Part Three

The bottoms of her feet were disturbingly bloodied, and the prickly grass only served to mimic an unforgiving sting with every step, as she had reached Cameron’s cottage. The pain she suffered was indeed agonizing, but it did not prevent her from noticing how undisturbed his home was. In fact, the whole area was completely intact. Every living thing was so unobstructed, Avail questioned if the destructive events were just a nightmare.

            She dragged her aching limbs to Cameron’s door, and gave it three harsh knocks, before collapsing against it. She was borderline asleep from being so exhausted.

“Cameron…open up. Please…” Avail had breathed out the very last remnants of her energy. The jiggling of the doorknob had perked up her tired eyes, and she pushed her tired body away from the door.

“Avail,” Cameron whispered. She noticed that his voice held a roughness that was never present before; not even if he had just woken up.

“Hey, let me in…please.” She spoke, letting impatience lace her words.

            Cameron allowed an elongated pause to be his response, before fully opening the door. Barely placing a foot on his floor, Avail noticed the inside of his house was tinted with a somber and bleak dark gray. Only light from the outside had intruded a small section of the cottage.

            Her friend hid quickly behind the door, as she wobbled her way inside. Avail was not used to Cameron being that stand-offish; it made her feel like a stranger.

            “Why do you have it so dark in here?” She could barely see the white of the walls in his home when he shut door.

“I prefer it this way.” He answered. It was obvious his voice had not only deepened in tone, but seemed aggravated.

“Okay, but why? And since when?” Avail felt her intuition practically screaming at her to leave his cottage.

Cameron’s behavior had flipped drastically; it even influenced his home lifestyle. As negative as he could be, his home was always neutral and held at least a small amount of brightness. Avail loved that aspect. To her, it symbolized that Cameron was not as dark as he liked to come off. But not today; the walls were suffocating from the immense blackness.

“Of course, I keep forgetting how you Watchers always cling to the light. You’d all cry every night for how badly you miss it.”

            Instantly, Avail knew that she was no longer speaking to her friend, and she was both aware and petrified as to why.

“Cameron, you are a Watcher.” The pits of her arm had begun sweating at the frantic pace of her heart.

“No… no, I’m not.” He sang so smugly, that Avail could hear the smirk form on his lips.

“Cameron--”

“Wrong person…” The clanking of his doorknob was heard, as he re-opened the entrance permitting a sliver light to gradually creep inside. Avail could only capture a silhouette of Cameron. Figuring her eyes only needed to adjust, she waited another moment, so his face would eventually appear. Engrossed in the anxious silence, her body broke into icy sweat once she realized that his face was never going to appear, nor were his clothes. All that stood before her was a literal black silhouette of Cameron. As if he were a three-dimensional shadow.

            Avail’s heart had clenched so forcefully, it felt as if her infinite tears were being wrung out of her. “Why did you let it control you?”

“Because he couldn’t want it bad enough.”

 

 

            Once Avail finally saw her friend’s new form, he immediately closed off the light, as if forcing her to marinate in the filthy darkness that was his home.

            In an attempt to suppress her panic, she tightened her grip on her wrist. Avail was well aware that reasoning with this thing would be unprogressive. Takens are known for being reckless, impulsive, and birthed from the essence of the foul. They are immediately born with the mindset that everyone should be a Manifestor. Making that mindset law.

            She took in the sight before her once again, never averting her gaze, even with a tornado of terror relentlessly spiraling in the pit of her stomach. “Let me out.” She swallowed back her uncertainty, trying to maintain a stubborn demeanor. 

“Sure, okay.” Cameron cocked his. “All you had to do was say so.” He stepped aside, instantly camouflaged with the darkness of the room, exposing the door.

            Naturally, Avail was not only caught off guard, but extremely hesitant. His response was entirely too quick and compliant. But the light from the outside was calling for her return, despite what Cameron could be plotting.

            She cautiously stood, scanning for any sign of attack from the Taken. Her feet carefully guided her towards the exit, but her eyes never left the figure disguised in the black atmosphere.

“But, don’t you want Fido back?”

            Avail snapped her head to his direction, earning a mocking laugh as Cameron was already removing a velvet onyx colored cloth away from a rounded object. At first glance, what was revealed was merely a medium sized glass bowl.  Avail assumed that the water inside it was as dark as it was because of the poor lighting of the room. But she was terribly mistaken. The water was proven to be black, for it welcomed little to no transparency. She didn’t even realize how soundless the house had become, until she heard a subtle splash. Gloop…

            Without noticing the entrance opening, a graduating light was developing over the glass bowl.

Devastation forced Avail to double-over. Fido was completely taken over. He was no longer the magnificently royal blue fish he once was. His blue scales had turned obsidian, and rotted skin had replaced where his golden yellow stripes would be. As much as it punctured Avail’s heart to admit, Fido was just too disgusting to look at. It wasn’t even Fido anymore.