139 A Risk (1/2)
By the time Seline had stepped into the dim cavern, the member of the family who had given no name was collapsing to the ground, his eyes rolled back to show their whites and with a face as expressionless as one in a deep, deep sleep.
Confused and quite shocked, she turned to the old man who had raised her to see that he had closed his eyes and his head was arched up, as if he was praying to some unknown deity. His hands were clasped close to his chest, and his breathing was labored, as if he had just had to exert himself a lot.
Behind her came the two others who froze as they entered the cavern, just as stunned as her the moment they took in the state of the place. They looked between the old man and their companion, taking a second to understand what the hell might have happened, and then, one went to the former and the other walked with concern to the latter.
The one who had spoken to them, for the most part, was soon at the elder of the slaves. He was soon right in front of him, hands raised in front of his chest, opening and closing as if he was tempted to do something that he shouldn't, and then, finally unable to control himself any longer, he caught the old man by his robes and lifted him into the air as easily as if he was a log of wood.
This, of course, made the elder's eyes snap open. He was alarmed, for a bit, due to the weightlessness he felt, but then, laying his gaze on the one who was holding him up, he relaxed as if this was just a game he was playing with a child.
This infuriated the man even further. He walked forward, his feet stumbling over a few errant rocks on the floor but never enough to make him fall, and soon, he had the elder's back against the rough wall of the cavern. He shook him, then, and shouted, ”What did you do? What just happened? Don't try to deny it, because I saw you look like you're scared of something! Speak, or I don't know what I'll do to you!”
His words echoed in the cave, driving off the silence that had occupied it for centuries. The crystal in the middle was strange in the fact that it seemed to absorb any sound that fell on it. Hence, even the echoes were eerie, appearing from some directions but not from others.
The transformation that Seline had gone through had truly changed her, mind and soul, but the situation was far too bizarre for even her newly found self to function properly. This was someone who had saved them, who had saved her from the clutches of material greed and a life that would only have ended with her regretting it in its entirety, but there he lay on the ground, looking dead, at first glance, if not for the slow, rhythmic rising and falling of his chest which indicated that he was in a deep slumber.
This brought more of a change in him than anything the other man had done. Those eyes… those eyes had a sort of a promise to them, a promise of death, a promise of suffering unlike anything that anyone could even begin to imagine. The air, itself, fell heavy, and even though she was not the target of it, her brow beaded with sweat and she stepped back until her back hit the wall.
Everything around her seemed to thicken, congeal, entombing her in a personal prison that she feared would trap her forever. Even an inch of her body couldn't move, every scrap of her wanted to get down on the ground, like a mouse crouching in its little hole while a cat passed by.
It was only because of where she had backed off to that she was still able to see the old man and his reaction. She couldn't even imagine how it must be to feel the brunt of that gaze; his eyes bulged, his body went loose as if he couldn't control it anymore, and his jaw quivered, his lips opening and closing to indicate that he wanted to say something, but couldn't because everything he felt was just too damn terrifying.