350(@200wpm)___ 280(@250wpm)___ 234(@300wpm)
With that, the three of them are gone, and the stone wall materializes back in place.
I rush to it and knock a fist on it to test if any part of the wall is hollow.
No luck.
I move in a circle around the room, but the walls are solid. I even press on a few stones, hoping to find a secret button that unlocks a concealed passageway, like in one of those spooky Gothic movies.
Nope.
Whatever technique Aruan uses to disintegrate the wall, he’s not doing it with hidden mechanisms. He must be managing it with his mind, which is insane and terrifying.
Fuck.
I’m trapped in here.
Seeing that I’ve spent half my life in the narrow tunnel of an MRI machine, I’m not exactly claustrophobic, but a sense of suffocation descends on me as I spin around my cavernous prison.
No sooner does the sensation hit me than an archway opens miraculously on the other side of the room.
I dash across the floor, almost tripping over the sheet in my haste. Contrary to what I fear, the archway doesn’t close when I reach it. It opens up into a spacious, rectangular cavern framed by ornate pillars. A polished, squarish stone that serves as a table and two circular, hollow stones with silver padding, which I imagine to be chairs, stand on one end. A few more of those “chairs” are scattered around, some placed next to smaller stone tables. On the other side, two carved statues of reclining men with weird bird heads and padded stomachs form daybeds. They face a huge, arched window that reaches all the way to the floor. It’s one of those that you can step through, like French doors.
I rush over and peer out.
A gasp catches in my throat.
The drop is so sheer that it gives me vertigo. I inch back a step, stretching my neck for a better view.
Below, a slate-blue cliff plummets for miles before plunging into the black water of a foaming sea.
Damn.
Just my luck.
Scratch jumping out of the window.
The view is inarguably impressive, though. Curious, I test the latch on the window. To my surprise, it lifts. The window opens onto a narrow ledge with a rail carved from smooth, pinkish stone. A dinosaur sculpted from that same stone winds around the rail and between the balusters, creating an intricate trellis of claws and wings that acts as a safety barrier. Small children or pets wouldn’t be able to slip through the bars.
I step out onto the ledge cautiously, gripping the rail with both hands.
A warm wind ruffles my hair. Smells of moss and forest undergrowth reach my nostrils, again reminding me of that trip to Costa Rica. But this time, it also stirs memories of the camping outing Mom and Dad organized to cheer me up after a particularly long spell of chemotherapy. In the end, what should’ve been an adventure turned into a vacation from hell. I puked my guts out the entire time. It didn’t help that I woke up on the first morning with my face, arms, and legs covered in itchy insect bites, only to develop an allergic reaction to the repellent my well-meaning mom drenched me with.
I inhale the freshness of the air, appreciating it like I wish I could’ve on my one and only adventure that involved roasting marshmallows—which I was too sick to eat. Immediately, I start to feel better. It’s like being hooked up to an oxygen tank. My lungs expand with the sweet air, infusing me with an unfamiliar vitality.
Wow, this is great.
For the first time in my recollection, I have so much energy that I feel capable of running a marathon.
I lean over the rail a little so I can survey the surroundings on the sides of the balcony.
Wow! I’m in a cave of sorts. Several more caves with narrow-ledged balconies are stacked like rooms in the rockface. They stretch to both ends of the cliff, forming an impressive collection of different-sized caverns. A waterfall that tumbles from the top of the cliff covers the biggest cavern that gapes in the center of the mountain, which is below me to my left.
A bridge runs from the waterfall to a cliff on the other side. A platform ringed with ropes acting as rails is suspended in the center. Steps carved into the cliff lead down to the sea. They blend in so perfectly with the rocky cliff that it’s easy to miss them.
Where the cliff ends, ferns in vibrant greens grow along the water’s edge. Trumpet-shaped red and purple flowers stick out from clusters of grass that cover the ground.
I lift my face, enjoying the warm wind on my cheeks. Shading my face with a hand against my forehead, I squint at the brightness of the pale blue heavens sprinkled with puffs of snowy clouds.
A black dot appears in the distance. I fix my gaze on the point that slowly grows bigger.