“Albert!” I shouted, as he neared the corner.

He stopped, and turned around, then he said, “Yes Alison. What is it that you want?” in that deep raspy voice of his.

“I need to ask you a few thing.” I replied

“Sure thing,” I ran down the corridor to catch up to him, once I was beside him, we both turned the corner, and walked side by side, ”I was just wondering how long Danny is going to be?” I asked.

“Well that really does depend.”

“On what?”

“A variety of things. He could be in there for a few days, or he could be in for a few weeks or even months. One never can really tell.” He replied

“I hope he isn’t too long.”

“Me two Alison, me two. For more reasons than you know.”

“Like what?” I asked

“I’ll tell you once we get to my office.”

 

We had not encountered a single person yet. The corridor we were in, was similar to those of a museum, the walls, floor, and roof were all marble. It had a high roof, yet thin corridors. The marble was not the kind of marble that I was accustomed to, it was black, and had red stains in it. As I looked closer, I noticed that some of the stains made the outlines of faces. All the faces were screaming, and the eye sockets were vacant. Most of them were horribly disfigured, and some even looked as if they were laughing, which was more bloodcurdling than the screaming ones.

 

There were paintings of foreign and surreal lands scattered around the walls of the corridor. I didn’t have time to examine the paintings, but I would come back at a later stage, to take a closer look. I also noticed a few passageways that appeared to lead into darkness, I would investigate these to. The windows seemed to be placed at strategic points, so that there was only enough light to dimly illuminate the passageways. Upon looking out the windows, I noticed that the landscape was barren, but somehow lush at the same time. It was a phenomenon that I had never seen before. There were parts of the land that had no plant life at all, and other areas that were full on foliage, and were extremely green. Yet it was as if the plants couldn’t decide what to do or where to grow.

 

We turned a corner, and were met by a two men, standing on either side of the corridor, talking. They both wore identical garments, a black open coat, loose black pants, and no shirt. The coats covered their arms, and shoulders, but left their chests and stomachs revealed. They were both rather muscular. The other noticeable thing about their outfits, were the two silver stripes on each shoulder, they looked like a sign of rank.

 

There was not enough space for us to all walk alongside each other, some one was going to have to move. I thought that seeing as though I was a female, one of them should move, but they didn’t appear to want to move for me. As they looked upon Albert, they both stopped talking, and stood up to acknowledge him.

 

There was now enough space for Albert and I to walk straight. Albert merely looked at the two men and nodded to accept and return their greeting. I did nothing of the sort, they didn’t seem interested in who I was, so why should I seem interested in them? As we had passed them, the both sat down again, but didn’t resume their conversation until we were around the next corner.     

 

There were no windows in this corridor, the only light came from torches, suspended from the walls. At the end of the corridor, there was a huge room. I couldn’t see what was in it, because it was too dark to see it from where I was standing. But I could clearly see that it was a lot bigger than the passageway itself.

“We’re here.” Said Albert.

“And where exactly is that?”

“My office.”

We were only half way down the passage, and I wanted to continue, to examine the far room, but it looked as if I was going to have save that for another time.

 

Albert turned and opened the door to his office. The door was rather large, and black in colour and the door handle was silver. We both walked in, and a large wooden desk, with a huge chair, greeted me. The chair was dark brown, and had red cushions built into it. There were two torches jutting out of each side of the chair, it looked as they had no fuel, yet they burned as brightly as the hatred of damned souls. Very peculiar indeed.

 

The rest of the room was equally peculiar. There seemed to be no walls, or roof. The floor was simple wood, but where the walls should have been, there was an expanse of eternal darkness. The supposed roof extended perpetually.

 

“This is a different sort room. I never knew this estate catered for bizarre individuals.” I said.

“There’s a lot you don’t know about this ‘estate’” Replied Albert.

“Anything else that I need to know?”

“Yes, but you’ll learn about them in due time. For now please sit down, and we’ll carry on our conversation.”

I was happy to sit, but there was just one problem, there was nowhere for me to sit. I wasn’t sure if there was some sort of weird custom here, but generally speaking, one sits on a chair. As I was about to ask Albert, a chair suddenly appeared out of nowhere. It slid under me, and forced me to sit down. I didn’t want to seem stupid, or unaccustomed to the ways of this world, so I merely nodded in approval, and played it chic.

“Not exactly the answer I was looking for, I don’t really like waiting.”

“You didn’t expect me to reveal the secrets of Atedius, did you?”

“No, not really.” I replied, acting as if I knew what Atedius was.

Albert laughed.

“Ha. I forgot you really don’t know much about this place we reside in.”

“I have only been here for a few hours.” I replied.

“I suppose. I might as well give you some history while we’re waiting for Danny. Not that I expect him anything soon.”

“Unfortunately.”

“Not necessarily, we don’t want him to rush anything, and not get trained properly.”

“No we don’t.”

 

I thought about what sort of training Danny might be going through, and was about to ask Albert, when he answer me anyway.

“You’ll have to wait for him to finish it first. Then I’ll let him tell you first hand.”

“That is really freaky, just stay out of my head.”

“No, it’ not for you decide.”

“What the fuck do you mean ‘it’s not for me’?!? It’s my fucking head, stay out of it!”

“I can't help it.”

 

 

Well that’s what I'm telling her for now. Little miss Alison doesn’t need to know everything about me yet. I’ll just string her along, she doesn’t know if I'm lying or not, and I’ll keep it that way for a while.

 

 

“Get a grip of yourself Albert, I don’t want for you to become my enemy.” I retorted.

“I really can't help it. But I’ll try to make it seem as if I'm not doing it.” He bullshitted.

“What ever. Just get on with the history lesson.”

“Fare enough. Where to start? Let me see, ah fuck it, I’ll start at the beginning.”

“Fine.” I was still irate.

“This planet is called Atedius, and this “estate” as you called it, is the Mansion of Shadows. The evil gods, Sanari, or Odium, used to inhabit it. The people that live here now were their servants, priests, and warriors. At the end if The War, all the gods were killed, and both forces were split apart. We were disorientated, and not sure what to do. So the loyal servants, all the priests and the few living warriors, decided to remain here, because we knew Danny was still alive. We would just have to wait for him to return.

 

“We turned our attention to training, all the former servants started training as warriors. There were only six warriors left alive. Out of an army of over two thousand, six remained. I am one of those six, and I am the most powerful of the warriors. So I rule.”

 

“Where are the other five now?” I enquired.

“They are training, along with the rest of the new warriors.”

 

I wondered where the enemy where now? But I decided to keep that question for later, and ask others now.

 

“There is one thing that has been bothering me ever since we arrived.”

“And what is that?”

“When we came here, Danny seemed surprised that you were calling us. Didn’t you tell him before hand?” I asked.

“I did. I told him that he had one month, and then he was to come here.”

“But I thought you only spoke to him for the first time, a few days ago.” This was starting to get confusing.

“I did.” He replied.

“So how did you tell him he had a month?”

“Easily. You see, first of all, I called him, and told him he...”

 “Cut the crap Albert! Just tell me what’s going on!” I demanded.

“Okay, okay. But it’s gona take some more history.”

“If need be, just cut to the chase!”

“Alright, no need to get uptight. I’ll start from the beginning again. During The War, The Holum sent a group of warriors and priests to Earth. On Earth, they sped up the time interval between Earth and Atedius, so that they could train warriors on Earth, and send them to Atedius, to fight in The War.

 

“This helped them greatly, because it took a few months or even years to train the warriors. But they were being trained on Earth, where time was faster than here. So it seemed to us, as if they were being trained in a matter of hours, or sometimes days.

 

“ Now they were able to change the time speed, because all of The Holum gods here on Atedius helped them some how. No one knows why, but when the gods were killed, the time speed was reversed, making time on Atedius go faster. That is how I told Danny he had one month, and he did have a month, an Atedian month.”

 

That was a lot of information to process, it complicated things somewhat. I had a few questions to ask, so I presumed now was a good a time as any, it would also give me a chance to fully process that info.

“How did they get to Earth?”

“The same way you got here today. They used Planetary Transportation. It’s basically just a sphere of energy that allows travel between worlds. One doesn’t travel through space, instead, one travels through to essence of a planet, and is warped to the final destination.”

“Amazing!”

“The only problem is, any weak being, will get ripped apart in the process. So not just anyone can use it. In fact, nearly all humans and a lot of us Atedians would die.”

“Die? Then how did we survive?”

“Haha. Danny is not human, he is stronger than most people on this planet. Don’t let his frail body conceive you, there is more than what meets the eye.”

“Well sure, Danny can make the trip. But what about me? How did I make the trip?”

“Once again, there is more than what meets the eyes.”

“It’s easy for you to sit there and call me strong, but I don’t feel strong at all.”

“You are not normal my girl, you are human, but you aren’t of the human world. You have powers hidden away inside you, powers that will soon be set free. Then, and only then, shall you know the true ramifications of the situation. Until then, just know that you and Danny are meant to be, and you shall rule this realm together!”

 

What did he mean by that? How can I have power? How could I be better than anyone else? The only part of that, which I agree with, is the part about Danny and I being meant for each other. I could feel it, I knew we shared something entirely unique. I knew that I would do anything for him, and I hoped he felt the same about me.

 

All I could think about was Danny, all I could do was hope and pray that he was still alive, and that I would see him soon. All I could do was wait.