**
Serenity slammed into the ground, hard. It took several minutes for her head to clear, the last bit of red leaving her eyes. She sat up and winced at a dull pain in her left hand, she looked down and saw a sharp stone piercing through it. It was a stone from one of the floors from above, already she was beginning to heal but the puddle of blood around her hand was growing rapidly. Without notion she pulled the stone out with her right hand and threw it across the hall.
"Damn it." she whispered quietly to herself.
Standing Serenity looked up from where she had fallen, even with her vampire sight she couldn't see how far she had fallen. If she had to guess she was in the basement of the castle, the damp smell of the catacombs and waterways filling her senses with every breath. She started walking down the hall to the only visible door when a fierce pain in her head caused her to crash against the wall. Dropping to her knees her hands flew to her head as she screamed in pain. In mere seconds the pain left her and she covered her mouth, her eyes darting around the room. She noticed her sword a few feet from where she landed and with great effort managed to walk calmly over to pick it up. As soon as the sword was sheathed laughter filled the room and surrounding halls.
Serenity turned as a deep voice echoed through the basement, "Serenity dear, how have you been?"
Serenity didn't move, and she did not answer the voice but her breath came in more quick and shallow than she would have liked. Whether she accepted it or not she was scared.
"Oh, you are not even going to talk to me now. Foolish child, even if you keep silent I can hear your thoughts clearly."
Serenity took a deep breath to calm her before she answered, "What do I have to talk to you about? If you can hear my thoughts why don't you tell me what I plan to do?"
The voice laughed again and stated, "I see that my children have been giving you a hard time, my dear. Why don't we punish them together hm?"
Serenity's eyes darkened as she walked to the door, "I do not need you to fight with me in order to kill them."
Just as Serenity opened the door and was about to walk out a pitch black hand with sharp, black fingernails reached out through the darkness of the room and grabbed her left arm, the wound on her hand reopened and began to drip blood on the floor.
"Insolent child, never forget that your soul, your body, everything that makes up your being belongs to me." The voice said, deeper and darker than it had before.
Serenity broke free of the hand's grasp and ran down the corridor, the voice's laughter echoing off the cold stonewalls. She didn't know where she was running to, and at this point she didn't care. She had to get away; she couldn't hear his voice after she had almost lost control of herself. She paid no attention to the skulls and skeletons that littered the walls and floor. Dried blood made the walls and locked doors seem like shadows. Serenity didn't stop running until her feet hit water on stone and her feet were damp. She was in the waterways now, all she had to do was fallow the flow of water to the stairs and make her way up to the main floor. She caught her breath and looked around the main room of the waterway, the smell of crystal clear water mixed with the old smell of blood and mold. For the first time her thoughts turned back to what Chaos had said to her before he destroyed the floor.
"You never gave me a chance to know you."
What did he mean by that? Serenity walked through one of the tiny streams created by the flow of water, her feet making splashing sounds.
When she got to the other side where she could walk freely out of the water she sighed and mumbled, "Of course, Hugh told me before that Chaos exerted feelings for me." She slammed her fist into the wall, "I was such an idiot, I could have avoided being brushed aside this whole time if I had just thought things through."
The voice was in her head this time as it laughed and said, "You could avoid a lot of things if you would just think things through my dear."
"Get out of my head!" Serenity yelled as she dropped to her knees once again.
Everything was silent except for her voice echoing off the walls. Serenity looked around the waterway, her eyes falling on the deep pool of clear water in the center of the room. Bubbles started forming in the center of the pool, they started slowly and gained in number and in force.
Serenity's eyes grew huge as she rose to her feet, "No." she said as she backed against the wall.
"You see," the voice laughed in Serenity’s head, "if you would think before you act you could avoid a lot of things."
The voice's shrill laughter echoed through Serenity's head as an enormous dragon raised out of the water, it's deep blue eyes glaring at Serenity as it's mouth opened to reveal a full set of very sharp teeth.