Nightmare

“Okay, Starr, hon, where the hell are you taking me?” Zofie asked as she followed me down the numerous hallways.

“To the room,” I answered simply.

Zofie scoffed. “No wonder you have no idea about the room—it’s at the end of the damn universe!”

I just smiled, shaking my head lightly, while I kept my arm linked with hers as I remembered the path that I had been led down that night. Down a hallway, through a door, along a staircase… walking back here once more, I realized how far away this room way from the rest of the house that I had been in. I finally reached the last room, closing the door behind both Zofie and myself—I didn’t want to leave any hints as to where we were by leaving closed doors open.

“It’s just through this door,” I said walking across the room quickly.

“It’s about time,” Zofie mumbled.

I stuck my tongue out at her before opening the door and pushing her through, closing it quickly. Zofie stood there, staring at the hallways, observing it, her mouth hanging open slightly, her eyes fixed ahead of her.

“Uhm… Zofie?” I asked, a bit confused.

Zofie quickly snapped out of her trance-like state, shaking her head lightly. She blinked a few times, turning to look at me. “Did you say something, Starr?”

I shook my head. “No… but are you okay?”

She nodded. “Yeah… I just… had one of my… visions, I guess, if you wanna call it that…”

I studied her face, seeing the worry and slight fear that ran through her eyes. I bit my lip. “Is… are you okay?”

She nodded slowly, her eyes wandering around, observing the walls, floor, and ceiling. “Yeah, I’m fine, I just…”

“Zofie… what did you see?” I asked.

She licked her lips lightly glancing at me. “I… it wasn’t much, Starr, but… this place… bad things happened here. Or if not bad things, painful memories remain here.”

“What did you see, Zofie?” I repeated.

Zofie sighed. “I saw people upset. There were tons of people here in this hallway, just standing here, looking like their hearts had just been ripped out. I don’t know who all the people were, but the guys were here.”

“The guys?” I asked.

Zofie nodded. “Yeah. They were all here, and they were… having a ceremony. Like, parallel to what humans do for a funeral, but it was a vampire ceremony to mourn the passing of another vampire.”

“Do you know who this vampire was?” I asked.

Zofie shook her head no. “Sorry Starr, I don’t. But maybe I will see more if I go in the room…”

I nodded, biting down on my lip, walking with her towards the door. Staring at it, I saw that it hadn’t changed since I saw it last. It was still the same old, tarnished brass handle that was attached to the big wooden door. A shaky sigh left my lips as I stared at it, remembering what I had been faced with the last time that I had entered the room.

“Starr…?” Zofie’s voiced sounded beside me.

I turned to look at her, seeing her looking at me cautiously. “Yeah?”

“You okay?” She asked.

I nodded. “Yeah, of course.”

I reached out grasping the handle, giving it a good tug, actually getting it open on the first try. Zofie and I entered the room and I shut the door, allowing myself a moment for my eyes to adjust to the light.

The room was still the same barren, covered with dust chamber that I had entered before and I began to chew on my lower lip a bit. Zofie looked at the place, glancing around, walking to the different corners and examining anything there.

I just stood in the center, not moving, not really looking around, my mind just on one thing: the spirit I had seen the last time I was in here. Zofie said she saw the guys in the hallway in a mourning ceremony in her vision.

Did their mourning have anything to do with the spirit that I had encountered here? Who was this spirit? Why had he led me from my room to this room? What was so special about this barren, forgotten room that no one ever mentioned?

“Starr, why do you want to know about this room?” Zofie asked walking closer to me, snapping me out of my thoughts.

I shrugged. “I don’t know… I just… was wondering. It seems so forgotten about. No one has ever mentioned it.”

“I think that might be for a reason,” Zofie whispered.

I stared at her. “What do you mean, Zofie?”

She glanced around her, dropping her voice so that it was very low, like she was afraid that someone was listening to her. “I saw something else… there was… a guy here. I don’t know who he is; I’ve never seen him before. But he was here, in this room, when they came for him.”

I looked at her in confusion. “They?”

She swallowed hard, seeing that I didn’t fully understand what she was talking about. “We call them The Unknown,” she whispered. “You might know them as the Airitech.”

My eyes were like saucers. “The Aritech?” I gasped. “I thought that was only a legend!”

I had heard of the legends of the Aritech. They were hideous creatures form another world that were so mysterious and frightening that one couldn’t describe them.

Zofie shook her head. “No. They are real. Humans know them as the mythological creatures from Irish folklore, but they are real. They live on the Otherside, but sometimes come into the underworld when they are called o by another force… to feed…”

“Are you saying that an Aritech took the vampire from here?” I asked in disbelief.

Zofie nodded. “They are the only enemy of a vampire that we fear.”

I began to nod, but the moment that I lifted my eyes, my mouth hung open in shock. Standing in the back corner of the room was the same spirit from before. He locked eyes with me, slowly starting to drift closer to me.

I swallowed hard, starting to back away, seeing it there, completely forgetting about Zofie. The vampire stood there looking at me like I was crazy, calling my name, asking me what was wrong, but I just blocked her out. All I could do was stare at the spirit as it advanced towards me.

I backed up until I was against one of the walls with it in front of me, and all I could do was stare into his eyes. They looked so kind and full of joy that I suddenly forgot about the terror that I was feeling, a smile suddenly forming on my lips.

And I was crazy enough to believe that he smiled back.

Staring up at him, since he towered over me, I thought I saw the corners of his stitched closed mouth turn upwards into a smile.

At that point, I knew that I had lost it. There was no way that could have happened, far less me actually coming in contact with a spirit as I was right now. I knew I was delusional, that I had lost my mind.

“Who are you?” I whispered.

I heard Zofie calling out to me at the other end of the room, asking me what the hell was wrong with me, why I was talking and staring at nothing like a madwoman, but I knew she couldn’t see him.

Zofie couldn’t see the spirit, just like Zacky couldn’t. I was the only one that could see him; that was why he led me here. It suddenly clicked.

The spirit just continued to stare at me, and I realized that there was no way that he could talk with this mouth stitched closed as it was. I bit my lip lightly—there would be a language barrier.

The spirit must have seen the look on my face because he smiled again, slowly reaching out to me. I watched as he moved closer to me, his hand outstretched towards me, wondering what he was planning on doing.

He gently placed his hand on the side of my face, gently running his thumb over my cheek, as if to tell me to calm down and not worry. I smiled, feeling calmer, forgetting how I was questioning what he was doing. Staring into his blue eyes, I felt at ease, and knew I could trust him.

The spirit slowly moved his hand up so that his palm was resting on my forehead. I was about to ask what he was doing, but I suddenly felt like I was being shocked, like my friends used to do to me when I was a kid after they scuffed their feet on the carpet.

My eyes slammed shut without me being able to control them, my eyelids feeling like weights were attached to them, keeping them shut. I felt myself getting colder, like my body temperature was dropping drastically. In front of my eyes I felt like I was watching a movie, but the scenes were all on super fast-forward, so there was just a ton of images being thrown across my line of vision, and there was no sound. Suddenly everything stopped, and I found myself staring at a guy.

He was tall—and I mean really tall—standing before me, with dark hair that looked to be a style all of his own, that no other person could pull off. His bright blue eyes sparkled with what looked light a laugh as a small smile graced his lips, a small stud placed underneath his lower lip. He wore no shirt, only a pair of black jeans, showing off his lean, yet muscular body.

I stared at the sleeves of tattoos that adorned his arms, which were crossed over his chest, as well as the few on his upper chest. But what really caught my eye was the word “Fiction” going down his torso in big red lettering.

My mouth hung open in shock at the fact that I was seeing another hot guy. I really would have come to the underworld a whole lot sooner if I had known there were so many gorgeous guys hanging around here.

“Hey Starr,” he grinned, acting as if he had known me for the longest time.

“Who… are you?” I breathed.

He gave me a lopsided smile once more, tilting his head to the side. “Jimmy.”