Shards of Kairos

V - Shattered

Katie did.

She actually startled, like a deer. Wasn’t that an almost darkly ironic thought? She startled like a deer or a spooked horse, clasping firm hands over her mouth to cut off a cry of surprise made stark by the fear.

Because the sound of glass shattering had been loud. Like thunder. But that wasn’t quite right. Sharp. Like glass. Sudden, cutting, deep. Like the lightening before the thunder clap and somehow, the thunder too.

And the sound didn’t come attached with a question mark at the end, the trickle of fear that followed that they may no longer be alone. This was an intrusion. An invasion.

They weren’t alone in the house anymore.

And then a cold fear settled over Katie’s face. She was standing between two open doorways. One to the living room and the other to the dining room. She could see both rooms in her periphery and Evie could see neither from where she was standing near the door.

But the sounds of something... hard on the wooden carpets and floors made the emotional numbness putting a lag on Evie’s fear abruptly snap. But before she could move, as terror flooded through Evie’s own body with delayed quickness, Katie’s eyes met hers and her eyes met Katie’s.

“They’re real."  Katie’s voice was barely audible, choked by fear. "They’re real.”

Evie struggled to grasp what that meant, breath catching in her chest. Katie wasn’t running. Even if she was too terror stricken to move, which was possible, her expression - her eyes were knowing. She also knew, in a primal way, that it wouldn’t do her any good.

Katie looked like she knew she was already dead.

And Evie took in a breath so sharp that it physically hurt. Like inhaling glass. And then one of those demonic, glass monsters from her nightmares was on Katie so fast and with so much force, that Katie was thrown into the dinning room under the weight of the attack.

And the beast went with her, Katie’s choked screams flooding the house.

They sounded wet and Evie was moving before she even realized how dumb that probably was. How little she could do. Evie was going to die, just like she did in her nightmare. Painfully, brutally, like nothing more than a deer under the full force of a pack of wolves.

She didn’t stand a chance. Neither of them did. But she couldn’t lose Katie. She’d rather die.

Evie came around the corner of the open doorway into the dinning room and the air was ripped from her lungs. She drew in a breath that was forced, choked, seeing Katie’s body on the floor among the broken remains of a table. This beast was different, more dog like than insect, and it was tearing into the flesh of Katie’s shoulder and snapping down on bones.

Katie was screaming and the blood - all the blood - and then Evie realized. Katie was screaming at her to run.

She did the opposite. Evie was rushing forward irrationally, her scream echoing throughout the house as loud as Katie’s but suddenly something grabbed her arm. And she turned to fight because she was angry, she was furious. Katie was the last person in the world that deserved this. And maybe Evie had wasted away her time trying to figure out just what to do with what limited years human beings had on this planet, but she was sorry now.

Evie was sorry and she was angry for being sorry. What had they done to deserve this?

Evie came face to face with something that could be called human. It had two arms and legs and a head but that was about it. It was fully armor clad, towering over her, like a leather and metal clad knight from some distant future. Draped in black, the gauntlets and helmet intermixed with tarnished silver, the helmet had upwards pointing tips. Bat like. Like Batman without the cape, gauntlet covered hands claw like and gripping her with a strength that was tempered but nearly inhuman.