Hellbound With You

Looking around this vast room, Abi silently walked towards the window. She remembered what Zeke had told her - that she must prepare herself mentally for their upcoming journey. Was she prepared? What kind of things were waiting for them on this journey they were about to embark?

Abi couldn't help but feel nervous but she was determined. She had to bring Alex back even if it killed her. Her eyes glimmered with hope and strong determination and willpower before she closed them in an effort to train herself. She took a deep breath and directed all her focus to her sense of hearing. And before she knew it, there it was… she started to hear voices… the sound of the wind and the chirping of birds… the creaks and swivels of doors and even footsteps… her world was suddenly filled with nothing but a myriad of different sounds.

…

Inside the study room.

Alex explained to Zeke the feelings he felt just before he fell off the roof. Zeke listened carefully to his story and when Alex finished, Zeke just nodded.

Zeke told Alex his thoughts on the matter. He told Alex that he thought that he might be in more danger now and that they had to quickly find these witches. Specifically, they needed to find their queen, the most powerful witch of them all because she was the only one that could answer their questions, the only one that could find out the truth about what was going on with him. However, Zeke didn't tell Alex about his latest theory - that he might be dying.

Alex obviously had some doubts from the way Alex looked at Zeke, but Zeke didn't care. The most important thing was that he agreed to go on this journey with Abigail.

After showing Alex his plans, he looked up at the man and asked, "any questions?"

Alex, who was sitting like a boss with one long leg folded over the other as he rested his face on his knuckles, looked back at him with a serious gaze.

"Do you know where he is? My Abigail's husband?" he questioned.

Zeke: ". . ."

Great. Just f*king great! He had spent all this time talking about his plans because their actions needed to be precise and quick and well thought out but did this man even listen to a single word he said?!

Was he f*king serious right now?! Zeke was so frustrated! There were far more important things to be talking about than the whereabouts of Abigail's husband was…

Sigh… Zeke could only sigh like a father who had an inattentive son, one that he might be angry at, but still loved deep down.

"So you finally found out that she was married. I hope your obsession for her is over now," Zeke said. Since he could remember, Alex had never shown any interest towards married women. He heard that back then, he never took any of the queens of the kingdoms he had conquered, even though that was what most of the kings did back in those times. And that hadn't changed for thousands of years. That sense of morality was one of the few things that he seemed to have retained throughout the passage of time, despite the huge number of beautiful, married ladies constantly throwing themselves at him.

However…

"Who said it's over? I want you to find out if that man is still alive, Zeke," he ordered, making Zeke fall speechless.

"And if he's still alive? Then what?"

Alex became silent, a slight frown on his face.

"Are you going to kill him?"

"Maybe. But only if he refuses to divorce her."

". . ."

Idiot. Go ahead, kill yourself! "Sigh, I suggest you stop thinking about those matters for now, Alex. You need to focus on this problem. We need to figure this out first and then you can do whatever you want after that. What if you become weak again and that man beats you up instead and kills you?"

Alex glanced at him and a playful smirk danced on his face.

"Don't worry Zeke. I won't die. Not now that I've finally found something interesting in this boring world," he said as he stood up and turned his back to him as he walked away.

Zeke silently watched him leave. Once the door closed, his expression changed. His eyes became calculating and he wondered where this journey would really lead them.

…

Abi was still lost in her dark world.

She tried to focus on one voice because she understood nothing. She heard way too many noises. The voices were jumbled like tangled threads, impossible to unravel. She thought that she needed to learn to focus on one voice to be able to listen to what they were saying, because at this point, her ability was pretty useless.

It was useless that she could hear everything if she couldn't decipher one sound from another, let alone listen in to any conversations. She thought that if she could learn to focus, she might ever hear conversations between the witches. If that happened, she would definitely become useful on their journey.

Thus, Abi tried to delve even deeper in her concentration. She let her mind form a picture of all the different sounds she heard and gave each one a different colour. Her mind saw a wavy mass of long strings of all the different colours in the world. She stared at the moving colourful waves in her mind's eye and mentally tugged on a piece of coloured string. That vibration echoed louder and she followed that trail along, trying to pull it away from the tangled mess.

As she followed the coloured string along, she drew closer to its source. She had picked this colour because it was a vibrant yellow, a happy colour and it seemed as if it corresponded to its owner's pitch and tone of their voice. It was a pleasing voice, a happy voice, just like the colour yellow. She thought that the owner of the voice must be a cute, cheerful, young lady.

As she focused more on the source of the thread, the vague, jumbled noises slowly became clearer, as if she was turning the tuner dial on a radio to get a better signal. Then, in the next second, she clearly heard a young lady say, "what's the name of this tea?" and Abi rejoiced at her success.

However, her concentration broke when she heard loud heartbeats moving closer towards her.