Adria POV

I froze, stopping the rocking of the chair as two male voices approached from the stairwell. One of them was a bit deeper than the other, full and warm. The sort of voice you knew loved to laugh and you couldn’t help but smile a little on the inside when you heard. “You said plans change, Jay. So which plan are we sitting on now? A? B? Or have we skipped more than I knew and made it all the way to K?”

The second voice sounded tired, but there was a light-heartedness that made it obvious the man was fighting a grin. “Man, you’re slow Erin. We’ve actually advanced to plan S.”

The man named Erin let out a loud gasp as the sounds of the footsteps growing closer were finally audible to me. “No! No way! Not Plan S! What does it mean?”

“Silence,” Jay responded back in a much more tense voice as they reached the top of the stairs.

Two men, around thirty or so, entered the attic. While it might have been darkness to them, I could see as perfectly in the dark as I could in the light. The man in the front was much shorter than I would have expected. 5’4” or so, maybe? From here it was hard to get an exact estimate. But he was most definitely a dwarf in comparison to the lanky man behind him, who had to be over six feet. Both carried cameras in their hands, but the taller man had a large backpack slung over his shoulders, holding more equipment, I was sure.

The taller man was lightly tan, his body showing evidence of someone who kept themselves in great health with exercise and diet. He had a mass of short, curly brown hair and light blue eyes. His features were very masculine; granting a chiseled jawline, nose, and thick brows over calm eyes.

The shorter of the two had an almost shaved head, what little blonde hair there was being no more than an inch tall. His eyes were much more deep-set, and his posture suggested one who was constantly weary; as if he was just a few minutes worth of exercise away from flopping into a puddle of sweat and exhaustion. He wasn’t what one would call fat, or even obese. But he did have a thicker, stocky build, like some short Viking warrior who’d lost all his old skills with a blade, to his shame. But it was his sharp, hawk-like grey eyes that caught my attention.

His head snapped to his right, in my direction, thin yellow brows nearly making a V as he frowned fiercely. A few seconds later, the hard expression began to fade from his face. He cleared his throat and cautiously approached my rocking chair. His camera was right on me, as were his eyes. The other man kept his distance, but he too kept his camera trained on my chair.

Cornered, I began to panic.

“W-W-What d-do you wa-want?” I demanded though I knew they wouldn’t be able to hear me. But maybe my voice would show up in their video later.

The shorter man approaching me stopped immediately, his expression clouding as he frowned once more, though it was obviously a look of concentration. “...Adria? Is that you? My name is Jared, Jay to my friends,” he explained, voice strangely calm.

“You heard me!” I hissed, honestly taken aback. A large shudder ran through me, causing my ball of light to shake violently. This gained a low, quickly silenced gasp from the taller man.

“Are you Adria?” Jared asked once more, his expression softening. “I’m not here to hurt you or try and invade your space. I’m sorry...This is your special place, isn’t it? It called to me...Do you want us to leave?”

I jumped out of the chair, scampering quickly across the room, as far away from this man as I could.

How does he know? How does he know?! M-my sanctuary!

His gaze followed me as if the room was lit up fully, expression clouding with guilt. “I shouldn’t have come up here?" his words came out in a confused question. "Like I said, I’m sorry.”

From behind him, the other man, Erin, cleared his throat. “Sorry about that. Jay can be more than a bit brutish sometimes. You’ll have to forgive him. His parents let him hang out in the forest a little too often growing up as a kid, so he’s got some relatives some might say are more wolf than human.”

Jared instantly snapped his head around to growl at his partner. “Say that again!”

“See?” Erin smirked widely, a look of victory plastered clearly on his face.

Drawn to their evident brotherhood despite myself, I calmed a little, the shaking of my being coming to an abrupt halt. His movements slow and careful, Jared moved back to Erin, whispering something softly to his friend. A few seconds later, the man returned to his original position, holding a small object.

“Adria, or whoever is in this room with us, we’re going to use a special device called an Ovilus. You may have already encountered it, but basically, it picks up the changes you cause in the environment and transfers that into a word. There are words already loaded into the device, but if you try hard enough you can create words on your own.” Erin explained how the small black box in Jared’s hand worked in a calm manner.

“Let’s try an easy question then. Are you Adria?” Jared asked, his gaze directed where I was.

I slowly drew closer, debating with myself. ‘Curiosity killed the cat’, and all that, you know.

But how can you be killed when you’re already dead?

A flash of daring flooded my senses, pushing me forward, closer to the man holding the box outstretched in front of him. It was almost like some bizarre scene of a girl who’d fallen to the ground. Now, before her was some kind stranger offering her his hand to help her up.

Okay, maybe that was a bit over-the-top, but it was how I felt in that moment.

My Knight had come to save me, albeit a bit late.

Or maybe it was the other way around?

Would I be the one to save him instead?