Chapter 9: A State Of Shock

I opened my eyes slowly, hoping that everything would be back to normal and that I had just fallen asleep. I was wrong. The room had been torn apart; I was on the floor next to the remains of the bed. The walls were charred and the window had been blown to pieces. Shards of glass were scattered all around me and the bedroom door was hanging off its hinges, swaying and creaking. There were cracks in the walls and I knew that if I didn’t get out of here soon the room was going to collapse on top of me. I heard someone coughing and quickly heaved myself up from the floor. Lou was at the other side of the bed. The bed canopy had fallen and landed right on top of his back.

“Lou!” I shouted, running over to him. To my surprise, he rolled over and pushed it off himself with little effort, crawling out and coughing. He had cuts all over his chest, arms and back and his lip was bleeding.
“Tim, are you ok?” he asked as he looked up at me.
“Me?! What about you?! You’re bleeding!” I screamed. He wiped the blood from his lip with his thumb.
“So I am.” he said casually. He stood up and grabbed my hand, pulling me up from the floor.

“I don’t care about myself, but if anyone else in this house has died there’s going to be Hell.” he growled, storming out of the room, still holding tightly onto my hand. I gasped as I looked at the staircase, which was completely gone. There was now no way of getting to the ground floor other than jumping and hoping you didn’t break your neck. All of the paintings in the hall downstairs had been either shredded or incinerated, and there wasn’t one window in the house which was intact. Every inch of every wall was stained with ash, and most of the furniture was in pieces. There was an enormous hole in the ceiling and pieces of it could be seen on the floor below us. Lou suddenly looked alert.

“Can you hear that?” he asked me. I listened carefully and sure enough there was the sound of someone crying. Lou looked around quickly, running into one of the rooms and dragging me with him. One of the servants was lying on the floor. It was the one I had seen at dinner, only his hair had fallen out of the bun and his white suit was now black and grey. He had a large metal pole sticking out of his leg. Lou let go of my hand and dashed over to him, kneeling down. He whispered something to the boy and he nodded. Lou grabbed the pole and pulled it out quickly. The boy screamed and covered his eyes, whimpering. Lou looked around quickly.

“Tim, give me your shirt.” he said.
“Wh...what?” He came over and grabbed one of the sleeves of my shirt, ripping it off quickly. Then he tied it round the boy’s leg tightly and lifted him up from the floor.

“We’ve got to get outside before this place collapses.” he said quickly.
“But what about everyone else?!” I shouted, helping the boy onto Lou’s back so he could carry him more easily.
“We’ll just have to hope they can look after themselves, there isn’t enough time.” I followed him out of the room to the staircase.
“How do we get down?” I asked, worried about his answer. He paused, as if he was thinking. He held out his hand in front of him.
“Move out of the way.” he said. There was a rumbling noise and some of the stones from the staircase and the ceiling began to move slowly below us. They lined up in front of us to form steps, and then rested in place. He put his hand down, panting.

“You didn’t tell me you could do that!” I shrieked.
“I d...didn’t think I would h...have to” he stammered breathlessly. Whatever he had just done obviously took a lot of energy from him.
“Go on.” he said, nodding towards the steps. I cautiously stepped onto the first, terrified that they were going to fall. The stones were practically floating in mid air. I stepped down all of the stones to the bottom very slowly. When I reached the bottom he was already behind me. He suddenly dropped to his knees, panting. The stones behind him fell with a loud crash, leaving cracks in the marble floor. He had been holding them up all the time while we were walking down. I felt guilty for walking down them so slowly. I put my hand on his shoulder.

“I...I’m ok.” he breathed, his voice shaking. The servant got off his back and knelt beside him.
“Master! You’re weak! Let me help you!” He rolled up his sleeve and I frowned, wondering what he was doing.
“No!” Lou shouted, standing up shakily. “I’m fine.” There was a loud rumbling and the rest of the ceiling crumbled slightly. A few small pieces of stone dropped near my feet. All three of us ran quickly outside, just as the walls and ceiling collapsed, the whole house falling in on itself.

We turned round to look at what was left of the beautiful castle that had once been there. It was rubble, that’s the only fitting way to describe what I saw. Lou dropped to his hands and knees, shaking. At first I thought he was crying, until I heard him laughing. He lifted his head slightly, looking at the pile of stones that had once been his home. All that was left was the fountain, although the statues head was missing, like someone had cut it off. It was slightly grotesque.
“Oh, you’ve done it now, you bastards.” Lou said under his breath.

“Oh thank God!” we heard behind us suddenly. I turned around. It was Walter, E.J and Ike, with the rest of the servants. Most of them looked unharmed, with only a few injuries here and there. Walter ran over to Lou and dropped down next to him, putting his hand on his back gently. Lou looked at him and smiled.
“I’m ok, thanks.” He stood up slowly, Walter still holding onto him.
“Is this a declaration of war?” E.J asked suddenly, smirking.
“Why don’t we go and ask?” said Lou. He looked at me.
“Tim. I’m so sorry. I thought you were safe here.” he said.
“Can we take him with us?” he asked, looking at Walter. Walter looked at me.
“I guess we have to, he’s become involved, whoever did this obviously intended to hurt him as well.”
“W...where are we going?” I asked, dreading the answer. Lou looked at me sympathetically.

“To Hell.”