Monster

12. Lock & Key

Unknown date and time

Lock & Key

Elsa's heart was empty when she woke up to the sound of a door opening. She ran a hand over her brow as if to peer through sunlight, only to see a person standing there. Her mind had decided to play her a fool again. 

"Who is there?" she snapped weakly. "Speak your name." 

Footsteps ran to her and scooped her up. She opened her eyes wider, alarmed. The person looked very unfamiliar, and she cried, "Set me down!" 

"Shh, no, Elsa, it's quite alright!" He sat her down nonetheless. "Let me get you out of here." 

Her heart skipped a beat; he took her hand urgently and rushed her to the far wall. They ran toward it and Elsa cringed, thinking they were going to smash into it, but at the last possible second the wall split in two and they rushed through it like a curtain of water. 

She gasped as they landed in the room she had tried to escape from. Instantly she came to her senses. Escape! She snatched her hand from the stranger and ran toward the door; to her surprise, the man did not stop her, but followed. The door opened wide and sunlight poured in. She stumbled over the threshold and down a few steps, folds of her dress clamped in her fists as she went. Only once she looked back, and when she did, she froze. 

He stood in the shadows, but the shaft of light fell just across one side of his face, and it hit her like it hadn't before. 

"Nicholas?" 

He nodded. "Good-bye, miss Elsa." And he closed the door.

Shocked though she was, Elsa did not knock on the door for any questions; but as the ran, her gown caught in a billow behind her, she knew the answer to her most obvious question. Nicholas was now a vampyre. 

As her bare feet smacked the cobblestones, as the clouds drifted over the sun, breaking the light into narrow shafts, she remembered Nicholas's copper eyes. He probably would have been better off dead, she imagined, and her heart shattered with that realization. 

But she did not stop running; in fact, Elsa had never known she could run so fast. Being an indoor girl, her legs didn't do so much as carry her around the house, down the stairs, or for a walk through Torun with her father. Her dress had never felt so light and airy, her body so free. She moved through the streets, into groves, leaves rustling under her feet, her hair tangled and dancing over her lean shoulders. She cut through the streets, passersby staring wide-eyed. Her dress was filthy, brown with old scarlet, and shredded in places. Her hands were scarred, her face drained of color, bruised in her sunken cheeks. Her neck must have been blue where Sven had attacked her countless times... She had no way of knowing how long she was captured. 

It could have been a few days, a week, or even a month...

When she finally reached her home, she paused by the gate. Something wasn't right. The house was covered in vines, the gate rusty but mostly dilapidated, the lawn a forest of weeds, the windows absent of panes, open and dark like hollow sockets. She pushed open the door in the gate; it protested with a series of eerie squeals. Up the walk she went, her bare feet splintered and torn from the run here. The hems of her dress snagged on weeds and thorns. Up at the door she paused, and looked back. 

"What is the matter?" she whispered to herself, and pushed the door open. Inside, she stood frozen, her chest swelling with icy horror. 

What little furniture remained was covered in white drapes, the floor was thick with dust, and Elsa spotted a spider skittering through it. She stepped back and gasped. "Father?" she yelled, and clenched her fists. 

When there was no answer, she broke through the dust, which exploded under her footfalls like rain clouds. She thundered up the stairs, calling for her father, for Matilda, for anyone! But there was no answer. Her heart pounded in her ears harder and harder with each empty room she discovered. 

She paused, leaned against the door-frame, and wept when she saw her room. It was the same as she'd left it, only dust had claimed everything. She stepped inside hesitantly and took up the hairbrush from her bureau. "What is happening?" she asked herself. Looking over her shoulder she saw the stack of books she'd picked up from the library, still sitting on the bedside table. She moved toward them and ran her trembling hand across the cover of the top one to remove the layer of dust. 

"How long have I been gone?" she asked the book, and received no answer. It just sat there, abandoned, just like her. 

She stumbled back down the hall and down the stairs, dust sticking to the cuts on the soles of her bare feet. She called for her father, but still there was no answer. If the fear she had suffered with Sven was not enough, she was now faced with much worse; the unknown. She did not know how long she'd been captured, only the clouds of dust and hundreds of cobwebs could answer that, but the truth of it ached too badly to consider. 

She raced outside and across the lawn to the lonesome tree. She fell against the grass and stared, cross-eyed, at each dead blade. What was going on? Her heart raced, sweat burned her scars, and her mind was a tornado of profound confusion and terror. 

Everything she had ever known was no longer there; her father, her home, her life. All of it was gone. And all that was left was the dust that coated it all.