King of Shadows: Of Blood and Tears

Chapter 6: A Girl Named Annabelle

"Victoria, wake up!" Max screamed as he pressed his blanket down on her weeping thigh. As hard as he tried to wake her, she wouldn't budge. He didn't know what to do. He looked everywhere around his bed for his phone, but the sneaky device had refused to reveal itself.

What do I do...Max think!

Max tore a piece of his blanket into a nice, uneven strip of fabric. He wrapped it around her thigh and tied it as tightly as he could. Max couldn't make out the depth of the wound, but he knew it had to be deep for this amount of blood to be gushing out.

He shook her once more, opening her eyelids only to find grayed eyes gleaming back. His heart aching, he let out a scream, emptying his reservoir of oxygen. He tried to fill his lungs with air, but only choked on his saliva.

"Why is nothing working? Somebody Please!" He panicked, hoping somebody would hear him - even though he knew they were alone, and that nobody, in truth, would come.

Maximus ran to his door and tried pulling it open. With each pull, the door creaked and metal rang, barely opening a few inches off the ground.

Stuck again. Great timing Max.

He got down on his hands and knees, sticking his mouth in the opening. He yelled and yelled for somebody. Howling for some type of certainty in this very uncertain situation. His back ached, the mark covering his spine burning with displeasure.

Moments later, with no sign of relief, he scrambled back to the bed, watching the red puddle around the girl dripping slowly onto his floor. Max felt a chill ripple through him as the smell of iron filled the air with each drop of blood that fell. His anxiety was now through the roof. He couldn't keep still, and his mind and the thoughts within were racing what felt to Max like a marathon.

Victoria was drowning in a pool of rustic misery and chaos. Max splashed around in the flooding, feeling and searching anywhere and everywhere for his phone. Nothing.

Max stopped what he was doing. He just sat there, looking down at his girlfriend, fading away into nothingness.

He touched her face, pushing her messy hair behind her cold ears, leaving a streak of chaos on her pale, freckled face. As he did so, he yelled. A piercing cry that could shatter the strongest of glass. A lament of anguish. The pain of watching a loved one leave the world and enter a new life beyond was too much to bear, invoking dread with every sorrowful yelp. He laid next to her, hoping he could fall back into paralysis, seeking help from the world that was trying to take her from him. The torment she must be going through was enough for Max to face his own suffering, hoping she would no longer have to.

He felt tears scraping down his cheek, colliding with one another, falling into distress. As they splashed into the blood, the mixture caused some type of shimmering. Max felt overwhelmed by the whirring thoughts in his head, blocking out any other awareness.

The red blood cells surrounded him, pulling him into a darkened, moist pit. He started free falling, and then he crashed onto a hardened surface. There was nothing around him, and only pitch blackness beneath. He stood up, brushing himself off, finding himself suddenly surrounded by beasts the color of maroon. The creatures held lengthy halberds, with the carvings of some ancient text on the shaft that Maximus couldn't make out.

What is this? This isn't paralysis...And I am definitely not asleep. What are these things? They are just staring at me, weapons in hand.

As they drew nearer to Maximus, he could distinguish their features. They were an average man's height - with pointed, hairy ears. They had long snouts, with teeth as sharp as daggers protruding from their sturdy jaws. Their fur was a deep red, the hardened muscles beneath rippling with every tense movement. They were peculiar, to say the least, reminding Max slightly of a Minotaur. The creatures wore light armor, deepened black. The center of their chest piece wore a peculiar sigil. When Max looked at it, he felt as if he was being stared at by a large, golden eye shimmering through the red mist.