Shadow Town

Shadow Town Chapter 6

“You goddamn brat!”

Diana screamed and ducked as she wrapped her arms over the top of her head. As her body flattened against the cold stoned floor, the body of the young boy that had saved her life flew over her, hitting the wall with an audible thud. He groaned, and slid down onto the floor, his raven hair falling over his eyes. He stayed on the floor, his body visibly shaking from the strain; he was trying with all of his might to get back up, to stand up and fight. She could see the need to fight in him, it was a physical thing that glowed brightly within his bright golden eyes.

And all she could do was watch as he struggled to survive against the power of the dark creature trying to kill them.

“Who do you think you are?” laughed the now manic man of the night as he approached the boy, slowly stepping over to him, having forgotten the existence of Diana. His glowing silver eyes bore down on the boy, glaring with such pure intent to kill that it made her shudder. She couldn't understand what was playing before her eyes, what was unfolding and revealing itself to be the cruelest and most unbelievable nightmares of all time. How could such incredible evil exist? If it did, there was no way humanity would not have already known of such inconceivable power and capacity, way beyond what humans could even fathom do. There was no way... There just wasn't any way...

The man knelt down to grab the boy by his collar, as he had done with her at the moment before what would've been her death, and held him up in the air like a doll. His strength was beyond belief, for someone that seemed so weak and slim. She had an alarming feeling that he could lift up things that would be so much more heavier.

“Tell me,” the man said, staring intently at the boy's pained face. “Do you believe that because your kind ruled over us once that you can do it again?” He seemed to wait for the boy's answer, staying absolutely still as to sense any movement from him. He continued to stare at him, gazing at him with such a heinous look in his silver eyes that could petrify someone into an impenetrable state of insanity.

Diana stared from where she lay still on the floor, breathing shakily. She prayed and prayed that he would stay as he was, that he wouldn't even glance at her direction. Her eyes widened as she caught movement, and she became incredibly rigid. She ground her teeth hard, now beginning to shake as the seconds went by and the silence stretched.

“...We will...”

She gasped slightly, taken aback by the sudden soft words that broke the torturing silence. It took her a while to realize that it had not been the man but the boy who had said them. She could see him now; he had lifted his face up slightly to look back bravely at the man's face. He didn't even flinch! His golden eyes met silver eyes, and their gaze locked, creating an even more intense and murderous atmosphere. It was hard to breathe in it.

“We will,” the boy repeated softly. “Your kind will tremble before us...and you'll return to being the nothing you were before. Nothing...” His voice was trailed off before he made a strained sound, that of pain and struggle. Diana could see the man's hands tighten their hold on the boy as he raised him up higher in the air, his feet hanging limply over the floor.

“Tremble, you say?” she heard him say, an inquiring tone to his voice. He chuckled, “Tremble?” The chuckle soon turned into a laugh; a long and monstrous laugh that made him heave and arch slightly towards the ground. She watched in horror as his body arched backward, his arms not moving an inch from where they were. His body seemed to lengthen and stretch until his head was an inch from the floor.

Diana hid her face instinctively, as he was now facing her. It seemed to be useless as well, though. He didn't even notice her, he only laughed maniacally, and he continued to do so with no shame or hurry to stop, as if he had all of the time in the world to end the boy's life.

“Tremble!” he laughed. “Before you?!”

She didn't know how much longer he could continue to laugh. It was like he didn't even need the air; he could just keep laughing and laughing, with no physical need to stop. No need to stop to breathe or look around him, to see what had change during the long, agonizing time that he had continued to laugh. I bet, she thought, staring at him with wide frightened eyes, that he could laugh forever. Just forever...

Suddenly the laughter stopped.

Diana stiffened as her ears caught up to the abrupt silence. She raised up her head slightly from her shaking arms; she looked at the man, to see the cause of it, to see what had made him stop so suddenly. She stared at the unmoving pair of bodies, one hanging limply over the stone floor, and another impossibly arched backwards, his head hanging an inch above the floor. They both would not move a muscle. It was as if they were both stuck in time, where nothing grew older or moved out of place. As if they had become stone and their bodies had lost the capability of moving.

What─?

Diana's body jerked backwards as she let out a frightened scream that echoed loudly in the alley. In a stupefying and alarmingly unimaginable speed, the man's body had regained its original posture. From being arched all the way to the floor, he had straightened up in a blink of an eye to stand and hold the boy up close. Their faces were an inch apart, already at such a close proximity in half of a second.

“Before you...?” she heard the man say over her ragged breathing. “YOU MUST BE INSANE!”

Her pounding heart told her, through the fear roaring in her ears with each heart beat, that the boy was not the one who was insane.

“Your kind deserves to...die like the stinking rats they are,” the man uttered through his gritted teeth. “And they all will, very, very soon. But let's start with you two... shall we?”

It took a few seconds for Diana to register the words that slipped through the man's locked teeth. As the seconds passed and her body jerked away from the floor in one hasty move made out of panic, something flew at her at a quick pace. A large black form came at her without warning, and before she knew it, the weight of the black form was on her, pressing her against the cold concrete floor of the alley. She gasped and struggled to get it off of her, but to no avail, it wouldn't budge. She wasn't exactly a regular gym-goer.

With one wild searching look to find the identity or name of the black form, her mind unconsciously recognized its appearance, and her body stopped moving. Breath coming in gasps, Diana this time gently moved to get a better look at the body whose weight disabled much movement.

“Sorry, sorry, sorry,” a mocking voice broke through her thoughts. “Just thought you'd better take a good look at each other before... you know.” The corners of the thin line that was his lips curved up across his face in a smile; a macabre contrast to the rest of him, that radiated danger and killer animosity.

The man had thrown the boy's body at her, flinging it at her like some useless toy from a boy's collection box, like he could do it in his sleep. As if a thing as terrible as that could even sleep with such a corrupt conscience. Did it even possess a conscience? Did a thing so evil, so powerful, and dark such as─whatever he was─even have a heart? Diana's mind decided it wasn't important, that it didn't even have relevance in this case as the man began to stretch out his arms over them and move in a way she didn't recognize as anything as normal.

Normal, the one thing that she's hated living throughout her whole entire life─it was the one thing she was desiring and longing for so much now and yet couldn't find at all. This wasn't normal, this was nonexistent. Things like men made out of darkness and boys with eyes the color of melted gold didn't exist. They had no effect on the real world outside of people's imagination.

But then if that had any truth in it, why was the man made out of darkness about to kill them?

The man with the cold silver eyes stretched out his arms, and his body seemed to stretch impossibly toward them, arching menacingly over them. The darkness behind him seemed to grow larger and thicker, coiling around them. The darkness of the alley was...alive, and writhing, shapes and forms rising from it and coming to them... to kill them...

No...

The darkness thickened and grew bigger around them, around the man whose smile seemed to become permanent and untouchable. Out of the corner of her wild wide eyes, Diana thought she could see small silver orbs protrude from the darkness. It seemed there were more watching them, other than the man; it was those dreadful silver eyes that they used to stare into her soul and taste the inside of her, to eat her.

Diana whimpered involuntarily.

No... I don't want...

“Hush now,” the man said softly. “I'm making this world a favor... by getting rid of you people once and for all... Well.” His eerie smile widened an impossible inch more. “At least my world.”

But I don't want to die.

The darkness continued to unfold before her, coiling thickly around them both, hanging heavily over the air. The orbs glowed a horrid bright silver, flickering dangerously as the dark shapes seemed to crowd around for one last meal.

Please...

The man's thin lips parted slightly in a soft chuckle of delight for her death.

I don't want to...

“Bye-bye now.”

I don't want to die.

And before the darkness could devour them whole, a blazing red light came to their demise and blinded them all.