Immortal

The voices in my head

Unedited

"Where were you?" Guy demanded, peevishly.

I pointed in the direction of the house. "I had to throw up. Don't worry though, I kept Miguel off your case," I said, twisting the words a little.

The guests were filing out of the party. Hundreds and hundreds of girls were filing back into limos or nice cars. It was like a wave of girls trying to get out of the door. We had been the first to leave so we weren't caught in the mess.

Apparently, after our little 'discussion', Miguel didn't want to handle any more guests. He called the party off and demanded that everyone be out in an hour or he would call the police.

Which would have been a brave move if he was really a drug dealer.

Batty looked at me. "You seem...disoriented."

I still hadn't recovered from my little trip to the shadow world. I swear, I could still feel the presence of someone behind me.

I smiled bleakly. "Vomiting tends to do that to you," I said.

She gave me a wry smile.

"Hurry up," Guy said as he got into the car. "I don't want to be seen here."

We got into the car, slowly.

The drive home was hectic, there were cars lined up all up the road and it took us two hours to get out. While we were sitting in the car, I noticed that Batty was behaving strangely. Her eyes were darting all over the place and her head was cocked slightly, as if she was trying to listen to something she couldn't quite hear.

"Batty? Batty!"

After a few seconds, she looked at me. Her expression went from worried, concentrated to surprised.

"Huh? Oh, yeah, what?" she asked.

I stared at her. She didn't even seem like she was waiting to hear my answer. Her expression had gone back to the listening-for-a-faint-noise one.

I stared at her again. She looked right through me until I snapped my fingers in front of her eyes.

"Batty," I said.

She looked at me. "Mm? Yeah?"

"What's wrong? You're acting strange," I said, watching as Batty went distant again.

"Huh? Oh, yeah, um...I think I might have...gotten that flu you have..." she trailed off, looking out of the window.

I was a shadow walker. Even though Miguel explained it to me, I knew there was a lot that I didn't know. If I was going to die, I wanted to at least visit my family once more, even though, when I suggested it, Amber was fully set against the idea, saying that it could mess their minds up. The thought of the dead coming back to life.

Eventually the traffic started moving and we drove out and away from Miguel's mansion. I couldn't help but breath a sigh if relief as well as get more tense.

I was away from Miguel but back in the danger zone.
It's all right, I consoled myself. You don't care if you die, remember? You don't have to fear your destruction. You said you'd enjoy life as much as you could.

All the way I convinced myself I didn't care but another part of me was still deathly frightened.

*******

I was sitting on the couch and Batty was beside me. We were supposed to be watching a movie but I wasn't concentrating.

It had been a week since Miguel's party, a week -the I hadn't admitted had set me on edge - and I still didn't know when and how I was going to be found.

I didn't know if you could feel what being hunted felt like. Miguel said it was a feeling of having eyes in you at all times and always feeling like there was someone behind you. The thing was, I hadn't had any feelings like that. I hadn't felt watched at all. I didn't know what was wrong in me. I didn't have an Angel so did that mean I wasn't a shadow walker? Why was I being hunted, were the Angels mistaken?

The flash of Batty's white blonde hair flashed in my peripheral vision as she threw her head back and laughed at something on the screen. A conspiracy TV show was on, they often talked about myths and urban legends as well as alien sightings and stuff. For some reason, Batty found it extremely fun to watch.

Her laughter echoed around the dark room. "This is so stupid," she said.

I looked at the TV. A man was talking on the screen about the legends of mermaids and how there have been sightings of them in Wales.

"You're not a believer, I take it?"

She gave an are-you-kidding-me look and pointed at the TV. "Of this Crap? Of course not."

I nodded. I couldn't tell her about me. She would move me or she would throw me out. A couple of days ago, during a moment of insanity, I considered telling her everything. Just to see how she would react.

For the past few nights I had been having terrible nightmares. I'd wake up in the middle of the night paralysed, mid-scream as I clawed at my face.

I couldn't always remember my nightmares but when I did, they were often about horrifying black skinned creatures that were trying to take my soul.

Its terrifying, waking up in the middle of the night, scared out of your wits about something you can even remember. Unable to remember how to calm yourself, to breathe.

Sometimes my screams would wake me up.

I didn't know if Batty heard me at night and chose to ignore me or if she was just an extremely heavy sleeper. Either way, I was glad she didn't ask what my dreams were about, I was afraid of remembering.

Sometimes I would dream about a man. I didn't know how old he was but we seemed to bond. He came to me once during a nightmare and took me away from it.
They were chasing me round a corner. I couldn't breathe. My lungs were burning and my sight was dimming. The fear was making me freeze. I had run behind a wall, not sure of how far I had gone. Things didn't seem to have boundaries in the shadow world.
But no. This wasn't the shadow world. It was a weak replica and it still scared the living shit out of me.
Was it the dream world? I didn't know. And I didn't really care. I just had to escape, hide, before this wall disappeared like all the other hundreds before it.
I hid behind a dumper, praying that they wouldn't find me but j knew my prayers would go unheard. Just like all the other hundreds of times I prayed before.
I felt them getting closer, closer, closer, closer. Just like all the other hundred times before.
I would give up. I would like them take me and do whatever they wanted. I didn't want to live the life of a fugitive. But I knew, that just like all the other hundred times before, I would end up running for my life. Again.
As they neared the corner, I really was about to let them get me. I think.
"Which way to Rome, Lady?" the man asked. I turned around. A tall man with a long bearded face, gray and white hair and Roman style clothes stood behind me, holding a staff and a satchel on his back.
"Huh?" I said. Completely thrown.
"Which way to Rome?