But that doesn’t explain the familiar wrongness.
My legs continue to move, taking me deeper into the maze, while my mind spins with caution. The urge to scream fills my lungs. Although, my lips don’t part. It’s like my body isn’t fully under my control.
Which I’ve felt before,I realize.But when?
A vision of another corridor flickers through my mind, like it’s being pushed to me from some repressed memory.
I chase it while my feet continue to pound against the hard ground.
Except suddenly it’s softer.
Littered with petals and grass.
What?I nearly stumble as my brain tries to force my legs to cease running. Yet all I do is sprint harder.What is happening to me?
I look down and note the cement beneath my feet. However, Ifeelthe plushness of a courtyard.
No.
Not a courtyard.
A hallway lined with fire lilies.
I smell their sweet perfume, loving the way they burn for me. Just like Hades…
I blink, the image gone in a flash and replaced by my eerie surroundings. Skulls etched into cement. Cobblestones.Blossoming flowers.
I shake my head, so confused by the juxtaposition between two realities.
Or is it a memory…?My lips curl down at the possibility.What am I remembering?
I search my surroundings, noting how they continue to fade in and out of another time. Another place.Another experience.
My heart beats hard in my chest, the sensation one I recognize. It propels me back to a moment when I was running against my will. Trying to stop.Screaming inside with no outlet.
I swallow, the terror of that day rolling through me in a foreign caress. Yet the memory of it is palpable. Like I know that moment better than any other.
Except it’s gone in a flash, replaced by my chillingsurroundings once more as Pip flies into my path. His blue eyes are wide, his hands thrown upward to stop me.
I halt, suddenly in control of my body, and he gestures for me to turn around, a pleading look on his face. “What’s happening to me?” I ask him, my voice a rasp of sound. “Why do I feel so strange, Pip?”
He points again at the path I’ve just run down, urgency in his features.
Until he begins to fade away into another vision. One of a frolicking beast. No. A… a…deer. Only this is no ordinary deer. It has antlers, a majestic black tail, and the markings of a standard animal. But its mouth is moving, and words are leaving its lips. Not sounds.Words.
It’s talking to me.
Only, I can’t hear what it’s saying.
I try to read its lips, to understand the words.
Delos,I breathe in my mind, suddenly aware of his name.A gift from Diana.
My lashes flutter, the knowledge unexpected and the origin unknown.
Except…
Except it’s notentirelyunknown, is it?
