Rejection on the Alpha #1

21. The Final Countdown

Two.

One.

CRUNCH!

My vision blurs at the pain against my head, I'm dragged slowly down closer and closer to the centre of the cave, choking on my own blood, it dribbles down my chin, I feel my heart pounding in my ears, "There you are, my little poppet."

It's voice slithered in my ears.

Predator to prey.

I whimper, "Y-you can talk?"

The paw, bloody and sharp with thin brown fur, large and heavy enough to crush a dozen skulls in one go. I stare at it, because it's all I could do in the line of fear. I knew that fear, I'd held blankets tight under my chin with such fear for a creature I wish I had never, ever known. And here it was, moving around me, "No one survives long enough to speak. You however, hold something different to mortal fear. You werewolves, even vampires...you hold the same fear a human can drown in without even knowing it."

I shiver again, his voice is deep and it's dark and...it reminds me so much of Charles, if he was always serious and always ready to threaten, I close my eyes, I didn't want to see this, I didn't want to feel this way, "Everyone knows fear."

"Correct, child. They do. But none of them directly fear my kind. So, this is the first. It's making me feel something before a genuine kill. I must ask how you came to learn of my kind."

I spit out the metallic taste, it's coppery touch that swirls along my tongue, I couldn't move.

I couldn't move.

Choking on my own blood and I knew, with little to no acceptance of it, my spine was broken. I'd been hit so hard against the wall, he'd broken his prey before he could even truly begin playing with it. This illusion—it was cruel. But fear made me listen, fear made me believe this was real and I couldn't differentiate it. Was it real?

I'm here, aren't I?

I'm broken, aren't I?

I couldn't move my head, one side of my face in the dirt, my fingers unmoving and I was losing all feeling in my legs first, "I was read a bedtime story by the wrong man, with no sane mind and no emotion to calm a girl who's scared of the night." I whisper.

"Keep going, child. I love your poetic tongue."

"You sound like him...why?" I ask, sniffling.

It's silent for a long time, "Because he is the Chimera you fear the most. Now, continue." 

I swallow, "The mythical monster—a hybrid with two different species, with two different kinds of DNA in your developmental nature...and the ability to burn through enough with just one breath. Breathing fire, you can kill the fears of most others, of the mutated vampires that have haunted adults older than me. No one talks of the Chimera. No one breathes a word of something they have never seen."

"They see me now, child. They all do and it's delectable, isn't it?"

I close my eyes, "It's also not original."

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