Gothikana
: Prologue 1

Vad

There was nothing scarier than a blind old woman with whites for eyes suddenly gripping your arm under a full moon night.

Old Zelda had once been the caretaker of the home little Vad now lived in with other boys. But after she went blind, the admin people let her stay on, which was a mistake in Vad’s opinion. Because she knew stuff, stuff she shouldn’t know, stuff about boys she couldn’t even see. She’d known Reed would drown in the pond a week before he did. She knew about Tor and his skin burning from the inside, something he’d never told anyone. And she said his best friend would ‘eat flames’ one day, whatever that meant, and Fury was scared of fires.

Old Zelda was scary as shit. And Vad avoided her every chance he could.

So, being caught in the small garden on a boy’s birthday night in front of the others wasn’t something he ever wanted.

Her frail, wrinkled hand gripped his thin arm with surprising strength.

“To a castle where none go,” she said, her voice shaking, her face heavily wrinkled, the whites of her eyes staring eerily at Vad, “you will go, boy.”

Fury sniggered at his side. “Why would he go to a castle, Zelda? Where would he even replace a castle?” They were piss poor, the lot of them.

“He will replace many things,” Old Zelda spoke over his friend. “Purple eyes. You will replace purple eyes.”

Ajax, another boy the same age as Vad, roared a laugh. “Purple eyes? Nobody has purple eyes, Zelda. Or maybe a freak does.”

“Maybe he also replaces a three-legged man,” another boy shouted with a girly giggle.

“Or a girl with two horns,” another said.

Vad blushed furiously, his seven-year-old self getting mad at Old Zelda for cornering him like that and saying weird stuff about him his friends made fun of.

Amidst the laughter at his expense, Zelda’s grip on his arm tightened. “Don’t forget, boy. It’s a matter of many deaths.”