Death on Your Heels

I was floating in darkness as I began to become aware, my head pounding. My body felt so heavy that I was afraid to move around much. I turned my head slowly, almost groggily, looking around the silent blackness surrounding me. Afraid, I call out into the darkness but my voice refused to work, my jaw and mouth limp in my current condition.

As I floated, I had the feeling like something was there, watching me out of my field of vision. Frightened, I naturally tried to escape the prison of my own body and mind. I couldn’t believe that the darkness was real, praying that it was simply a dream, because dreams unlike reality, could be broken.

Closing my eyes, I relaxed my body, focusing on making my natural energy surround my body like a barrier. It was an old trick my grandmother had once taught me for times when I was frightened by the ghosts. Surprisingly, as I let my energy surround me, the heaviness seemed to disappear. Unfortunately, with the easement of the heaviness, I began to fall, slamming into an invisible floor causing me to gasp.

I opened my eyes and sat up, cringing at the aches and tiredness of my body. Then, I froze with the sound of evil cackling filling the air, void of any echo in an unnaturally flat sound.

“Soooo, even in this realm you can find ways to elude me… Indeed… I mussst haaave yoooou…”

The creature from before appeared from the darkness, looming over me. Reaching out a bony clawed hand, it took a strand of my long black hair and twirled it around its fingers. I was frozen in terror, his presence overwhelming me like a shoe to a pitiful bug.

In my fright my brain turned off, instead a phrase I used to say as a child slipped from me, repeating over and over again in a small shaky voice.

“Fairy fairy go away, don’t come back until I say. Fairy fairy go away, don’t come back until I say. Fairy fairy…”

The monsters eyes glowed brighter as it screeched and jerked away, its hand trailing a black smoke. As it backed away it called out in warning, its voice fading into nothing.

“I will find you girl, and when I do… I will make you mine…”

The darkness collapsed around me and I blanked out. I don’t know how long I must have been out, or if it was even long at all, for the next thing I knew, I was semi waking but with male voices talking above me. It was hard to hear everything for my brain kept going in and out of consciousness, but I was able to catch the following.

“Kaleos seems to have lost his grip on her. She’s getting her color back.”

“Why did you even bring her here? She has nothing to do with us.”

“In all my years dealing with Kaleos and rogue wraith, I have never seen them even bat an eye at a human while on the hunt, let alone change targets completely, especially when that target was me. Besides, he was trying pretty dang hard to get her back when I intervened. She’s special, I just don’t know why.”

The voices disappeared with my failing brain for a while before returning.

“Who’s going to watch her? We can’t just let her roam around after this.”

“She’s going to have to stay here.”

The sound of someone choking on a drink quickly ensued. “Are you crazy! This is the worst place to have her. You can’t tell me you’re serious. It’s too dangerous.”

“Where else can we put her? Or would you rather have us just dispose of her?”

“That’s not what I meant.”

“Then we’re just going to have to make room for her here. We are the only ones that have the means to keep Kaleos away anyway.”

There was a scoff. “I hope you’re right. Heaven knows we need a human refugee in this sort of house.”

They talked about more stuff but my conscious failed me and I slipped under for it. I thought it all strange, but then again, I was a living embodiment of strange.

When I finally did wake up, I was extremely confused. Everything jumbled in my brain like the effects of a horrible dream. Then, instead of being in my apartment room cuddled in my favorite blue blanket, I was in some stranger’s king sized bed in a room that could have held at least two of my apartment’s rooms in it. It was also very dark except for the moonlight coming through the glass of a sliding glass door.

Getting out of the bed and walking past the expensive looking vanity, I peeked out of the glass door. It led out onto a balcony overlooking the downward climb of a very steep mountain. In the distance you could make out the lights of the city in the valley. Seeing the city below surprised me.
Covering my mouth in astonishment, I turned and glanced over the room. Everything in it was expensive with modern things but also very elegant antiques. It was quite nice. I expected to have an attached bathroom but sadly it didn’t.

Then another realization hit me. I was in a very strange but fancy room way up the mountain and I was not wearing anything that I remembered putting on. In fact, I wasn’t wearing anything that I even owned except for my undergarments. What I did have on was a very large baggy T-shirt and a pair of mens basketball shorts. I was completely mortified. Still in a jumbled frame of mind, I dismissed everything from before as the side effects of some sort of drug, assuming I had just wakened from being kidnapped.

Quickly making my way to the bedroom door, I slowly opened it to reveal I was the second to the end of a long lit up hallway. Carefully making my way out, I quietly shut my door behind me. I would have said it felt like a hotel but the doors were wide spread and I could see the hallway open up in the middle with railings and stairs. Frankly, it was way too extravagant to be some random hotel. That didn’t make me feel any better about the situation either.

As I hurried towards the stairs, I heard the noise of a door opening behind me and voices coming into the hallway. Panicking, I ran to the nearest door and prayed no one was inside. Luckily the room was dark when I entered so I closed the door and waited for the voices to go away. With my ear pressed against the door listening, I startled when a loud growl announced the presence of something watching me from inside the room.

Wiping around while simultaneously pressing against the door, I stared into the eyes of the biggest dog I had ever seen in my life. I could have sworn it was a wolf except its head was almost to the middle of my chest. It was like an overgrown Great Dane in wolf form. Standing in the light of the moon staring at me, it was all black and very very intimidating.

I couldn’t help but talk to myself and the dog at the sight of it.

“Woooow, okay okay, you are a very big boy. A very Biiiiig dog.”

The dog was definitely not impressed for it only growled again and took a couple of steps closer.

“No no no, it’s okay. I’m just trying to get out of here. Get out of this weird place without getting murdered or enslaved or eaten by a massively huge dog.”

With that the dog came all the way up to me, quiet at first before sniffing me, growling, and then giving a very loud bark right in front of me. Not knowing what to do, I tried to quiet him.

“No, shhhhhhhhhh, shhhhhhh, be quiet, be quiet.”

Moving away from the door, the dog followed me and barked again, forcing me back. Of course while I was watching the dog, I wasn’t paying attention to where I was going and ended up tipping over a large vase off a table, breaking it. With the breaking of the vase, the dog got even more excited and started barking even more.

Scared, I stared at the dog, glanced at the sliding glass door behind me and to the right, back at the dog, and then made a break for it.

The stupid dog was smart enough to know what I was doing and cut me off before I could get to the door, an almost entertained look in his eye as I scrambled to stop and turn to run back the way I had come. Running, I got halfway back to the bedroom door when I felt the basketball shorts tug me to a halt and lift my back legs off the ground. I cried out in shock as the dog dangled me off the ground by the shorts, just standing there.

“Bad dog! Put me down! Put me down right now! Drop it, drop it. No! Bad!”

It was in my attempts to squirm out of the dogs grasp that the door to the bedroom flung open. Two figures then rushed in, one stopping to turn on a light almost as an afterthought.

Looking up at them, I noticed that they were about the same age as me. Unlike me, however, they were extremely good looking with their well toned bodies and dark hair. They were clearly very strong and capable individuals.

At the sight of me in the dog’s mouth, the one closest to the door burst into laughter as he leaned against the door well, the first figure turning to glare at him before turning back.

“Kieran she’s okay, put her down.”

The dog growled then dropped me on the ground with a thud. Not knowing who these people were, as soon as I hit the ground I was scrambling backwards.

“Who are you and why am I here? Where am I? And where are my clothes?”

My heart was racing in fear of being trapped with these men. The only thing running through my head was that they were the ones who had kidnapped me.

The first guy seeing my fear put his hands out in a non threatening manner to try to calm me down.

“Now calm down. Everything is going to be alright. You don’t need to be afraid of us. My name is Silas and you are currently at Half Moon manor.”