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Awakening

Nikolai&039;s heart sla his eyelids to burst open In utter panic, he grasped at his chest, willing his heart to beat that hard again just to be sure I&039;ht up with me

But what filled his vision did not ates, nor clouds, nor cherubs with trumpets in their tiny hands Instead, he found hi dripping with some unknown moisture Gray catacombs encased with dust Cobwebs circled the room What he rested on looked to be a stone slab in the center of the to, however, was that he still was breathing, feeling a dull pain at the sides of his head that flared up whenever he inhaled A concussion? This was surely io on at a slightly elevated rate He could have sworn he was dead

He sat straight up on the unfaaze in such vivid detail In unadulterated wonder, he literally began to count the toainst the nearest wall Near the farthest wall, deep in the shadows of the underground ceolden claith nails sunk deep into the dirt He could not see his reflection underneath the thick layer of dust, though he swore he could see each and every little crack in the gold leaf Were heightened senses a syht, ht he was dead so they put him in the catacombs of the Basilica No, that was stupid Only monks and priests were buried in cataco head

He closed his eyes, burying his face in his palms Where was he? What had happened? He forced his eyes open when the muddy visions of his family flashed before him His mother and father How their faces looked His little sister tre evil and considerablypool of darkness that drowned her instantly He re his own overwhel pain Had it all been a drea where he&039;d ended up He had never seen this room before in his life His eyes scanned the led to reotten here Everything went to black, and all he could recall was feeling Burning under athat seemed to last for days, weeksbefore thisfurther, sinking in a dark ocean, as if hisdeeper into the muddy waters of his past He remembered Charles University and Jindrich He ree, dark man that had appeared to him before he&039;d fled to his family&039;s country home in Kojakovice He re of hissensation that seemed literally to pull him out of his own body He recalled cold, icy water, or what felt like it, pouring down over hi that he&039;d survived And then this Awakening

His gaze flicked fro to focus on as around hi back tears What was he to do now that his entire faone? Ghosts of the sound of his sister&039;s hter reverberated in hisHe needed to focus now in order to escape fro the one responsible was not very far off His eyes instantly darted around the corners of the roo but stone and death There were vines along the floor, adorned in varying leaves They disappeared under cracks in the stone Hoas it possible for life to survive down in this dis?

Nikolai ju moved in the farthest corner of the room, then He hadn&039;t noticed it before, for it was still and elusive enough that soic, it seemed to have blended in with the shadows themselves Or had it been there at all? Perhaps it had only just appeared Was it the saue?

"Who&039;s there?" Nikolai , but he couldn&039;t fight the break in his voice It ca," the voice said sied to a person around his own age Masculine Bordering on arrogant

"Who are you?" Nikolai wanted to stand, but was afraid that his legs ive up on hiure, which was now co into better focus, thea shiver up his spine He was of an average height, and was dressed in what looked to be a black shirt with a heavy, leather breastplate So out of an older time His shoes were polished, and looked to be elled neatly back off his face Like a prince out of one of his sister&039;s fairy tales Nikolai squinted to see the s, almost unnatural blue Well, one was The other one looked pretty norreen, which eird He&039;d never seen anyone with two different color eyes before But fro was as peculiar as the black scarf that remained wrapped around the botto at a leisurely gait toward the center of the chaic had finally coht This was it His whole life led up to this h he couldn&039;t tell now if his destiny was to live or die

"So, hoas it?" The boy&039;s tone remained casual from behind the scarf

Nikolai winced at hi to his family&039;s death? So it wasn&039;t a dream? "Hohat?" he asked defensively If this weirdo wanted a fight, heprobably wasn&039;t going to give him one In all honesty, Nikolai was scared as hell

The boy stopped, the corners of his eyes crinkling, so that Nikolai could tell there was a s, of course" The boy clasped his hands behind his back and stood thoughtfully for a briefit toward Nikolai, his claws digging deep trails into the layers of dirt as he did so The glass underneath was revealed The shrillness of his lethal-looking nails on the glass made the hair on Nikolai&039;s arasped at his own appearance, finally ju to his feet fro back at hinize the boy at all Heat his own reflection Sing the dry lump in his throat, he analyzed the appearance of the solass His hair was the sah It was sih exponentiallyEven to hi that He couldn&039;t break his gaze from his own eyes Sure, they used be blue But never this blue It almost see He blinked a few tinificence wouldn&039;t disappear But his tan What the hell happened to that? That had definitely vanished, leaving the palest complexion he&039;d had ever seen He almost lookeddead

Nikolai immediately turned to the other boy in the roo hter

"What did you do to me? What did you do to my family?" He shook, unable to control the tears that poured sha froe of his sister frohtened himself, his feet shoulder-width apart He wasn&039;t very tall, but his presence was powerful enough to knock over a building He took a few steps toward Nikolai "I saved you I er" There was another crinkle at the corner of his eyes "And considerably better looking"

Nikolai looked at his own reflection again and decided the strange boy had been right about that, at least He looked stronger, more toned His lips looked fuller, his facial features more chiseled But all of that wasn&039;t important "What happened to ainst one of the stone pillars, flipping soers It wasn&039;t a coin What was it? "Long gone, ically Murdered"

"Who did it?" So in the back of Nikolai&039;s mind told him the answer The memory was more hazy and distant by the second, but it was still there He could still hear the screams Relive the pain

The boy stepped closer to him still, until he was only inches away from his face "You knoho did it, Nikolai You remember" His voice trailed off as he relinquished a breath, as harsh and as freezing as the winter wind at ht

"You?" Nikolai sniffed The boy&039;s face was a blur behind the salty tears

"No I am your friend, Nikolai I saved you froather another thought, he sucked the boy&039;s icy breath into his ownHe turned back to the glass and the room completely disappeared beneath him, almost sed up by the reflection It was i to his life Only a feeeks ago he was an average college student Now, he didn&039;t knohat he was at all

He gasped upon seeing where the vision took hi back in his own hoht as he walked down the darkened hallway He listened for life, but the house was silent Maybe he was having a delusion Maybe he ate a bad mushroom that took him on a trip, and noas safely back in his own house at night With that thought, he instantly started feeling better For a , h he had never had a problem with it before That must have been it, he told hihtmare The shadow boy, the catacoination He would go into his bedroo Sah of relief

The front door abruptly burst open, the thing wailing against its hinges as it smashed violently into the wall

Nikolai shielded his face from the harsh wind