Into The Vale of Shadows // Max Mayfield

vii. is it a slug?

chapter seven
is it a slug?

       IT WAS DARK, and cold, everything felt heavy, yet empty, the night seemed to be endless, it felt so far and so long. Raven kneeled down beside a tree, bleeding and cold, knees touching the rough surface of the earth, scratching her skin, making it red as her blood. She covered her mouth, trying to stay quiet, muffling her cries of pain and fear, for she will get caught by the entity if she made any loud noise. So, she kneeled there, quietly sobbing, praying to all the Gods to save her, to help her, to give strength, but she's slowly losing hope, slowly starting to believe that there really was no God from above, watching her, and protecting her. If there really is a God, i wouldn't be here, she thought.

     The bushes from behind her started rumbling, giving her a sense of deja vu, for it felt like this had happened before, so, she stood and started running, sprinting for as fast as she could, as if her life is depending on it — well, it was. She ran, and ran, until she got out of the woods and into her neighborhood, but instead of houses filled with people and warmth, she was met with a place empty, cold, and destroyed. What could've happened to this place?

     She had no time to mind it, so she ran home, to her house. But when she got there, the feeling of being home didn't come to her, instead, it felt foreign, the warmth that would always engulf her everytime she would enter the humble abode didn't came, instead it was the coldness, the feeling of being safe didn't come to her senses, she felt like she was in danger instead. It didn't feel like home.

     "No one can save you here," said a voice from the far dark corner of her house. "You can not hide . . . nor run."

     "Raven, help me!"

     "Will?" She looked around when she heard the familiar voice, running out of the house for she heard it from the outside, echoing through all the corners of the world. "Will!"

     "Raven!"

     There she saw Will, lying helpless on the ground, and on top of him was the entity that brought her to this condition, looking like it was devouring the boy.

     "Raven—" he tried to reach for her, but the entity was keeping him from her, devouring the life out of him, slowly making his eyes lifeless—

     A loud bang broke through the room, waking Raven from her trance. She looked around trying to remember where she was, and there she saw Mr Clarke's classroom, she's in her science class. She hurriedly turned to the front of the room, to see Will sitting there, listening and very much alive.

     "I'm so sorry, Mr Clarke," the voice of Dustin Henderson flooded her ears, he rushed to his seat, trying to keep his things together. "Really, I'm so sorry. Please continue with the class." He struggled his way out of his bag, carelessly swaying around to get it out of him.

     Everyone in the room watched him struggle, looking at him with annoyed faces, impatiently waiting for him to get the bag off of him. His face flushed as he noticed the eyes.

     "Really — continues, please," said Dustin, hurrying and taking his designated seat.

     Raven scratched the back of her neck, wiping her face with her hands, sighing through her nose as a tear fell from her eye. She'd wished to not be reminded of that place, but it seemed to always find a way to her head.