Eryndor could not believe he had ignored every sign he had seen pointing at the obvious.
He watched as the guards dragged him inside after punching his face and all that said to him was how it could have been avoided had he stepped in when he first bumped into him.
'Gaaahhh! This is all my fault. What was I thinking? I literally had him right with me and I foolishly let him go.' He blamed himself as he slapped his head.
He floated from where he had been hiding all along towards the gate as he wondered if he should go inside. This entire event meant that he was going to have to organise a rescue for the boy he had lost out of his carelessness.
As he got to the gate, he was skeptical on whether anyone would see him. He looked above him and he could see that the guards stationed on patrol were strictly observing the area.
Eryndor then decided to see if they could hear him too.
"Hey, I'm a criminal too. Don't you want to arrest me?" He asked looking up to see if they would move.
He was met with absolute silence. Clearly, they did not hear him and now came the test to see if they could see him.
He floated upwards as he hesitated just beneath the edge of the wall they were patrolling.
He put up a tentative arm that he started wiggling in the air with hopes that they would take no notice.
Now, he held what would have been his breath but he was already dead and it did not feel like he was holding anything at all. In fact, he was merely like an imaginary existence of a being.
He decided to take it to the next level when he went up and tried to make a jump scare on them.
He suddenly came up where the other guard was facing as he approached and Eryndor put his arms up wildly, blew out his eyes and stuck his tongue out.
"I shall devour your soul!!! Rarrrrr!!!" He yelled but instead, the man walked past him and through him.
Eryndor's eyes widened in shock. He was still a ghost. And this was a confirmation to the fact that all along, Lysander was his redemptive subject.
"I guess I should have done something to help earlier. Not to fret. Who's the best escape artist? Drum rolls.... It's Eryndor Blackthorn!" He said, singing his own praises.
He made a couple of faces at the men, clearly, his inner child had been awakened in his state. This was time to do many things he had always wanted to do but had not had the opportunity as he too had been taken from his parents at a very young age to go train for battle.
Eryndor moved away from the walls and started walking into the officers yard. It was very big with a lot of structural buildings. He found this more archaic compared to the ones he had been used to when he fought for the Jade Emperor. But archaic as they were, they were quite interesting and intriguing.
There were a couple of officers moving around the premises, most standing guards and others going about their business.
There was one at the corner who seemed not to care about what was going on. Eryndor saw his features and was instantly curious about him. There was a familiar aura about him that seemed to pique Eryndor's interest.
"You!" Eryndor exclaimed the moment he saw him.
He would recognise that hateful glare and scowl anywhere. It was the officer that had been speaking to the man Skales.
What on earth was this sorcery in the name of coincidence? Eryndor wondered.
Seeing this man made him feel really worried about Lysander. He moved away quickly as he was really in the mood to rescue his gentleman in distress.
He heard sounds coming from the backyard and he rushed there. It was Lysander.
He was lying on the floor as an officer put his heavily booted feet over his face while Lysander's hands were bound behind his back.
"Please. He didn't do anything. Please. I'm the one you want." Lysander cried out.
Eryndor noticed where his gaze was pointing and he followed it.
There was a soldier with what would pass for a heavy wooden plank beating against something or rather someone.
A raffia mat rolled up swelled from what was being rolled inside of it and with each hit, there was a grunt. Even before he saw the scalp of the person, nearly bald from what seemed to be a bad haircut, Eryndor could already tell that was a person.
Not just any person, that was the man Lysander had come to save.
"This is wickedness. You guys have to stop this madness!" Eryndor yelled.
Although Lysander could not see which of the officers was speaking at the moment, he certainly had heard the voice.
"Yes, you need to listen to him. Please. You should stop this." He cried out, still trying to struggle.
"What are you yapping about?" The man stepping on his head demanded as he cruelly wiggled his foot to inflict more pain.
Eryndor could not take this anymore.
He tried to charge towards the man but he went through. Even when he went to stop the man beating the mat, the plank went through.
Eryndor was confused as he stared at his hands.
"B-but... but I touched a trampoline before." He muttered.
But there was one other person confused and scared by what he was seeing. Lysander's eyes widened from the place he was watching the body of the man being beaten. There was a figment there. A ghost of the sorts and although he could not see the face, he became really scared for the worst.
He did not want to believe the old man was already dead.
Seeing how he had stilled, the officer in charge put his hand up.
"That's enough." He said and then came down from where he had been standing and watching the entire thing.
He made his way towards Lysander.
"You can leave him now, Kris." He said to the heavily booted officer who did as he had been told.
Next, the officer in charge squatted right beside Lysander whose shock was clearly still in his eyes as he patted his cheek fondly.
"Looks like you've mellowed down now. But alas, I'm really busy and will come back to play with you later." He said to the man who could barely hear him. "Take him to the holding cell."
The moment he spoke, two guards came and dragged Lysander away.
"What about the old man, Officer Lee?" The heavily booted man demanded.
Officer Lee, who was the officer in charge glanced at the mat heap, now heaving from his struggling breathing.
"He's an asset to ensure compliance. Make sure he's alive. I have plenty of use for our thief." Officer Lee said and walked away.
"Alright, you heard the man. Get the old fool." The heavily booted officer said
But there beside the raffia mat stood someone with his disapproval etched on his face. If they had been paying attention, if he too had been paying any bit of attention, they all might have noticed that the flame of the light around that side where he stood was flickering uncontrollably.
Either they did not notice or they thought it was the wind.
But Eryndor was pissed. His hands had balled into fists beside him so much that all he could see was red. If ever he had a reason to kill people in mass, this was going to be at the top of the list.
Eventually, he decided to pull himself together and go find Lysander. They had to leave this place immediately.
Lysander was dragged into a cell and pushed inside, his eyes were still and so was his body. Even as he landed on the really dirty floor of his cell, he did not attempt to rise up.
"Look at him, do you think he's alright?" One of the officers that had escorted him asked the other one who was locking the cell.
The man paused as he observed him then resumed locking the cell.
"He's just being dramatic." He said as they walked away.
Lysander remained there for some time and he had not noticed that there was someone there in front of his cell.
"Lysander, right?" The voice called him.
Immediately, he recognised it as the voice of the person that had been saying what the officers were doing was unfair.
Immediately, Lysander rose up as he turned that way.
"Sir, you have to help me get...What? Wait a minute, was it you I saw out there?" He demanded.
"So you see me?" Eryndor asked him.
"Of course I do. What are you?" Lysander demanded.
"Can't you guess?" Eryndor asked him.
Lysander seemed lost as he thought for a moment. His eyebrows deepened in a scowl with each thought. He felt a familiar cold wave down his spine as he looked at his arms.
GOOSEBUMPS!
The feeling was too familiar and he became afraid. Slowly, he looked up at the figment in front of him.
"A-Are you a g-g-ghost?" He stammered.
"Bingo!" Eryndor said, beaming.
"What? Wait, am I dead?" Lysander asked him.
"Dead? You wish." Eryndor said.
"Are you here to kill me then?" Lysander asked him, his body shaking.
"Listen, Ly, I can call you Ly right? Nevermind. If I wanted to kill you, I would have done it for the baobab tree and at the market." He said.
"So it was you!" Lysander exclaimed.
"Of course it was me. Who else were you expecting? The yeti?" Eryndor asked.