Venom

One night, Ashton fell asleep peacefully. The next morning, he woke up and had no idea where he was.

The room looked rather plain. The walls were made of dark stone. There were no windows and two wooden doors with golden handles. The only furniture in sight was the bed he laid on. A light ingrained into the ceiling was the only reason Ashton could see. He didn’t know why it was on. But at the moment in time, he didn’t really care. All that Ashton wanted to know was where he was, and why he was there.

He tried the door. It was locked. Ashton didn’t have very much muscle power, so he only tried to shove his way out once. When that didn’t work, he tried in vain to think of another way out.

It didn’t seem like long before he heard footsteps outside. They stopped outside of Ashton’s door, and a key was heard jingling.

A man stepped inside, not much older than Ashton himself. He pushed a cart with a basket of food and several bottles sitting on it.

“Hello,” he said pleasantly. He set the basket of food on the floor.

Ashton wasn’t quite sure what to make of such a pleasant greeting. This wasn’t any sort of normal situation.

“Wh-wha?” he said, blundering through his words.

“I said hello. That’s a customary greeting. Shouldn’t you know that?” said the man.

Ashton was still stunned.

“B-but wh-where am I?” he asked.

“Stop with the stuttering, boy! You’re in Kaymie’s realm now, and with her you can’t afford to speak unclearly! Although what a live human is doing here, I don’t know.”

“L-live human? What does that mean?”

The man scrutinized him more carefully. “You don’t have a clue what’s happening here, do you?”

Ashton shook his head.

“Oh, dear. I’d hate to be the one who has to explain it,” said the man. He dashed out of the room, pushing his cart. In his haste, he had forgotten to close the door properly.

As confused as Ashton was, he still wanted to get out of the room. It was making him feel inhibited.

The door opened into a long hallway. Ashton was anxious. He didn’t know what caused it, but he felt like there was an ominous presence in the building. Something that would jump out of the crevasses between the stones in the walls.

He walked down the hallway, unconsciously grazing the walls with the fingers of his left hand. The walls felt rough under his fingers, and bits fell away at his touch.

At the end of the hallway, a spiral staircase led to a floor above. Ashton hoped it would have more windows, because the lack made him feel like he was underground, and the world felt like it would fall and crush him.

As Ashton ascended the stairs, his nose caught a whiff of something that smelled strangely like raw meat.

He followed the scent to a refrigerator, and upon opening it found it was indeed a freezer full of raw chicken meat. But why would anyone keep that much chicken in one freezer?

"Hello," said a voice, alerting Ashton to the fact that there was someone behind him. It was definitely feminine. Could it be the same person that the man earlier had mentioned? Kaymie, was it?

He turned around and saw a tall woman smiling menacingly down at him. She had dark red-brown hair ending in a long braid that was twirled around her neck and ended at her elbow. Her eyes were a dark brown, or were that red?

“What is the bird doing so far from the nest?” she said. Her voice was high in pitch, but not squeaky.

She bared a set of white teeth in a frightening smile. An unconscious shiver went down Ashton’s spine as he looked. The teeth weren’t the frightening part. What was frightening was the fact that she had four fangs where her canines should be.

The woman leaned closer and extended her arms. She had trapped Ashton between the fridge and her body.

“You know, the bird shouldn’t go so far from the nest,” she whispered, leaning close to speak into Ashton’s ear. “After all, if a bird goes too far, then the cat could find him. For all he knows, he could get bitten.” And then she cackled.

Ashton’s body trembled, and he fell over, scared beyond belief.