The Watcher

 

It's the middle of the night and Shawn is pulled from a dead sleep. He sits straight up looking around wondering what could have woken him. He puts his feet on the ground and stands up deciding that since he was up he may as well use the bathroom. Shawn walks to the doorway and as he steps into the hall he finds himself in the pitch black. Looking back into his room he sees his body laying asleep still in the bed.Beginning to grasp what is happening he grabs at his wrist finding the metal spider cuff wrapped around it. “Why me?” he says to himself and continues further into the darkness the gold shimmer of the mirror draws closer in front of him with every step. Finally face to face with his reflection the mirror shifts to reveal a hooded figure reading what seems to be a very old book. The book slams closed and the figure throws several different articles from his surroundings into the bag. “Why are you showing me this?” Shawn whispers in the darkness. The scene continues to play out in front of him. Grabbing the bag and an item wrapped in a cloth and begins up a set of stairs. Tired of watching Shawn steps through the mirror finding himself standing in the middle of a dark street. The construction of the buildings looked vaguely familiar. In front of him a door opens and the figure reveals his face in the light of the moon. That was Tommy and this was Verona Italy. Shawn watches as Romeo closes the door behind him, locking it then taking a few steps back and whispering. “Adjustionem Excitat” Flames engulf the door and he turns to walk away pulling his hood over his head. “Oh Tommy... No.” Shawn shakes his head, unable to take action as an astral projection. “What did you find?” As Tommy turns around he finds a dark figure impeding his path. “Your an evasive one Mr Romeo.” The figure steps into the light revealing her face and pulling a short sword from a sheath on her hip. “On behalf of the dark.” She says as she swings the sword. Tommy reacting on instinct jumps back and unravels the dagger from the cloth he had concealed it in and takes a defensive stance then pointing the dagger at her. “You won’t find me an easy target..” he grumbles as he rushes her. The sword and the dagger clash against each other and Tommy points to the sky. “Percutiam Dei!” He cries and a bolt of lightning falls from the heavens striking the tips of the blades, a flash of light blinds Shawn as he stands there watching in horror the flames growing behind him as they engulf the building. As Shawns eyes adjust back to the darkness He watches Romeo grab hold of the woman and lower her to the ground. Her hair singed and her clothing smoking. “Who are you?” Tommy asks. “Go fuck yourself.” She whispers through shallow breaths.

The now raging fire lights the streets as if it were daytime sirens can be heard way off in the distance. Shawn begins to panic but Tommy calmly remains speaking to the woman. “You should not have drug me into this. I severely doubt any of you have any real idea of what you're messing with. Now I have a role to play. Now I have to follow in my forefathers footsteps. You know waaaay back in the day when The Left Hand began, there were founding families on both sides. One of them being the Montecchis or as most people know them the Montehughs.Those founding families fled and changed their surnames in order to disappear. The Montecchis in order to honor the son who had fallen prey to The Left Hand changed their surname to his first name… Romeo.” Tommy chuckles. “Thats me...My bloodline is old and with it comes things I never even knew existed in this world.”

“Good for you, you figured it out now leave me to take my final breaths in peace. I swear to god if I have to hear your voice any more i'll end it myself.” She chokes at him.

Tommy goes to reply but as he opens his mouth to speak she looks at him and with her last bit of strength takes her blade and runs it across her own throat and ends her own life.

Tommy quickly searches her for any kind of identification but finds nothing, he stands up and throws his hood then runs back over to the building grabbing the cloth the dagger had been wrapped in and quickly gathers it up wrapping it back around the dagger. The building begins to collapse in front of him, The sirens now drawing closer. “You gotta get out of here Tommy.” Shawn says worriedly but as Tommy goes to run off down the street the sky opens up with light. Just as when Tommy was first awakened. The same light also shining down on the body of the now deceased Left Hand assassin. It quickly fades from the woman's body but as it does the light engulfing Tommy only gets brighter until a pulse of energy pumps from the sky picking him up off the ground and forcing its way into him. He screams out in pain as this was not like the first time. This did not belong to him and he could feel it forcing its way in. The energy exploding through the air the flames raising hire and hire from the building and by the time the light has faded and Tommy stand gasping for breath down on one knee half of the city block was burning, Fire Trucks begin to arrive and men begin to shuffle around hooking hoses to trucks as quickly as they can. Two paramedics rush to the now corpse of a woman in the street. Tommy has managed to sneak away. The buildings sizzle as the first sprays of water crash over them from the fire trucks. Shawn reaches down to his wrist and turns the spider on the cuff. Darkness.

Shawn awakens the next morning completely run down. Barely able to keep his eyes open he makes his way down to the kitchen. Shawn having familiarized himself with the castle over the last few days has become obsessed with the coffee. Making himself a pot and sitting his phone down on the counter to check his social media for the morning and then likely mindlessly scroll tiktok for hours instead finds a news article titled The Dragon of Verona.He clicks on it finding the scene from his dreams laid out in front of him in photos on his phone. The buildings engulfed in flames had taken hours to put out. With no evidence on how the fires started to begin with or how they spread across the entire block so quickly the article joked that perhaps a dragon had decided to fly over the city in the night and just provide a warning to the humans that it was their. The article goes on to explain that the only casualty of the night had been the woman who the authorities Identified as a woman named Linda Sengir.

“This fucking mirror…. Its just doing as it pleases now… waking me up in the middle of the night to send me off like I can actually do something about whats happening when I cant affect the world as a ghost or whatever the fuck I am when I walk through it” Shawn sighs and turns his phone up on its side then takes a sip of his coffee. He pulls his mask over his face and starts the live stream out to the world. “Hello Friends.” He says as the stream goes dead.