MANIPULATED Book A (Sequel to Tempted)

15. Knock Knock

You decide to leave at Wake to head to the castle. You figure it is the best decision, even though you can't be certain it is the wisest, but anything is better than almost certain death. In this case, the unknown is better than the known.

For now, you need sleep. To your gratitude, Chase let's you bunk in one of the extra bedrooms upstairs, so you have a room all to yourself.

In some of the drawers, there are new clothes and sleepwear, so you change and slip into the clean and perfect sheets.

Overcome with exhaustion from your thoughts, you quickly fall asleep, but awake again in your head.

The perspective of your dream is strange, like a bird's eye view. It looks down upon the woods through the trees. Zooms through the leaves to spot Anti.

His pace is quick and his face is hard, he looks like he is looking for something.

He coils his mouth and calls something out.

Soon his voice becomes muffled, then louder, then clearer as you grow closer to him.

"(Y/N)"

He's looking for you. He frantically spins around for any sign of a response.

"(Y/N)"

He looks desperate to find you, but you can see in his eyes that there will be no forgiving you for running away. His final hopes are escaping him.

"Goddammit! (Y/N)!"

Your view zooms in close and lands in front of him. Now you are at eye level.

He pulls on his hair and turns around some more in frustration. Then his eyes meet yours.

He slowly puts his hands down, and makes no sudden movements, as if he is afraid to startle a baby deer.

"(Y/n)..." he says carefully. "You don't know what you're doing."

"I think I do," your voice echoes throughout your weird reality. You're not actually there with him, but you can see him in your dream and he can see you.

His face hardens. "You can't go to him."

"It's better than dying in the hands of you."

"No. Actually, me killing you would be merciful!" Then he realizes his mistake. He scared the baby deer.

"You only care about yourself and I am not going to be your puppet!"

You start to disappear from him and he runs towards you in rage, reaching out as if he can stop you. "You piece of shit!"

He misses your arm by a foot. Then everything goes dark before awaking in a bedroom again.

You have to go see Dark. And you have to get there before Anti does.

It's just before Wake, and Chase isn't awake yet. His door is closed as you walk past it downstairs.

Just before you walk out the door, you leave a note on the counter for Chase. It thanks him for everything he has done, wishes for another meeting of the two of you, and informs him that you raided his fridge of food for journey food.

When you reach outside, the woods awaits, Dark's castle tips raise in the distance. You look back at the cute little house, wishing you could never leave its comfort, but you need to end this. You start off towards the castle.

You walk in the red scenery, forgetting how beautiful it is. You climb a hill, and below it is a village. You can see specs move from one place to another, not being able to make out who each of them are. But this is the first time you've seen an actual thriving town.

As the day goes on, you get closer and closer to the castle, constantly being able to see it above the trees. Also as you approach it, the liveliness of the Other World dies. Less townspeople, less movement, more silence.

The castle takes shape, no longer looking like only towers peeking above tree tops. It sits flat on top of a large mountain. You can see the towers as a whole, the large black walls with tall windows, and a black moat at the foot of the castle just before the deep decline of the hill.

A long and windy red path leads up to the large wooden doors, every five yards a torch lighting up the way. It looks like a red carpet spread along the black stone, giving you a grand entrance to a premiere of a movie you star in.

You begin your ascent, and the castle is even more stunning up close. You can see almost every detail embedded into the dark stone, each design of the window frames, and exactly which points and corners are older than the others because of the crumbled rock.

You are so high up, you feel as if you can touch the back sky. With the castle against it, the stone walls almost look grey.

You approach the top of the hill and the moat that surrounds the castle. The water is clear but black, it looks poisonous to touch, but the red leaves that float atop it says otherwise.

You walk to the large black doors under the arches of stone.

Do you knock? Or just walk in? Like, what are you supposed to do? Your heart is pounding. Turn around? Is this a stupid idea? Should you listen to Anti?

No. You knock on the door firmly.

Almost automatically they open inwards, and reveal Darkiplier standing right behind them, Looking amused but pleasantly surprised by your appearance.

He grins. "I didn't think you were going to show up."

A/N

SUMMER STARTS AFTER SCHOOL WEDNESDAY! WOOOOOOO

But first: finals.

I should be studying rn but im still in pj's here at noon and I just uploaded two chapters one for each book.

Gotta get priorities done first right? Lol.