The Changeling
Ch.1 The Queen
Hollis was stiff from sitting for what he presumed was an entire night. His stomach grumbled and reminded him that he had had nothing else but a couple of biscuits with his tea this morning (yesterday morning?). The cell was complex, aged, and dated in a room that Hollis thought would be more appropriate on the set of Lord Of The Rings, than in the middle of San Francisco. The air was cold and brusk, his teeth kept knicking his lip as they chattered.
The door at the other end of the hall seemed too quiet. The men who had brought him here were odd, to say the least. On his way down the Embarcadero he had noticed a man lying under the bridge, he’d stopped to offer this individual a hand, most would have ignored him but he seemed so similar to his father, the light brown hair and pale complexion. Hollis couldn’t ignore the inebriated man. As he leaned down, however, he noticed something strange, the man’s eyes were open and a glowing green the color of Kryptonite.
Hollis could only stare, transfixed as the man’s head gaunt and slack turned ever so slowly in his direction it felt robotic. A hiss escaped the man’s lips “Hhhhaaalllffllingggg” his mouth expanded like a snake’s, and a blaring screech rang out. Hollis cupped his ears and felt himself start to sway. His body felt heavy as asphalt and he started to descend onto his knees. Looking around blurrily he realized people were walking past him and seemed unaffected, as if he were invisible.
Two men had appeared as if out of thin air, both with large blue tusks jutting out of their jaws and large snake-like eye’s. Hollis mind you, had grown up seeing strange things but this was beyond the strange of the San Francisco streets. Both men smiled and their tusks moved upwards as they did, Hollis felt his last breath fumble out of his chest as he fainted.
He felt ire as he noticed the ragged state of his clothes. He assumed indignantly that he had been dragged to this damned cell and tossed in here like a sack of garbage, his pants were torn and his shirt was caked in what looked like mud (he hoped), and though he did not possess a mirror he could feel a split in his lip, his tongue darted out to dab at it the sting feeling numbed by the extremely frigid air.
The door across the room burst open with a shrill bang as the wood splintered. The tusked men had returned and suddenly Hollis forgot about his wretched state or the fact that his father’s cup sat across the room exposed. He tried his best truly he did to seem menacing but all he could manage is what felt like a teacher’s frustrated scowl. Both men stopped just outside of his iron cage. “So… tell me Halfling … who is your sire?” Hollis could only stare, (sire?) What Hollis should have said was something intelligible and persuasive what he said was “Who… sired … me?” blank stares answered his question. “Ehem… you seem to have made an error sirs, I know not of what you speak.”
Chilling grins swept across their tusked faces, and suddenly Hollis thought it might have been better to play dead. The taller of the two laughed “No matter, she’ll sort you out” pulling a small iron key from his belt he unlocked the cell and wrestled Hollis’ shrieking form to standing. Hollis tried to center himself and not think of impending doom. They made their way past his father’s cup and into the corridor.
Hollis felt he wouldn’t like the answer but he asked anyway “Um… who is it that will be sorting me out?” Both men chuckled “The Queen.”
Usually, he loved being right, but now he only cringed.
