A rock clatters across the floor, the sound echoing down the hallways and back towards the shadows of two people standing in the darkness.
The two men are dwarfed by their surroundings. The grandiose hallways rise easily thirty feet high, and have doors inlaid between ornate pillars leading to various rooms to match. Intricate candelabras hang periodically, if they had been lit it would cast everything in flickering, but ample lighting.
Now though, they stand with candles half melted, their wicks long burnt out. A thin layer of dust covers everything but the trails spiders have left while hanging their webs.
"Absolutely nothin" One of the men sighs, pushing a strand of hair out of his eyes.
"You act like that's a bad thing, Miles." The smaller man says, "Nothing happening is what we want."
"Sure. 'Till we end up comin' back here every two months 'till we're old 'n grey. Checkin' an empty castle with nothin' but unmovin' nasties." Miles's eyes scan their surroundings with distaste.
"Don't know why you even agreed to do this in the first place, Emril. Thought you were wantin' to take care of your family,"
Emril rolls his eyes and crosses his arms. "Because this is helping take care of them."
"Sure, and I'm one o' them poets. Now - shoo. I want to get goin'"
Miles starts practically shoving Emril out the largest set of doors, exaggerating a shiver as they pass.
"You know Miles, you flip between acting like you want something to happen when we come here, and like you're terrified of this place pretty often." Emril jokes as he follows the older man's ushering movements.
"Who wouldn't be, boy? Just because you and I didn't grow up with these monsters walkin' round don't mean we don't know what they're capable of. Now - Get that other door." He wraps his hands on one of the sets of handles on the outer door and begins shoving it closed.
The wood feels strange against Emril's hands as he follows suit, one hand on the handle and the other set to brace himself to push with all his might. Despite standing for who knows how long, the protective coating under his hand feels completely untouched from the elements, and the door itself feels so solid he could have mistaken it for stone.
Emril and Miles shove the doors closed, Miles with clearly less effort than what it takes Emril.
"Ya know kid-" Miles says grabbing an iron lockbar from its rest beside the door. "If you were half as strong as that sister of yours you'd probably be doing much more big n' important things than makin' this trek with an old man like me."
Emril grabs the end as Miles shoves it at him and guides it to the makeshift holders that had been carved into the grout around the door. "And if you had half my stamina we wouldnt have to rest anywhere near as often on the journey."
The telltale huff of Miles's laugh sounds out, the normally quiet sound amplified by the stone courtyard they stand in,
"Shouldnta taught you sass."
"Damn straight" Emril's face is plastered with a smug grin, causing miles to shake his head.
"Get movin'. We got two weeks of travel to do."
The two walk side by side toward their hitched horses, and Emril glances back towards the towering castle as he mounts up.
One look can tell any onlooker two major details about the castle. First, that it was built using magic. The spires climb in a way that doesn't feel possible based on any building he's ever seen, even in the capital. The way they curve and twist this way and that feels like a hand that was frozen in the midst of death throws.
The second is that it was not made for humans.
The size of the main doors in passages easily dwarfed both him and Miles, despite neither of them being short men, and the edges were lined with handles of varying heights and sizes. The other entrances and exits that were scattered inside and out were either too small to be usable or to lead straight to open air drops of a height that would easily kill him instantly.
The building itself screamed that it was home to all manner of creatures.
Many of those creatures that stood frozen in time inside the walls standing before him.
Emril shudders at the thought of any of the things he's seen inside moving, and ushers his horse forward.
"Relax boy." Miles chides as he leads the way forward. "You know as well as I do that none of them nasties inside will move an inch as long as that king a' theirs stays dead."
"... yeah" Emril agrees, "but what happens when he comes back?"
"Well, Emril," Miles says, his tone dropping, "that's when kids like you learn what war is like."
Miles's face is grim as they push on. "I ain't seen it, you sure as hell ain't seen it. But my pa did, and your pa's Pa did."
The sass and lightheartedness of Miles's voice disappears completely as the castle grows smaller behind them.
"Let's hope we never know what they saw then yeah, Boy?"
—---------------------------------------
The loud thud of the doors shutting echoes down the castle halls. Without anyone inside to fill the air with idle chatter or bodies to absorb it, the sound travels all across the grounds.
As it has for many years, the low thud would normally be the last bit of life breathed into the building. The sound slowly revertebrating into nothing until the next surveillance team came in a month.
Only this time, it doesn't fall on deaf ears, reaching the figure of a man laid on the floor.
The man looks as though he would normally have been put together, hair combed neatly to match the detailed coat and simple but beautiful ruby red brooch at his collarbone that pinned a half coat in place on his shoulder.
Now however, his hair was tousled, an expression of fear frozen on his face as he stared at the door in front of him.
Nothing stood out about him beyond his outfit. He was average in height and build, if a little on the heavier side. He could easily have passed for someone's overly pretentious father if not for two glaring items; a pair of horns that curled from the ends of his widow's peak, and a thin tail that ended in a spade-like point.
He honestly looked as though he lost a fight quite badly, with his limbs at an awkward angle as though he had been pinned down. His position had become one that the scouts to the castle knew well, as he was typically the last creature checked on their route.
As the last echo was swallowed by the silence, a new sound took its place. A low scraping sounded out, as the man on the ground's hand closed, his nails scratching the floor.
"My Lord…?" His voice was soft and raspy from disuse, "you've awoken... Finally."
—---------------------------------------------
Subin opened his eyes to pitch black, and immediately panicked. Not because it was dark, that he was used to. He always slept in complete darkness with blackout curtains.
But when he had moved to get up he felt padded walls at his sides, and the last he remembered he was NOT in an enclosed area.
'Is this a prank? Some sort of joke?' Subin thinks, running his hands across the surfaces around him and trying to quell the rising panic.
'If it is, this is a terrible one, and I am going to kill whoever put me in here. Is- Is this a coffin?' His breath catches in his throat at the thought. 'I know I've been saying I haven't been feeling well lately but this is just cruel!'
Finally, his hands catch on a smooth piece of metal, and he pushes, trying desperately to get out of the box.
Nothing happens.
Whatever he's in - and it better not be a coffin he swears to God - is either extremely heavy, or locked.
He slams his palm against the metal piece as a last resort, but all it gets him is a loud thud and a stinging palm.
"Am- Am I trapped?" He whispers, the padding around him acting as soundproofing, swallowing his voice so well that it didn't feel like it had ever even been there.
Newspaper stories flash through his head, of kids getting trapped in boxes and suffocating, and pranks going horribly wrong all too quickly.
'No' Subin thinks steeling himself. He just got his cafe open, just got in touch with the people who were going to provide the ingredients for everything they were going to make. He was going to live his quiet peaceful life, and not panic because his friends decided to play a prank on him for missing the congratulations party because he was sick.
He punches the roof of the box again, and frowns when it barely moves. He had stayed up late so many times and worked overtime for countless days just to be able to afford the down payment and convince his friends that this would work out, and this is how they repay him?
God sometimes they were the worst.
Right as he pulls back to punch the lid again, it moves.
The sudden light, although dim, causes him to flinch, squinting his eyes. Subin quickly pulls his hand to block the light, ready to tell off whichever one of the shits he calls his friends decided this was their best way to say 'You did it now don't work yourself to death!' but the words never left his lips.
He locks eyes with a man he doesn't recognize.
Older, with a hooked nose, inset eyes, and black hair that is disheveled. But the thing that stops Sumin's breath is the pair of horns growing from the peaks of his forehead.
"My Lord!" The man says, reaching out to Subin.
Subin stares blankly at the hand in front of him, eyes caught on how the nails are filed to fine points, and then back up at the man.
'What the hell is going on?'