Be Holden

Chapter 20: Down

Run! Run! He is up there! He almost got you! You are led the opposite way and you hear a door slam. You move in the direction of the sound to see if it truly was a door that made that sound. What are you doing? Leave it locked. We need to get out of this place. Where can we go? Oh, you are right. The window is a wonderful idea. Crap! It is jammed. Let me find something. Yes. This should do the trick. Glass shatters and wood breaks behind you just like the time you threw a game controller at your mother's wooden coffee table with the glass center. The only difference is the wood splintered at one of the inner corners upon impact. A hot breath tickles the back of your ear. A gruff voice asks. "Where are you going?" You gasp. Lean, muscular arms wrap around you and lift you up; you are put back in the blackness. You can feel the air around you slightly sweep past your face as he nearly jogs up an incline with you in tow. Flump! You have been dropped on to something soft. You try to adjust yourself on the lumpy thing and realize that it is a cot. You roll out of the bed and your socks slide on the floor as you move. "Stay! Stop moving around or I...You don't want to know what I will do." He says.Your breaths are short and loud. Where is the girl that was helping you before? She probably got free and left you with him. No, she is getting help like the time your classmate fell off the stage in drama class and sprained his ankle. You ran to the teacher and told her what happened. You got suspended because the boy blamed you after that, but your lover skipped school to be with you throughout the suspension. A sultry voice bounces off of the walls outside of the room. It comes closer until it enters the room. A candle was lit a few moments after her arrival. "Hey, big daddy I thought you were looking for me." A shadow around your height says. An unusually tall shadow moves from a wall near the cot to the doorway toward the smaller shadow. "This is the only way to find you, right? You two are close. If I have one, I have the other or... How about we skip all the steps and go for what I want." A husky voice says.

"Wait, we can't do that because..."

"You two have been running around all this time without a care. Now, when it is time for you to do this one thing there is a problem miraculously. I am not playing games with you. I need to unwind and you are going to do it."

"Could we find something else for you to do?"

"What do you have in mind?"

"We can walk around, dance, or just sit and talk about stuff."

"No."

"Play hide and seek?"

The question is so high pitched you can barely understand it. The shadows seem to converge and become this black, tall glob on the wall. Silence and shadows that are somewhat still in a dancing candlelit room is the only thing you can see. You run past the shadows out into the hall. You choose a direction and run. You run into a wall and hit your big toe. You lightly scratch the wall until the pain eases and proceed to limp, briskly in the opposite direction making sure you do not look at what may be combined shadows that may become less abstract upon close inspection. The air shifts as you approach the plunge in the hall. You put your foot out and take one step at a time until you reach the last step. You run straight and you find the front door already open. It is raining and you hear crickets. You run past the bright porch light with flies hovering around it to go where? Anywhere away from that place seemed like a good idea to you. You reach an old Hollow tree and decide to rest in the shallow tree hole. You lean on a root and you hear quick steps smacking the mud on the ground outside, shortly afterward. You see big, black boots and black, jean pant legs stop moving. The person stands so still that the rain hits them like they are a statue. It begins to move toward the tree hole. You shoot out of the hole and back into the rain that blurs your vision and sucks your body heat away. Your chest aches and your throat burns as air rushes in. You are tackled to the ground but this guy is not abnormally tall. "No!" You yell and he releases you. He jumps off of you and slowly puts his hands in the air. "I am not going to hurt you. I just saw you running in these woods and I was trying to figure out why you were here in the first place. It is not open to the public." He says with a southern drawl. "I am trespassing?" You ask. "Yes, but it is raining really hard out here. I have a cabin just outside of the woods you can camp there until the rain stops." He says. You nod your head and follow him to a little cabin. Your clothes are drenched. "I think I have an extra t-shirt and pants you can wear," he says. Once you get the spare clothes you go to the bathroom and change your clothes. When you get out of the bathroom, you sit on a chair facing the window waiting for the tall shadow to give you doom,and he lies on a camping bed at the center of the cabin behind you. There was a time when you were in swim class and your lover had the same class. You two reminisced about how silly you were for not spending time together during middle school. You promised each other you would not drift apart again. You feel a tap on your shoulder. "I have to leave. Can I trust you to not wreck my cabin?" He asks. You nod.

You wake up on a chair in Thyme's cabin with a baby moving and gurgling in your hands. You are too tired to move. Morgan stands before you and some saliva trickles down your chin. Morgan says something you cannot hear. Actually, all words are muted around you. Morgan takes the baby from you and nuzzles the baby's face into your cheek. Thyme gently pushes Morgan away from you. Fraternal twins run before you. Their hair is grey. One is a boy and the other is a girl. They are around one year of age. You grab the boy's wrist and assess his face. He looks older in the face. His face reminds you of the overseer with an old face and young voice. Maybe he is that overseer's grandson. You find your voice and it is raspy as you ask: "Where is the fruit I was with last night? Is the overseer of evil bothering her?" "The overseer of evil and Evelyn are looking for Ishin in Ether's world. I am the overseer of time. When one overseer leaves an area, the responsibility of that area falls on the next overseer in the area or in the vicinity. I am just stressed out."

"Who was the big shadow talking to my fruit?"

"It was me! I just told you the responsibility was transferred to me! In this area, a big shadow is how the overseer is seen when they are working on projects for the area."

"You made my fruit call you 'big daddy'?"

"No, I just...How can I say this? I am hurt by my lover so, I played with some of your fruit. It is wrong but I am lonely and angry."

"Where did the children come from?"

"Well, you and Morgan had the baby. Congratulations. The twins are from the overseer of evil and Ishin. The twins will not be here long, they are going to be sent to training soon according to their father."

"I should help them find Ishin."

"You can't do that. They went there to fight Ishin and Ether. They are fighting to bring Ishin back."

"What is going on? Why do they have to convince her to come back to the overseer of evil?"

"I don't know. That is just how she is and that is why I dislike her."