Chapter Thirty :

Orpheus /

I couldn't help but wonder if I was running for my life, because that's what it felt like. I was terrified and confused, without any answers. I was helpless; I lacked Dolion. 

I didn't go to any place that I already knew; not the city or the faery realm or the lake... Instead, I went to the church that existed deep in the woods. 

My parents weren't really religious people, and they had never brought me to a church - not even this one, which was a couple miles away from my house. I only knew about it because some of the kids from my school told me they'd have Easter Sunday and Christmas Eve services there.  

There was obviously a road leading to it, but I stayed hidden in the trees as I hiked there. I didn't want to walk on the old dirt path anyway. 

When I arrived, I was breathless. I hadn't let myself take a single break along the way, for fear of what might happen if I stopped. I stared up at the church, catching my breath just for it to be taken away again. 

It looked like a small castle; built from bricks, greyish-brown in color and filled with exquisitely shaped stained glass windows. I figured the inside would be the same, but I was wrong.

I pulled open one of the huge, heavy doors, to be greeted with a cloud of dust. I coughed, waving my hand in front of my face to clear some of it out. As the shadow dissipated a bit, my heart thudded in a sort of terror because of what I could now see. 

The inside of the church might have been beautiful once, but it was now demolished and coated in a fine layer of dust and grime; alike to a ghost town. All that remained were destroyed remnants of everything. Pews were crushed, the pulpit covered in rubble, the lectern on its side. Stairways were falling apart, and huge angel statues lay in pieces on the carpeted floor. Only the huge crucifix in the center of it all was unbroken; it still hung on the wall. 

The door slammed shut behind me, flooding the place with darkness. I was too scared to speak, so I stood there silently, shivering in fear. 

It wasn't quiet anymore; a slow and calming hum pulsated throughout the church. It was very unlike the one that I would hear at home and in the city, because I couldn't feel anything evil within this noise.

"Lavender?" Came an incredibly soft voice, unlike Dolion's overly sweet one. "Who are you?" I asked. 

"You should know; you've always avoided me. You've stayed away for so long and now it's too late, we have no time left." 

"Who. Are. You?" I said the words cautiously and angrily. I saw the shimmering blue eyes and then I knew. 

He stepped into a small ray of light spilling in from a broken part in the church's ceiling, pain and grief in his horrifying face. "You only know of me because of what it told you. Will you listen to my side of this story now?" 

I was scared, to stand there before him and hear what he had to say. But I had that same foreboding feeling from earlier, like a puzzle piece about to click into place; and I couldn't figure it out on my own. I nodded my head.

"Your 'friend...' Is a liar. There's not a thing its told you that isn't a lie -"

"Okay, I've had enough. You said you were going to tell me about you, not it." I scoffed.

"Well... Your friend has had a lot to do with me."

I narrowed my eyes. "Explain."

"We... We're engels, and we don't age like you humans do. We've lived for hundreds of years, and can live up to thousands of years. But... 'Your friend' turned, a long time ago. None of us knew until it was too late -"

"Turned?"

"Became part of the Corrupt."

"No... Dolion confronted the Corrupt and they called it a 'traitor.'" 

"And it is a traitor, to us as well as to the Corrupt."

"That doesn't make any sense."

"It will, just let me finish."

"Okay..."

"It became wicked, and it destroyed all of us engels... All of us besides me. Its only goal is to ravage all of the realms, the whole universe... It wants everyone, every human and every single creature, to suffer. Forever. Including the Corrupt."

"But why?" I questioned.

"I don't know... Sometimes, someone doesn't need a reason to turn evil. They just do it." 

"Why hasn't it hurt me then?" 

"It needed to earn your trust; it needs you and I both for what its going to do. And I don't know exactly, but whatever happens is going to be terrible, no words can describe what will happen to all the realms and the life in them." 

I remembered the vision sent from Mirai, and wondered if that could be what he was talking about... Mirai. "Why did you kill her?" I questioned, anger and hate rising in my throat.

"Kill who?"

"Mirai. Don't play stupid with me."

"I didn't kill her... I had to bury her, after she died."

"Oh... So you're the reason her body went missing. Then who murdered her?"

His deep blue eyes settled on mine, answering my question without speaking. 

"Dolion wouldn't do that."

Orpheus handed me a stained silver dagger. "That's its knife, and you know it." The platinum blade burned against my skin, evoking distrust in me... Who would I believe? "You should take my word for it, I saw it burn down the faery realm in an attempt to kill her without the murder being obvious."

"It burned the faery realm?" I inquired, my heart thudding dully. 

"Not directly... It used the coyotes to do the dirty work."

The gears in my brain turned like the insides of a clock. "The coyotes from the desert realm?" 

"Well, they used to be in the desert realm until Agni wiped them all out. 'Your friend' somehow brought them back into existence, and they've been wreaking havoc in all the realms. I'm surprised this whole universe hasn't gone up in flames yet."

Looking at him, I was confused as to why Orpheus looked so different from Dolion, if they were both engels. I asked him about it.

"I didn't always look this way... Your friend did it to me. Everything about me has been distorted and ruined, because of it." He held up his hands, bruises covering his wrists around where the thick cuffs of the chains were. 

My mind was two worlds being torn apart; everything Dolion had told me against what Orpheus now said. "If you know about all of this, why haven't you done anything?"

Torment flashed in his eyes. "I - I can't... What it plans to do to me is going to be worse than death. Why do you think I've hidden myself this whole time? And there's no one else that I can ask to assist in some way... Its killed everyone that was in power. I wish it had just killed me when it first opened the Void."

"The Void?"

"You know, what used to hold all the Corrupt."

"But what does that have to do with you?"

"I was the Void Keeper."