Beyond the Prophecy

I ran as far and as fast as I could from the mansion without looking back. The forest felt endless, but I continued to run anyway. Dashing through a forest, even at night, isn’t as much of a problem for me as it is for most people because I’m used to it. Back home in Dublin, where I was born and raised, there was a forest near my cottage. As a child I spent hours getting lost in it. I did it so often that I no longer needed any navigation from my ma (she was so used to the forest). Something about nature always draws me in, and the way my ma reacted to nature tells me that it must run in the family. But there was nothing alluring about this forest. The night shrouded it in darkness, and the air was once again colder than it should be. Fog covered some of the surroundings, which made it look like the setting of a horror movie. Unfortunately for me, this is terribly real.

After some time, I stopped at a large tree to catch my breath. This damn forest is infinite. I pulled off my jacket and dropped my shoes. I had taken them off after running a few paces because they were hurting my feet. But even with the shoes off, my feet were throbbing. I was sweating like crazy (and shivering from the cold at the same time), my heart was racing and my back was killing me. Resting my back against the tree, I bent down a bit and took deep breaths. But then I held my breath when the growl of a beast echoed in the forest. The howl reminded me of what Calista told me before I ran away from the mansion:

There are things outside these walls that are worse than what’s within them.

I thought she told me that to scare me, but as the beast continued to howl I took her words to heart. The hair on the back of my neck rose and my heart pumped faster. There’s something in this forest, and I don’t intend on finding out what it is. I was going to run, but a voice whispering a warning stopped me. It made me jump in surprise.

“You must leave, Mistress Natasha, before they find you."

“Who said that?” I asked, tensing up.

“It matters not. The fenrir and stymphalian birds are on the prowl. If you stay, they will surely kill you, Even if you are the prophesized one.”

The voice came from behind me, but I saw no one there. What I did see, however, shocked the hell out of me.

The part of the tree I was resting on started to shift like ripples. I stumbled backwards and fell, but I kept my eyes on it. Out of the ripples, a face formed. The head’s long hair twisted and grew out but remained partially attached to the tree. The neck and arms formed soon after. More and more of a human body began to take shape, until she, it—whatever it was—looked like a woman from head to part of her upper thighs. The woman was still completely made of wood, except for her eyes. They were human in what it looked like it was made of, but not human in color. The iris was such a light gray that it nearly blended in with the white of her eyes.

“Jaysus! What the—Who are you? What are you?"

“I am Xyla, chieftain of the hamadryads, or tree nymphs, of this forest. You must leave before they find you.”

“Who are they?”

“The forest nocturnal guardians. They hunt and kill any trespassers. The fenrir are gigantic wolves, and the stymph’ birds are ibis-looking man eaters.” She closed her eyes for a moment, and then opened them again. “The others will create a path that leads out of the forest. Follow it quickly and don’t look back.”

This is all so strange. A couple of hours ago, everything made sense. But now, it all seems like something I’d read in a book. Something that I never thought could possibly happen. Why is this happening? Why is it happening to me?

I heard a rumbling sound, and felt the ground shake. When I looked in the direction the sound was coming from, I saw some of the trees slide across the ground and align into two different rows. I took a step forward and then stopped myself. Should I trust the trees? They’re part of the forest just outside of Chris’s home. For all I know, they could be making a path that leads directly towards him. Or, they could be leading me directly towards the creatures she mentioned. One thing’s for sure: I can’t stand here and do nothing. After weighing my options I decided to trust the path. I thanked Xyla and sprinted in that direction.

A loud growl echoed again, catching me off guard and making me lose my footing. I tripped over a large tree root and fell. When I stood, I whimpered from the pain the root had caused to my ankle, and it was even more painful when I started moving forward again. My peripheral vision caught movement in my left. I stopped to look what it was: a wolf twice the size of the oak trees charging towards me. I covered my mouth to stop myself from screaming, and then I started forward again. Another giant wolf ran towards me from the front. Both of their footsteps shook the ground like an aftershock. I turned to run from them both but then I saw a third wolf coming our way.

What am I going to do? One of the wolves, which must be one of the fenrir that Xyla was talking about, is using the path to charge towards me. The other two are blocking any other direction I could’ve taken to escape. Climbing a tree wouldn’t help me; it would just make it easier for them to spot me and it would keep me trapped. I tried to think of anything I could do, no matter how risky it was, but I froze when I heard whispers in the wind. The words whispered were unfamiliar, and yet felt familiar at the same time. Everything around me seemed to slow down and appear distant. The voice instructed me to do something, and I followed without thought.

I grabbed a small branch and drew a circle on the ground. In it, I drew three spirals connected to one another; a symbol called triskele. It’s a mark I was born with, though I don’t know what it means. I think I used to, but I can’t remember. After that, I started writing weird symbols surrounding the triskele, symbols that kind of look like an alphabet of an ancient language. Why am I doing this, and what does it mean? There was one more step left, but a fenrir caught up to me before I could execute it. I didn’t have time to run before it swung its paw and struck me, sending me flying to a tree a few feet away. The impact was painful from head to toe and I could feel splinters on my limbs. I felt so dizzy, especially when I tried to sit up. I crawled, as painful as it was, back to the circle I drew before I touched the back of my head. There was blood on my hands…I’m bleeding. Shit.

The ground stopped rumbling so I knew they were already here. One of them growled and I gagged from the scent of its breath. My heart raced like it wanted to jump out of my chest. I touched my head again to get more blood on my hands. Then I did the last step; I placed my hand over the triskele and said, “Afrit, come forth.” Once again, I don’t know what I’m doing or why, but my instincts tell me that it’s the right thing to do.

I rose to my feet, and then I ran. The three fenrir howled at the same time and then came towards me. My ankle was still in pain but that’s the least of my problems. If being chased my gigantic wolves wasn’t bad enough, then the flock of birds swooping down towards me would be. At first they just looked like cranes. But as they came closer, the birds looked more like a crane, eagle and stork hybrid with their wings made of sharp, brass feathers that looked like daggers. Birds…What did Xyla call them again? Screw it, it doesn’t matter. The point is that she warned me about them. The fenrir ran from behind me, and the birds flew from the front, so there was only one think I thought to do: run a different direction. I came as close as I could to the birds before turning towards my left. My body’s starting to hurt from it all. I can’t keep this up all day.

I screamed when the claws of one of the birds gripped my shoulders tightly and lifted me off the ground. The bird moved one of its claws to my torso and then grabbed my right arm with its beak. It tugged hard, trying to dismember my arm from my body. I tried to free myself with my left arm while biting my lip to keep from screaming too loudly. Then another bird flew to me and pulled on my other arm. The screeches from all the birds made my head hurt like a magnified migraine.

Suddenly, a violent rumbling made the birds and the wolves alert. All of them looked in the same direction and then scampered. The bird gripping me flew up higher before being smacked by an enormous hand. I slipped from the birds grip and on my way down the bird shot some of its feathers towards me. Some of them left scratches, but one of them sliced the side of my torso. I landed on the palm of…I don’t know what. It looked like a demon, one that was even taller than the fenrir. Compared to the demon, I was the size of a push pin.

The demon’s skin was red, with the exception of its sand colored belly and claws. Its two horns curled back and reached up to a few inches passed its shoulders. The teeth were all sharp, like that of a dog, and its eyes were completely white. The demon held out his other hand, and a large, white eagle landed on it. What is it with this forest and mutant animals? The demon placed me on the eagle’s back, face down. I clutched onto the eagle before it took off. When I glanced at the demon, it bowed at me and then fought off the other creatures. When the creatures retreated, the demon disappeared.

I closed my eyes half way. The dizziness returned, and the blood loss is made me weaker. Soon after, I took a deep breath and passed out.

“Is she awake?” asked the voice of a female.

“I think so. She moved a little,” a male said.

“Use the feather again.”

I felt something soft brush my nose. I was going to brush whatever it was away, but I moved my arm too fast. It was painful, and I bit my lip to stay silent.

“Look, she’s opening her eyes,” said the female.

“Really? Let me see.”

He was the first thing I saw once my eyes were halfway open. His dark brown, shaggy hair had red highlights and his eyes were dark blue. I’ve never seen dark blue eyes before. A smile came on his face.

“Morning sunshine,” he said. “I’m Kyle, another servant of this place. You must be Mistress Natasha.”

Again with that word. “It’s Natasha. No Mistress, just Natasha. I feel weird having a title.”

“So, Natasha, how do you feel?” asked the female. When I looked at her, I saw that it was Calista.

“Like someone tried to chop me up but the pieces are still attached to one another by a thin layer of skin and muscle.”

Calista laughed and Kyle raised an eyebrow. “That was…graphic,” he said.

I tried to sit up, but the smallest movement was excruciating. I looked down at myself and saw that I was nearly covered in bandages. The parts of my body that weren’t covered by them had bruises, including my ankle. At least they gave me clean clothes: a green t-shirt and gray sweatpants.

“I changed your clothes,” said Calista. “I figured it would be better to wear something loose, so it wouldn’t be close to the wounds. Plus, your clothes had tears and stains in them. But your shoes and jacket survived through it all. They were left beside Xyla.”

“And sorry about the bandages,” said Kyle. “If Master Chris could stop being so damn bitter about your escape and heal you then we wouldn’t have had to use so many.”

“Heal me?” I asked. “You mean, the way he heals himself? He can heal others?”

Calista smacked the back of his head. “Dummy. He told you not to tell her.”

“…Oh yeah. I forgot,” he said with a nervous laugh.

“Why didn’t he heal me?”

They didn’t say anything and glanced at each other. Then they pointed at each other and shook their head at the same time. Calista sighed and then glanced at me. “Um, he’s not here right now. He…had a lot of errands to run. Very important ones. As a matter of fact, he doesn’t even know you’re in this condition.”

“There’s no need in lying to her. She should know the truth,” said someone at the door.

All three of us glanced in that direction and saw Chris leaning against the doorway. Calista gasped, and both Kyle and Calista eyes were open wide. They bowed their head to him in unison before he walked towards them and demanded they left. Both immediately did as he commanded and closed the door behind them. Chris looked at me and walked to the left side of the bed. He sat down beside me and glanced at the damage those gigantic animals outside caused.

Holding back his laughter, Chris said, “You look like shit.”

I took a quick glance towards the window and then glowered at him. “If you’re supposedly a vampire, shouldn’t you be a pile of ash by now? It’s daylight.”

He smirked. “I’m a daywalker.”

“What the fuck does that mean?”

“Daywalkers are vampires that can be out during the day and night.”

“That’s bloody fantastic,” I spat sarcastically. “Why can’t you heal me?”

His face lost all its expression, and his voice became harsher. “It’s not that I can’t, it’s that I refuse to. You’re not worthy of it. I told you not to run away, but you didn’t heed my warning. You deserve your comeuppance.”

I laughed, even though it hurt like hell. “I’d rather go back out there and let the fenrir use me as a frisbee than to be near you.”

He glared at me and slapped his palm against a wound on my torso. I screamed and held back tears of pain. “Keep it up, and I’ll show you the true meaning of pain.”

I coughed a few times and turned away. “I’m...not afraid of a little pain…or of you.”

“A little pain?” He smacked another wound and I screamed again. “I’ll make sure you feel a lot more pain than you can handle.”

He swatted even more wounds and my tears came out this time. “Stop it.”

“I’ll stop if you never try to make another foolish attempt to escape.” He moved his head closer, waiting for me to show any sign of agreement.

I looked defiantly into his eyes. Then I lifted my head a little and spat at him. He instantly wiped it away, pulled up my shirt halfway and then yanked off a large bandage from my torso. I arched my back and cried out. The bandage had been stuck to the wound when it was healing, but now it had opened once more.

“You’ll pay for that.” Before I could even catch my breath, he ripped off another one.

“Fine, okay? I agree!” I shouted.

“Agree to what?” He pulled off another one.

“I won’t run away!” I said in one breath.

“Good,” he said with a smirk. “Now, beg me to heal you.”

Beg? His so-called prince title has gone directly to his head. I looked away and fumed. But then I screamed once more when he grabbed my ankle and squeezed it tightly.

“I said, beg.”

He used his free hand to rip off more of the bandages. Each time he did, it felt like someone was waxing my skin off, or slicing it off quickly with a sharp blade. I can’t take much more of this. I’ll have to swallow my pride, just for now.

“Please…” I started, “heal me. Please?” More tears followed after that.

He took his hand off my ankle and smirked. Then he ripped off the last bandage and I screamed. Bastard. He pulled out a switchblade from his pocket and my eyes widened.

“Don’t panic,” he said. “The knife isn’t for you. If I wanted to kill you I would’ve done it already.”

He still could’ve tortured me with it though. Luckily, he wasn’t lying about the blade. He quickly sliced his wrist and made a fist so that blood could come out. His blood was a deeper red than I’ve ever seen on a person. Chris moved his wrist over one of my open wounds and let a few drops of his blood fall in it. He did the same with my other wounds, and the small ones already started to heal. When he was done, he kept his arm still and his wrist healed instantly.

“The small wounds only take a couple of seconds to heal. The rest should be healed within the next half hour, with the exception of the gash on your torso. That one’s going to take some time. But you’ll live.” He wiped the blade with a handkerchief, folded the blade back into the handle and then placed it in his pocket. “I’ll have one of the servants bring food for you.” He walked towards the door and stopped when I called him.

“Thanks for healing me,” I said. Even though you forced me to beg for it, I thought.

I think he heard my thought, because he shook his head with a smirk. “I didn’t do it for you. I did it for me.”

“I don’t understand.”

“In order to fulfill the prophecy, you need to be alive. You’re no good to me dead. Now, don’t you dare move from that bed. If your wounds open up again then they’ll stay that way because I’m not going to waste anymore blood on you.”

The moment he opened the door, Kyle and Calista fell into the room. They must have been leaning against the door, listening to what was going on.

“Let this be the last time both of you eavesdrop. Otherwise…” he trailed off before leaving.

Kyle and Calista stood. “Otherwise what?” he asked.

“Do you really want to know?” she said.

“If you were listening, then why the hell didn’t you do anything to stop it?” I said angrily.

“If we did, he would’ve punished us too,” said Calista. “He’s a million times stronger than us. Trying to stop him wouldn’t have made a difference. You still would’ve suffered, and we would’ve suffered too. If you knew what he’s like…”

“I think I can imagine.” I moved to sit up and was surprised to find that I could. It still hurts a lot, but it’s tolerable as long as I don’t move too fast.

“Maybe we should’ve used less band-aids and stuff,” said Kyle.

“I don’t think it matters. He would’ve tortured me somehow, I know it.”

Kyle walked to the right side of the bed and picked up a box from the floor. Then he sat on the bed and opened it. More bandages were in it, along with other first-aid supplies. He glanced at me apologetically and I nodded. With a sigh of relief, he grabbed some of the supplies and started cleaning and dressing the wounds that were still healing.

“How did you survive being attacked by all the nocturnal guardians out there?” Calista asked me. “It wasn’t just Farrokh’s doing, was it?”

“Who’s Farrokh?” I asked.

“The rukh that flew you back to the mansion. You know, that huge eagle.”

“That’s what it’s called?”

She nodded.

“Well no, it wasn’t just Farrokh. This huge demon came and fought off the guardians.” I described what the demon looked like, from what I could remember, and their eyes lit up.

“So her guardian really is an afrit,” Kyle said to Calista.

“That’s so cool,” she said.

“What are you two talking about?”

“Don’t worry, you’ll find out about that,” Kyle said with a grin.

Things just keep getting more and more mysterious. I looked out the window absentmindedly. Wait…there’s something happening today I know it. When I remembered, my eyes opened wide. The Pandemonium contest is today. But, how am I supposed to get there if the forest guardians are out there? Xyla said they’re nocturnal. Would they be sleeping then? Even if they are, I don’t know my way out of here. And if Chris caught me before I could make it far enough, what would he do to me?

“What’s wrong?”

“I need a favor from both of you. It’s very important.”

“Sure,” said Calista. “What is it?

“I have somewhere I have to be tonight, but I need to be able to go there and back unnoticed.”

They laughed. “I think the shock from the attack is making you a little loopy,” she said.

“You don’t understand. This is an opportunity I’ve been waiting for since I first picked up a guitar.” I told them everything about the contest and how important it was to me. The refusal and hesitation in their eyes were clear, but I continued to plead with them.

“Okay,” said Calista. “I’ll show you how to get there and back. Kyle can stay behind and distract Master Chris.”

“What?!” Kyle exclaimed. “You want to send me to the lion’s den? No, hell no. Are you crazy? He’ll definitely know something’s up. He always does.”

“Please Kyle? We need your help with this,” Calista asked with innocent eyes before placing her hand on his arm.

Kyle started to blush. “Fine,” he said with a sigh. “I’ll do what I can.”

Calista smiled and embraced him. He smiled too. “Thanks so much!” she said. “I owe you one.”

“The contest starts at 8pm,” I said. “I was going to meet my band before to practice, but I can’t risk it. The less time I’m out the better.”

“You’re right,” Calista said. “We’ll leave with enough time to get there. You might want to change too. It’s going to be a tricky night, but I’m kind of excited about it.”

I smiled. “That makes two of us.”
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Ma: mother