I waited until morning before I left. I got a map and directions from D. As I sat next to the fire, trying to warm up before I leave Christian came to me.

“ So, this is your plan,” he states as he sits down next to me, “just walk into the base of the evilest person in existence?”

NO MY PLAN IS TO SNEAK INTO THIS SO CALLED KING’S CASTLE AND SEE FOR MYSELF EXACTLY WHAT I’M TO FACE, I say as I stand to pull a chain from my pocket.

“What is that?” Christian asks me as I clip it around my neck.

IT’S A LOCKET, I answer, IT HOLDS A PHOTO OF MY DAUGHTER.

“ You have a child!”

YES, SHE IS THE REASON I’M TRYING SO HARD TO GET HOME.

“Oh. Can you tell me about her?” He asked as I grabbed my bag from behind me and started to check my supplies.

SURE, I reply as I finally put everything back, SHE IS MY PERFECT LITTLE GIRL. SHE IS TEN YEARS OLD AND AS SWEET AS COULD BE. SHE HAS YET TO SHIFT BUT DARRELL SAYS SHE SHOULD SOON.

“ Who is Darrell?”

HE IS MY BEST FRIEND, HE LIVES WITH ME AND DIANE WITH HIS OTHER SIBLINGS.

“ Who is Diane?” Christian interrupts again.

OH RIGHT I NEVER TOLD YOU. DIANE IS MY DAUGHTER.

“Well, what is your name then?”

AH YES, MY NAME IS J

“Just J?”

YES, IT IS EASIER THAN TRYING TO FIND A GENDER NEUTRAL NAME.

“ Oh….okay, well I have to go but good luck out there.”

YES THANK YOU, SEE YOU WHEN I RETURN, I say as I watch him walk away.

Alright first things first, I think, I need to figure out the perfect disguise. That is when I notice the mirror next to the door that Christian just walked through.

Perfect, I think as I stand up and walk towards it, once I am close enough I stop. As I am right now I would never work out. I watch as my skin slowly begins to flicker and my features begin to change. From my normally pale skin to the dark liquid like skin of the creatures called “Halts”. I smile as all of my normal features disappear.

WATCH OUT KING, BECAUSE HERE I COME.

=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=

Hour later I creep into the main hall of the king’s castle. I look around, sad to see such a beautiful place so run down and defeated. Pillars lay broken covered in a thick layer of dust and grime with dust, dirt, and shattered glass littering the floor. Portraits lay half on the wall and the other half lay demolished next to the wall. Slowly I begin to walk, past all of the history and the stories that lay hidden in these broken halls. As I walk I hear water dripping from holes in the ceiling and landing in stagnant puddles that had started to erode the floors causing a divot to appear every so often. I passed many closed doors, most that were locked, and many more that were broken and impossible to pass. As hard as I tried none of the rooms I could enter. Finally I reached the end of the hall where a majestic doorway stood before me and I stop, with a feeling of great unease and a sense of familiarity.

WHAT ARE YOU HIDING? I ask myself aloud, in the way that I could speak aloud that is. I step forward and the doors begin to swing open. Behind them lay a beautifully light room not hit by the destruction like the room’s I had just passed. As I walk further into the room I notice the lack of an actual throne and the presence of the king who was said to sit upon it. At that moment the doors began to slowly swing shut behind me and a deep, hacking laugh then started to echo throughout the room becoming louder and louder until it was deafening. Then it stopped and foot steps could be faintly heard coming out from behind a large curtain at the end of the room behind me.

“Well, well, well. If it isn't it a little scout sent by those do gooders my father created. Tell me, who are you to think I would not notice you waltzing into MY castle and think I wouldn’t do anything? Tell me your name so I may write my regards when I send back your mangled and mutilated body.”

Slowly I begin to turn to face the man speaking to me. I gasp, surprised to see the face and structure of this man, or should I say creature. I can feel my false form begin to shift and then melt away leaving me in my night clothes that I had started in but a form that was still not my own.

“ Your eyes,” He said with confusion lacing his voice, “ why did your eyes change?” He then looked straight at me, “ Who are you?” I felt a voice that was not my own begin to speak from within me,

“I am the one of the day, The endless shifter, The bringer of light. The end of darkness, The one of many voices. Call me what you will child but you, you Jake Peacebringer, no, you Jake Hatetaker your voice holds many lies. This is not your castle, this is the castle of your father made for him by the ones you pray to at night. The ones who now break it apart.”

And then as suddenly as it came the voice left and the form I wore melted away leaving me in my own known form, shivering in a cold I hadn't even noticed before now. I look up to see this King, no Jake, begin to shake with his anger and he then began to stalk towards me. I then got a better look at him. He seemed to be half of a man with most of the right side of him except his face which was on the left matching the substance of the beasts known as halts. That nasty, oily substance that smelt like rotted flesh that these beast were made of, truly the stuff of nightmares. He seemed like he was melting away.

“ Who are you? How did you know my name? Why do your eyes change? Who SENT you?” As he got closer to me he began to yell his questions. I did not answer somehow knowing that if I did he would know I was not from this world. Slowly I began to back away from him. Fear, i’m sure, was written all over my face.

“ Not going to answer me now. That’s fine you can just rot away here until you decide to speak. Guards, take this ‘bringer of light’ to her new room.”