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alicerosejensen · 10 months ago

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Find Me. Pt 2

Synopsis: In the cold light, you can see some old secrets of the old castle. Be a beautiful lady from the portraits while your knight is on his way to try to save you from the clutches of a madman.

Warning: Kidnapping, ancient architecture, mentioned that the reader does not have a father; two-person narrative (Leon v reader); angst; trauma; dark; blood; mention of vomiting; severed limbs; loss of consciousness; B.O.W.

A/N: after a long break, bursting in with a continuation. I hope for support and that at least someone will be pleased. I think I wrote all the warnings, of course, I'm not a master of writing all sorts of horror, but still, read at your own risk (see warning).

A small spoiler - In the next chapter, one very familiar character will appear, although he died in canon, but I send canon to hell.

Prologue, part 1

A strange voice echoed inside, sending small waves of trembling, forcing your palms to involuntarily clench into fists as if a weapon might appear in them. You tensed your whole body, looked up at the upper tier, where the stranger's voice was coming from. Taking a few steps back, carefully climbing several stairs, you hoped to see a face, but the upper floor was still a dark corner without a light source, no matter how hard you tried to strain your eyes.

"Come to me

And see true love"

It's hard to stay calm and unbiased when you find yourself in a strange place, but panic slowly took over your mind. You took a few more steps up, holding on to the railing, involuntarily bending your knees, but no one appeared. Your heart started pounding, your fingers dug into the wood, threatening to leave nail marks, as if a monster would come out of the dark corners and a pathetic railing would be the only way to somehow linger in this world.

"Excuse me" You spoke up after a long silence. For a couple of seconds, it even seemed to you that the male voice was just a figment of your frightened imagination, however…

Thunder boomed loudly, echoing in the castle walls, leaving behind an eerie echo from the rumble like the screams of restless, forgotten souls. You gasped loudly in surprise and a brief flash of bright light broke through the dark stained glass window, but it took a moment to see the silhouette and make sure that someone was upstairs.

He laughed too cheekily, almost mockingly at your fright. It was hard to tell if he was looking out the window somewhere or at you, but you tried to straighten your back as you continued on your way back, eventually clinging to a wide marble column and cautiously peeking out from behind it.

"It would be better if you didn't walk around the castle at such a late hour… It's very old, I wouldn't want the floor to collapse under your feet." Vaguely, the stranger's voice was familiar to you. Deep at the same time pleasant, but making the wound on your forehead throb unpleasantly with pain. A cool breeze hit you in the face, cheering you up a little, even though the uncertainty was making you shiver.

You winced at the unpleasant sensations, but you didn't look away even after a few more short loud flashes in the sky illuminating the dark hall.

"Go back to your room and we'll continue our acquaintance in the morning. There is no need to look for unnecessary problems when you have such potential hidden in you." The stranger turned away from the stained glass window after taking a couple of steps forward, and even though you were separated by pitiful meters, he did not have the opportunity to reach you. This already added a little courage to you, but it made the invisible gaze uneasy "I have big special plans for you"

“What?.." You asked perplexedly into the void, noticing how, without waiting for your answer, he simply walks out the door leaving you alone with a whole bunch of questions. "Hey, wait! Who are you…"

The slam of the heavy door made you flinch again, followed by another flash of lightning.

After waiting for some time, you anxiously looked around, hearing nothing for several seconds except the annoying clock. Nevertheless, I decided to go downstairs, staring at the bas-relief located on most of the wall.

"Hades kidnaps Persephone, taking her to the underworld, and next to the chariot in a team of four horses is the very flower whose fragrance the goddess of spring inhaled a moment before the arrival of Hades"

There is even some irony in this. It is noteworthy that the flower itself was somehow different, not that you paid much attention to it, but there was a feeling that it could be important.

At least there's time to look around and try to avoid meeting that mysterious man whose face you never saw. The lighting left much to be desired, but still involuntarily you looked at various paintings with landscapes, feeling like a tiny ant in this castle. You took one last look in the direction from which you came, considering that it would not be easy to find your way back and stretched out your hand to the west door turning the handle, feeling how it gave way, after which the damp air hit your face.

In any case, your priority was and is to find some means of communication.

Clearly no one here wants to answer your questions. After casting a final glance around the small hall, you stepped out the door with a strange feeling of being followed, although perhaps that was just your imagination, fueled by shadows, glare, and fear that made your palms sweat.

"You can't know that this is revenge!" Ingrith raised her voice for the umpteenth time. "Why would someone kidnap her and then never contact you?"

"I don't know!" Leon answered rudely, turning his back to her, grabbed the bag from the closet, threw it on the bed, involuntarily lingering his gaze on the gunshot wound on the wooden door.

The thought that you could be dead… Every night he drove them away. He jumped up to find a new lead, witnesses, at least something that could shed light on your disappearance, but apart from traces of your DNA and drops of blood from the syringe, nothing was found. Tears welled up in his eyes every time he thought about how you could have suffered. Because of him. Because of his work and how many enemies Leon had made for himself since becoming an agent.

"It was my mistake," he said quietly, pulling out your chiffon scarf instead of his things. The familiar scent was pleasant but subtle, making everything inside ache even more. Hannigan's eyes showed regret, but she had no words to console her. "No one else had a motive to hurt her. She was kind, so good and innocent. I thought I could save her from the evil that was happening in the world, but in the end… a cruel joke, because of me she suffered."

She lowered her head and fell silent.

"Half a year, Leon, you know perfectly well that the chance that she might be alive is very low. I would even say catastrophically low, that recording doesn't prove anything even if it's real."

"Maybe, but even if I have one chance in a thousand, I'll take it."

His fingers carefully and tenderly folded the scarf, leaving it lying on the shelf with the others. As if the owner of these clothes would return home at any moment. Hannigan didn't know for sure, but for some reason she was sure that Leon's deep affection did not allow him to get rid of your clothes, or books, or anything else. Moreover, she knew that if she went into the bathroom now, your toothbrush would probably be there.

Returning to their thoughts, they met eyes for just a moment before Leon continued to pack his things.

"I just want to say that the disappearance could be related to the family or some information that she accidentally learned."

"Her mother wouldn't hurt a fly, and what could she have learned that would cause her to be kidnapped? That the statue in the museum is not real?" Leon quipped, to which Ingrid rolled her eyes.

"And the father?" she carefully brought up the topic, and Leon turned around, looking at her questioningly. "I know we've already considered this option, but for some reason you point-blank reject the option that it could be related to the family and not to you."

"Because Fiona raised her alone." Leon picked up a framed photograph of you with your mother and dog, smiling happily, from the table, turning it so Hannigan could see. "You know those stories where a man gets scared of responsibility and runs away with his heels flashing. Fiona decided to keep the child despite all the difficulties. She is a good woman and does not deserve to be left without her only daughter."

Leon turned away again, continuing to pack. There is no point in taking a weapon with him; his mission is unofficial and unsupported by the government. There will be no support, so he cannot count on others, however, it seems to him that way it is even easier on the soul. At least a few innocent souls will linger on this world.

"Any mother wants to believe that her missing child will one day find his way home. Especially if this child was the meaning of life."

Leon knew it. Self-hatred clouded his mind every time the tears and pleas of the poor woman clutching his hands begging him to find and return her daughter appeared before his eyes again. A month after your disappearance, he finally found himself on the threshold of your former home, where your mother let him in, inviting him into the living room. On the coffee table lay an open photo album with your childhood photos, which Fiona constantly looked through, peering into the child's face. She offered him tea, but Leon politely refused, not wanting to disturb the unfortunate woman. And yet, in her tear-stained red eyes, a hope for at least some news flashed, but just as quickly this hope faded, leaving behind a new stream of endless maternal tears. He knew that he should not have come and stirred up your mother's already painful past, but still, he was not a fool, so the version with his father had to be checked among the first.

"She was such a good girl, Leon," the words echoed in his mind. "Why would anyone take her? She didn't do anything wrong."

Hannigan knows one thing for sure: Leon will still rush forward, without looking back, grasping at a thin thread. So she carefully hands him the DSO smartphone so that he can contact her when he gets there.

There was only one possible option left.

Revenge on him.

"I won't be able to be in touch all the time, and you know how much trouble you're risking. The big shots won't like it when they find out you chose your problems over them."

"Someone still owes me" Leon gratefully accepted the smartphone, smiling without sarcasm. "You know, sometimes it pays to save the daughters of former presidents."

Ingrid chuckled, shook her head, sighed tiredly, and sat down at the table to dump all the necessary information into his phone.

In fact, these walks in the dark were starting to get on your nerves more and more, which is why your heart was already beating painfully against your chest so that breathing exercises were hardly helping you cope with panic attacks. But still, the endless adventures ended with finding a fairly spacious, light kitchen with very old appliances. You walked forward, running your hand over the worn surface of the cabinet, noting that although this kitchen has long needed repairs and new furniture, someone was cleaning here. Moreover, there is some kind of electricity and gas here, judging by the gas stove, which you would jokingly call from the last century, but there was a large empty saucepan on it and next to the sink there was something very similar to an almost defrosted chicken. Perhaps they will even feed you. You shook your head, deciding that thoughts about food would be out of place right now, especially since you still felt sick. The lamp above your head continued to hum annoyingly, forcing you to look up a couple of times to see a moth flapping its wings above the dim bulb.

Brrrr disgusting.

You shuddered, either from the cold or disgust, turning the corner of the kitchen, seeing a staircase leading down to the basement or cellar in front of you. True, the passage was blocked with some boards, so you had to use a little brute force in the amount of a couple of kicks on the wood, forcing the nails to fall out and the boards to fall to the floor, after which you were able to go inside, where, like a miracle, on one of the shelves with some boxes lay a completely modern flashlight. You immediately grabbed it, pressing the switch to see if the batteries were working, and luck smiled at you for the second time. At least something good happened that night. Alas, but apart from expensive bottles of aromatic wines, the years of aging of which were clearly longer than you. You rummaged through the shelves trying to find something else useful like a bag or maybe a map… the latter would be great if you could find it. However, that was where your luck ended, you of course tried to climb up to the top shelves with the help of a ladder and see what was interesting there. After sorting through a bunch of dusty rolls, something huge black quickly ran in front of you and disappeared into the corner. You stopped, clicking the flashlight switch, directing the beam of light right behind the box and…

"A-A-A…"

A huge hairy spider the size of a fist quickly crawled straight towards you, making you scream and fall down along with the ladder, dropping the flashlight.

Having fallen painfully on your back, despite the pain and the cloud of dust raised, you looked forward at the culprit of your fall. Jumping up, limping from the blow, you quickly grabbed the flashlight, deciding to hell with this search. Huge spiders in a huge castle wouldn't be such a rarity, if it weren't for your arachnophobia, and this, apparently, was a tarantula.

Lord, if Leon were here, you would have sent him there instead of you without a second thought. Spiders! This is simply disgusting! He used to get rid of them, thereby protecting your nervous system. Apparently, some of the fears of parents are passed on to their children.

Well, that's what Leon joked when he found out, during his first meeting with your mother, that you were both horrified by arthropods.

In any case, you had no intention of staying even a second longer in this terrible place, so you slipped out of the kitchen and found yourself right in the spacious dining room. Heavy velvet scarlet curtains hung to the floor, revealing the dark, endless forest massif outside the wide window. The moon seemed like nothing, since black clouds covered the sky, but still the moonlight seeped in, falling on a long table covered with a red tablecloth, on which plates and cutlery stood opposite each other, and in the fireplace, the wood had clearly only recently burned out, but above the fireplace there was something that caught your attention, causing your pupils to dilate in surprise.

You.

Blinking a few times, you took a few steps forward, not believing your eyes. Some kind of evil joke?!

Or… the chances are so small, but the longer you looked at the portrait of a young girl in front of you, the worse you felt. The dizziness intensified and it felt like you were hit on the head with a sledgehammer, forcing you to bend over, clutching your forehead, and leaning your other hand on the back of the chair. Your stomach twisted into a knot, causing you to feel your mouth fill with saliva and bile, which you spat out onto the floor beneath you, falling to your knees.

This was nonsense!

The ringing silence seemed deafening, and your vision was becoming blurrier and blurrier, losing the outlines of objects, but the girl's face was still as clear as possible. You sat down on your knees, trying to catch your breath so as not to faint, while simultaneously wiping the remaining bile from your mouth with your sleeve, staining your snow-white sleeve. You had never had such attacks in your life. Of course, you fainted several times, and even once in front of Leon, after which he insisted on an examination, but that was due to low hemoglobin, but now…

Standing up carefully, leaning on the same chair, you peer into the face in the portrait. Maybe it's a joke, but you are still an exact copy of this lady in a stunning beige tea dress, looking at you with the same eyes, holding a book in her hands.

"Philosophia Occulta"

Interesting. In addition to the well-drawn title on the book that reminded you of your teenage years, you noticed another remarkable detail when you shone the flashlight on the portrait. A brooch. The same one that was in the box in the room you woke up in and that you attached to your clothes. In different sources, there are flashes about how some people from the past are terribly similar to some modern people, which gives rise to different theories. In the end, no matter how frightening it was, it was easier for you to believe that this picture was painted recently, just to scare you.

Having turned off the flashlight, you could not tear your eyes away from the portrait. The headache subsided a little and you would prefer to drink some water to get rid of the nasty taste in your mouth. Fortunately, the kitchen was behind you. Turning away, you took a few steps before you heard the noise and someone's shrill screams.

It was impossible not to give in to curiosity bordering on the approaching horror. The shadows began to thicken again when you reached for the door, pulling the handle. Closed, but downstairs.

Click.

One small turn of the latch was enough to unlock the lock and the door gave way forward, opening the way to a new corridor. Shining a flashlight in front of you, you suddenly realized that you had only opened a cut for yourself and you only needed to go up the stairs to get to your bedroom. Not knowing how good an idea it was to follow the men painful screams, you nevertheless carefully stepped up the stairs, feeling how a cold sweat began to break out and your fingertips froze with horror. Your heart began to pound. You were the only one completely alone and if these screams had a completely terrifying reason…

Holding your breath, a shudder ran through your entire body. A hurricane was raging outside the castle, and something unimaginably terrible was happening here. You walked past your room, although the desire to hide in it and lock the door was so natural in the current circumstances, however, driven by stupid fearlessness, you walked forward, and the screams became louder and louder, but now a guttural animal roar was added to them.

Someone else's footsteps resembling running were clearly approaching you.

You directed the light of the flashlight forward, peering until a disfigured, bloody and disfigured face in screams of agony appeared before you. Horror paralyzed you so that the scream stuck in your throat, not allowing you to utter a word. Instead of a left hand, shreds of what was left of it were visible, but with some hope, he stretched out his right hand to you as if before death you could appear to him as an angel who showed him the light in countless dark corridors.

"Help… me" Blood flowed profusely from his mouth. Barely stretching out his hand in response, a deafening scream rang out that eclipsed everything around. A huge animal muzzle with scarlet eyes appeared behind the man's back, clinging to his neck with fangs, tearing his throat with amazing ease. The sounds of tearing flesh made you cover your ears with your hands, but your eyes still watched as a huge clawed paw, only vaguely resembling a human one, tore the head from the body, throwing it to your feet and a bloody mouth growled at you. The flashlight fell with a thud.

At some point, you realized that that scream was actually yours. This was the end. Collapsing to the floor due to the horror that buckled your legs, you found yourself right in a puddle of warm alien blood, which made you look again at the torn head that the monster touched and it rolled back to you, making you sob as you crawled to the wall thinking only about how your death would be quick.

Some spider appendages controlled by it crawled out from behind the monster. Tears flowed down your cheeks as you curled up into a ball, closing your eyes for the last time, screaming, preparing for pain.

"Stop right now! Don't you dare touch her, you worthless thing!"

With a quiet squeal the monster dropped to all fours slowly backing away from you in front of its master, tucking its appendages back behind its back. Whatever it was you saw it take the man's headless body and run off into the darkness before your savior appeared before your eyes

Dark hair framed his face beautifully, highlighting his natural pallor, or maybe it was the poor lighting, but his green eyes looked straight into your soul with deep concern. He kicked the head, causing it to roll away from you, squatting down to you, carefully taking your face in his hands, wiping away the tears with his fingers.

"I'm so sorry, you shouldn't have seen this, but if you had listened to me and gone straight to the your room, you wouldn't have witnessed such a tragic scene. Calm down, she won't touch you."

"Lord-d..."

You whispered with just your lips, feeling everything inside you turn over. The blood beats like an alarm in your ears, but instead of another headache, you fall into darkness from which you have no desire to emerge.

Even the smell of blood disappears, however, perhaps the reason is that the caring owner of the castle just picked you up, hugging you to himself, carrying you back to the bedroom where you woke up.

"Hannigan, maybe you can make it a little easier for me by narrowing

The Spanish flashbacks continued to roll over Leon, although there was no village here, no sign of a biological weapon, a premonition stubbornly told him that evil was waiting in the depths. When a certain area was highlighted on the smartphone Ingrid gave him, he checked the gun again.

"Alright, that's better."

"Leon, I'm not entirely sure, but I did find some information. Not entirely reliable, although it might be interesting."

Opening the file that had just been sent to him, Leon quickly scanned the lines, still surprised despite his years of working for the DSO. But it looked like he was in for another stroll through the historical sites, although he was unlikely to be expected there.