Slowly, Hawthorne walked on, the sound of his pattering footsteps echoing slightly in the still night. Those double doors were right in front of him now. Every hair in his skin was prickling up, as he felt the slow blasts of magic emanating from the doors. Shivering with fear and excitement, he reached out his right arm and gripped the right door handle with trembling fingers. He did not push it down.
Hawthorne's mind grew numb with growing unease; everything felt so wrong that he couldn't even place a thought on what he was doing. He could hear himself breathing in the eerie silence, feel his heart thrumming like the wind somewhere in his chest. He blinked quickly and tried to focus his mind better.
Nearly eleven years I've waited for this, he told himself, memories of his impatience and pain of waiting rushing back into his mind. He could even hear his old teacher's advice playing in his head; the very last bit of solid advice.
Hawthorne knew what he was supposed to do, and had wanted to do so badly. But why did he feel so uneasy? How was it even possible that he was actually hesitating to leave?! He had no love whatsoever for this place.
His other arm extended halfway into the air towards the other handle.
"Farewell, boy," a quiet but familiar voice said.
Hawthorne's blood turned to ice. He swung his head round towards the source of the voice.
Sophie was leaning against the wall in a dark corner to the right of him. Her red-brown hair hung down like a dark curtain, obscuring half her face from the side. Hawthorne could see only her right eye, glittering blue-green and staring straight ahead into the darkness.
His insides writhed. Sophie turned her face slightly towards him, a smile tugging at the corners of her lips. Hawthorne couldn't help noticing that she looked unnaturally cheery. Her eyes, however bright, seemed to be guarding some other emotion inside. He narrowed his eyebrows at her suspiciously.
The moment seemed to last forever. As he tried to probe into whatever was stirring inside Sophie, and she in turn did not cease to cover it, a spark of understanding coursed between them both. They had never felt so strange. Nothing needed to be said in this abstractness.
Finally Hawthorne, still glaring warily at her sideways, made the tiniest fraction of a nod. Then he pushed down the door handles and pulled the double doors open with a resounding creak and clang. Taking one last deep breath, he disappeared through the double doors into the dark, unknown space beyond.
The doors sealed themselves again, closing the way back. It knew Hawthorne Blacklight's presence was now forever gone from this place.
Silence followed. Sophie's smile and guarded eyes slipped away. She couldn't help feeling something shattering into a million fragments inside her empty chest.
