Young Writers Society

He hesitantly took a step towards the castle's foreboding doors. "Do you two want me to knock...?" Like before, neither objected. He took a deep breath and knocked. There was a long, drawn out silence during which no one dared to speak. They all waited for the castle's occupants, if there was any, to arrive.

The doors were opened by a knight. Something about his eyes - which were golden and peered out from the darkness inside his helmet - made shivers race up and down Ryan's spine as they focused on him. "Welcome to the Castle of Blood," the boy quietly said. His voice was surprisingly young, and Ryan guessed that the knight was younger than him only by a year or two. "I'll take you to the throne room so you can meet with the king and tell him why you're here."

They began to follow him down a maze of hallways.

He should have died long ago.

The thought was random and sudden. He didn't know why, but he had the strangest feeling that the knight they were following wasn't supposed to be alive, and had been defying death for much longer than Ryan would have guessed.

They finally arrived at the throne room. The knight, who stopped by the door, gestured for them to enter. Ryan entered last, eyes lingering on the boy in confusion. In response, the knight shook almost uncontrollably and tore his gaze away as quiet sobs racked his body.

"Are you alright?" he asked nervously.

The boy frantically shook his head. "I-I'm fine!" he managed to get out in between sobs. "Just g-go se-see the king!"

More confused than before, Ryan rushed to catch up with Chessy and Adrian. The two stood in shock and almost horror at the sight of the king. Ryan absentmindedly noticed the piles of books scattered throughout the room as he came to a halt beside Adrian.

The king was a terrifying combination between a human and a dragon. Clawed fingers impatiently tapped at the throne's arm rests, their owner taking in the three of them with a steely gaze. As he opened his mouth to speak, Ryan was horrified to notice that his teeth were all sharp – almost like a shark's. “Hello, mortals,” the king began. His deep voice was loud and cold as he stared at Ryan, who desperately wished to be somewhere else. “I am King......Nex. Why have you come to the Castle of Blood?”

They all were silent, whether it was in fear, shock, or because they were reluctant to make their reasons known.

“Speak!” he commanded. His voice reverberated throughout the throne room as he leaned forward in the throne.

Ryan, heart pounding in his chest, took a hesitant step towards the throne. He tried to figure out what someone was supposed to do in the presence of royalty. Even though every muscle strangely screamed out in protest as he went to kneel before the king, he knew it was what he was supposed to do. “I became lost in the woods, your majesty. I am not sure why my companions are here, but I am here because I seek your assistance in returning to my home.”

Kellach:

Eerie forests were not his favorite place to tour, especially when they were mysterious, extensive, and impossible to escape from. Certainly not the place he'd ever want to go in a battle, much less sightseeing, and he would never be returning here to play his music in peace. On the other hand, this seemed to be the only place where he could play his pipes without attracting a devoted audience, although that was quickly becoming a useless benefit.

By that, he was referring to the strange rustling noises in the wood that emanated not far from his position atop the large rock. The man, wearing a sailor's outfit that was covered in sand, finished the brief tune he'd been working on and quietly lowered himself onto the ground. He took a few steps back, eyes pointed in the direction of the noise, hoping that it would move away. No such luck. Whatever it was that was coming was only growing louder and closer.

So he turned and started walking quietly through the undergrowth and dead trees. He was short and scrawny enough to easily slip under some of the shorter branches, and he hoped that would help block whatever was approaching. If that didn't work, he was still a strong and composed figure with a lean frame, so he could just as easily punch the problem away. That was something he'd done in the past.

And then, of course, he heard the crackling sounds of fire in the background. Now he decided that he was better off running, and sprinted down among the trees. Ignoring the scratches spreading across his face and body, he kept looking behind him, and saw a light in the distance. It was still chasing him, and now it seemed ever more likely to actually catch up to him. Whether the threat was setting fire to the forest or had merely lit a torch, Kellach didn't know, but he wasn't interested in finding out, especially not with the possibility of danger.

So, when he saw the dark and foreboding castle, he didn't exactly care what kinds of risks there would be to break free from the woods and run along the hillside. With the flames still in the background, he felt better off in just about any situation. As such, when he saw the imposing oak doors, he was more than content to bang on them, demanding, "Let me in! Let me in!"

Of course, by the time he realized how dumb his logic was, it was a little too late.

It's horrifying.

The king booms his arrogant voice and commands his arrogant commands. My eyebrows draw together in a perfect expression of my disdain, and I can feel the edges of my lips curl up into a conceited smirk - the one I've been punched for wearing so many times before...

And who am I to suppose today will be any different? I puff my chest out and fluff my wings up, drawing them subtly up around me to make me look more impressive.

"Good evening, your majesty," I drawl. I try to make everything as haughty and confident as possible as I take a few steps forward toward the throne, "don't you think you should be a little kinder to your guests, oh mighty ruler?"

Am I scared? Terrified. Who knows what this king will do to me? My blood pounds in my ears and my heart and my fingers, and adrenaline makes me want to fall to my knees and retch until I vomit. I don't, though; it's not the most dignified thing to do, you see. I have to swallow down my fear, though, like I had to so many years before:

Stand up, Adrian. Don't let them walk over you.

"I am Adrian Chapradeur. These are my friends. I'm here to escape cat-demons who've been hunting me... I got lost while escaping thismorning. We're all lost, you see, for one reason or another - why on earth would we stray into such a castle if being lost wasn't the case?"

I know I can do this, I've done it times before. However, those 'times before' were mostly with street thugs and petty criminals, rather than kings of castles of blood who called everyone 'mortal'. Luckily either for me or for him, and I can't be bothered to work out which, I don't think I'd be classified as a 'mortal' - human? yes. Mortal? no.

I pause. I extend my wings a little bit more, ready to shield either Ryan or Cassy from an attack. I stare up at the king, unabashed and pretending to be unafraid.

To say that he was confused was a major understatement.

The man he had always feared and hated was kneeling before him; it was something that his uncle would have never done. The words he had spoken were diplomatic. Though they suited a king, they lacked the cold touch his uncle's had possessed. Ignoring Adrian's response, he gestured for the man to rise and approach him with a lazy swipe of his finger.

Nendros looked him over. He glanced at every inch of his body, craning his neck to get a better look. The man shifted uncomfortably under his gaze. He looked exactly like his uncle, yet couldn't possibly be him - his uncle was dead and the man before him acted nothing like him! How was that possible? "Who the heck are you?" he muttered. The question was met with a curious stare from the man, who was the only one close enough to hear him. Coughing, Nendros returned to the position of a confident and cold ruler.

He bowed his head. "My name is Ryan Evans, your majesty."

"I see." He was silent for a minute; his voice was quiet when he spoke again. "You look like someone I once knew who is no longer here."

Ryan looked up. "I'm sorry for your loss."

"Don't be. He was a murderer."

The man looked shocked by that statement.

He had been oblivious to Aska quietly approaching the throne; he had been slowly making his way over from the door. "Nen, what are you talking about?" he whispered. He was shaking as talked, the sound of armor clanging together filling the large throne room. It was obvious that he was terrified. "You're talking to the Grim Reaper!"

"What?!" Nendros exclaimed. "Aska, I'm talking to someone who looks like my uncle - unless you're saying my uncle was the Grim Reaper!"

Suddenly, the man was gone. In his place was a boy with one hand pushing back the hood to a cloak that was draped onto his shoulders. The boy's clothing was strange and foreign to him. He glanced between the occupants of the room and his cloak, understanding appearing to dawn on his face.

"I got it!" the boy suddenly explained with an excited grin on his face. "This cloak changes how people perceive me! Chessy, a Wraith is how you perceive death. King Nex sees death as a murderer, and the knight sees death as the Grim Reaper." He thought for a minute. "Adrian, do you believe in nonexistence after death?"

He nodded.

"I shouldn't have existed when wearing the cloak, but because I needed some sort of presence, you saw me as a patch of void! It all makes sense now!"

Nendros stared at him, bewildered. "What?"

The boy, who he guessed was Ryan, smiled. "Apparently, I found a cloak that makes people see as me as Death."

Suddenly, Aska turned towards the entrance to the throne room. "Someone's at the front doors," he whispered so only Nendros could hear him. Aska had always been able to tell things like that. He guessed it was because the magic that powered the castle - Tieth's - was also the magic that had made him the way he was. "I-I'll go let them in."

Chessy

Adrian had seemed... Agitated. Probably a bit in pain because of the back... But I wasn't judging him for it, or for his wings, or the fact that he claimed to be human. I didn't think that he was freakish, in fact I saw nothing to judge him for.

When we entered the castle and the king spoke to us, something caught my attention. "This place doesn't smell much like blood... Also what leads you to assume we're mortal?" I paused. "Excuse me I have quite forgotten my manners." I bowed- because who the hell curtsies? "I am Chessy- wild card of the black court, protector of balance in Wonderland, representative of insanity, and challenger of authority."

I smiled, coming up from my bow. I knew that my smile unnerved some people, my grin spreading from one side of my face to the other. If my ears were in the normal place it may have hit the edges of them. It made my larger-than-normal canines blaringly apparent.

"We're going to be good friends." I told him, because who the hell needs logic?

I turned to Ryan. "Nice cloak. Intimidation won't be a problem for you I'm guessing."

Nice cloack? Not at all. It's awful. I shudder. My belief in nonexistance after death comes crawling from the dark black of the back of my mind. Fear like cold water crushes my stomach, rushing over my mind and drowning everything out.

In an instant, I am crippled by existential terror. This little weakness of mine is exactly why I live a life of running and hiding. When I was younger, while I was gripped by the same dark fear, I stole the key to eternal life.

I was cursed instantly. The cat-demons torture me. I carry on living, becoming more and more bitter with every day that I live through. It's not their fault - the cat-demons only want to take back what's theirs. It's my fault; I won't give it back.

I'm a coward, and I'm afraid to die.

Every so often, I don't run fast enough or I get comfortable. Then I'm ripped limb-from-limb, killed and killed over again until I can either fight them off, or someone finds us. But this is the life I've chosen, and this is the price I pay.

What's it like to end? What's it like to know you're about to cease to exist? The freezing fear floods back. I take a shaky breath and try to banish these thoughts to the back of my mind, begging my brain to focus back on the unfolding scene.

Chessy

"You okay Adrian?" I asked, more curious than anything. He looked... Unnerved.

"Of course," I reply, grateful for both the concern and the distraction from the thoughts. "Just a little cold."

I wrap my wings around myself to emphasize the point.

Chessy

"Okay." I teleported away, back to my home on Earth. I sorted through my closet quickly before finding my blue wool coat. I teleported back with it and offered it to Adrian. "Here you go!" I said cheerfully.

I take the coat gingerly, putting it around my shoulders. It doesn't fit properly because of my wings - and I'm not so much of a jerk as to slash holes in it -, so I stand there awkwardly while my insides churn with gratitude-or-guilt.

"Thank you."

Chessy

"Button button where did I put the button?" I mused, twirling in a circle looking for it. I eventually found it in the folds of my tutu. I pulled out the button- it was about the size of my thumb and the same color as the coat. I pressed it, and the coat became bigger on the inside in the back, allowing it to rest comfortably on Adrian's wings. "No problem." I grinned.

He watched the exchange between Adrian and Chessy, Ryan awkwardly standing off to the side the entire time. His gaze quickly shifted to the doorway before returning to the three before him; when was Aska going to be back with whoever was at the door?

Maybe he should try talking to Ryan, seeing that he was excluded from the current conversation?

He had never been good at socializing. The only reason he had been the desired dancing partner at so many court gatherings in the past was because of his royal status, and people would try to get close to him only to use him.

"Your clothes look weird." He inwardly groaned at his word choice - his intentions had been to note that and then ask where Ryan was from. Frantically, he added, "What place do they come from? I mean, where do you come from?"

"I come from a town called Wildegate," Ryan hesitantly replied. "In Connecticut, in the United States of America."

He had never heard of any of those places. "I'm from a kingdom called Laetae; I think it's south of this castle."

Confusion flashed across Ryan's face. "I thought you were the king of this castle. Wouldn't you be from this area?"

Nendros fell silent. He had walked right into that one, Ryan's observation being an obvious one that he should have tried avoiding. "I lied earlier. I thought you were someone else; I couldn't tell you my real identity because of it." Adrian and Chessy were, unsurprisingly, listening in now. With a shy smile, he got to his feet. Though Ryan was tall, he towered over him.

"Nex is my initials. My real name is Nendros Exel Xenon. I was kidnapped by a dragon named Tieth and brought here." He doubted any of them were from his kingdom or nearby ones; if he avoided the topic of his family, he most likely could avoid bringing up who he really was. "Because I'm the Dragon-Human Ambassador, she made me look like this using magic..." His voice caught in his throat, his tail hanging limp at his side. "I'm actually a human."

Kellach:

After a few more seconds of pounding, the sailor heard a loud creaking as one of the castle's large front doors opened slowly. He was surprised to see a man in a suit of silver armor with two glowing golden eyes (if they could be called as such, as they looked more like points of light) pointing out from the helmet. The black emblem of a dragon was on the right side of the man's chestplate.

"...H-hello," the man said in a shy and shaking, very young voice. Even though the individual in the suit of armor towered above the sailor (who had always been considered short anyways), it felt the other way around. The sailor stared up at him with a confused expression, unsure of what to expect next. The man in armor seemed quiet and respectful enough, but people were always unpredictable. Still, at least the door was open, although it was then that he remembered why he had taken all this effort to get to the castle.

"Welcome to the Castle of Blood," the man in armor continued. "I will take you to speak with the king." He began to close the door behind him as the sailor, taking a last look at the outside and the distant, but nearing, light before he rushed in. Kellach breathed a loud sigh of relief when he heard the slamming of the massive door, although he was now trapped in a relatively dark space illuminated by strange torches. With an eerie name like the Castle of Blood, no less. He was wondering how much that reputation applied, given what he had already seen, but he wasn't exactly eager to find out.

As they proceeded down a long hallway to what appeared to be a massive throne room, the sailor looked to his left and right and saw a multitude of rooms that formed a labyrinthine structure. With every new space were entrances to more rooms, which led to more, and so on and so forth. So it was easy enough to slip into one of them without the man in the suit of armor noticing. Besides, a knock at the door indicated the other visitor had already arrived.

Well, as long as he didn't get himself too lost, what was the worst that could happen?

Portals were never fun, especially when they suddenly appeared and whisked you away to terrifying dungeons. Briar had been in dungeons before – in fact, he had been the main guard of one back in the seventeen hundreds – and all of the memories of those times were far from pleasant. Heart racing as he got to his feet, he backed into a wall.

Someone grabbed onto his shoulder.

Eyes widening in terror, a scream left his lips. He frantically ran about the dungeon in search of an exist as he tried to get the person – which was now laying on his back – off of him. In the midst of his terror, he realized the arm hanging limply over his shoulder was skeletal. “Oh,” he realized. He slowed to a halt. “You're dead.”

Then what he had said set in.

He screamed even louder than before and threw the skeleton to the ground. His hands, which had previously been thrust out before him as he searched for an exit, finally grasped a doorknob. To his delight, it was unlocked. The door swung open.

He rushed up the stairs into what appeared to be a main hallway of the structure. He wondered where he was. Better yet, where was Nat? She certainly hadn't been in the room with him, which was a major source of alarm.

He guessed that she had gone through a portal as well. Hopefully, she had been brought to somewhere near by. Brushing the dust off of his shoulders with one hand, he used the other to pull his hoodie farther down to conceal his eyes. It was too dark inside the building to use his sunglasses.

Mind elsewhere, he ended up walking straight into a man. The man looked oddly like a sailor, though sand clung to bits of his clothes. "I'm sorry!" Briar profusely apologized. He thought for a minute, then added, "Could you please tell me where we are? I just appeared up in the dungeon because a portal brought me here."

The man stared at him.

Maybe that wasn't the right thing to say?

Chessy

I was not surprised by Nex's revelation. Probably because my concept of strange was practically nonexistent- how can you be surprised when you see almost nothing as strange- except damsels in distress- those vexed me. I smelled... Something in the air. I sniffed curiously. It reminded me of home- both homes.

"Be back in a moment." I said, teleporting after the smell. In the middle of a pack of wolves stood a small child (7-8?), dressed in blue. She quivvered in fear, I teleported right next to her, grabbed her, and teleported back to the castle with her. "Don't worry, you're safe now." I told her, setting her down on her feet."

She looked up at me. "Cheshire cat?" She questioned.

"A pleasure as always," I grinned "Miss Liddell."

And with that the young lady slapped me in the face.