Chapter 86: Shrouded
He was in a house. Dusty floors were broken in a few places, cracked in others, where a host of worms squirmed impatiently to climb up through the wooden planks, making their way to the door visible ahead in a long, wriggling black line. The door was open. It allowed the light from the outside to fill the place.
Jack sat right across from the door, on a chair looking similar to the one he was granted in the cell. This one was older, perhaps, and tattered dangerously whenever he shifted a leg or a foot, yet it never broke.
He was looking at the door.
Waiting.
Valens was looking at it too, because this was the single memory thread he could find in the man’s brain. There were no others where there should have been hundreds or thousands. The man was over thirty years old. Thirty years of his life, and the only thing he remembered was this house and him sitting here waiting for someone.
That was odd.
But the odd was only just starting.
Steps sounded beyond the door. The light shifted in a way that suggested someone was standing there. Not yet attempting to enter, however, just standing. Their shadow fell over the string of worms on the ground. It spiked them awake. The whole swarm scuttled mindlessly across the hall. Some of them found their way back in through the hole they’d climbed, some others wormed their way swiftly across Jack’s legs, into his clothes, and close to his skin.
He felt their slimy, warm touch all over him.
He didn’t blink.
He just waited.
The shadow moved. The figure strolled inside. It was just then that Jack lowered his chin and nailed his gaze to the floor. Shivers down his spine. Hairs standing on their ends. A dreadful prickling oozing into his skin. Breath caught in his throat. Caught there like a cold stone, refusing to move. He gulped.