The Circle of Stars by Owen Elgie

Author:Owen Elgie [Elgie, Owen]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: PublishNation
Published: 2019-10-19T22:00:00+00:00

19

As it turns out, death didn’t last long.

I opened my eyes and gulped down a monstrous lungful of air, the sensation of smothering still lingering. Linka was stood before me, dressed in the same way she’d been earlier but the armour was missing this time. I didn’t wait, and dived at her, intending to grip her throat as tightly as I could and crush the life out of her before she could attack me again.

She flinched and squeaked a tiny scream at my explosion of movement but I didn’t manage to reach her. I was just held in space, having lunged out of the almost upright platform I’d been laying on. Her cowering seemed so at odds with what had just been happening that it made me stop and try to take in details of where I was.

I was in a small room wound through with vines and plant life in the same way as the place I’d started out. What was happening to me?

“What are you doing to me?” I yelled at Linka, fury scratching behind my eyes. Again, I’d trusted someone and here I found myself, trapped after some kind of mind torture. Linka scampered out of the room, and I think, was crying as she went.

“You’ve been having your treatment.” came the Witch’s voice from behind my back. Struggling to turn to see them, she and Dewi slowly walked into my eye line.

“What treatment?” I growled, struggling against the invisible bonds which held me in the air.

The Witch casually made a gesture with her hand and I was released, and fell to the floor.

“You came here to be helped with the problem that’s at the very core of who you are and this was the way that I was able to assess you.” Her voice was matter of fact, no chance of there being any argument.

“So you locked me in a room and tortured me?” I was still angry and didn’t care that I was stood in the centre of the room, stark naked. The Witch opened her mouth to speak again but was interrupted as the single door to the room was thrown open and Vyn came barrelling in with a look of pure thunder on her face and, I swear, her orange hair was ablaze with power.

Dewi intercepted her and began to placate her, no doubt letting her know that I wasn’t going to actually be hurting Linka and turned her back towards the door. That thought, that I was almost expected to hurt those around me, took the wind from my sails. Yet again, my first instinct had been to attack those who were just doing what they’d been asked to do. That all too familiar sensation in my stomach returned, shame and regret, their thorns digging deep.

“By doing what I did,” continued the Witch, moving much closer to me than made me comfortable. “I was able to place your mind in an environment where you couldn’t affect your body and really push your buttons.

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