Fighting What's Right

Chapter 1

Once, I used to believe life was all about magic. Whether you could hear it or see it, it was always there. I placed my writing pad down beside me and moved my feet, to put life back into them.

I'd seen people so happy so carefree and I wished I could be like that. I knew I never would though, too many sad memories suddenly rushed into my mind. Memories of abandonment and heart break, it was all the same. The bad outnumbered the good.

Slowly, I watched as a blue butterfly fluttered passed my eyesand landed on my nose. I crossed my eyes to see it but it began to give me an ebbing headache.

Picking out the empty jar I found in my cargo bag, for collecting insects, I caught the butterfly on my nose and carefully placed it the right way round before popping the cap back on. I'd managed to put holes in the cap earlier before walking into the forest.

The forest was quite a scary place to the townsfolk here, a place for the cursed. It was believed to be a burial for past burnt witches and was said that they haunted the forest ever since. People of various ages had gone missing in this exact stretch of the forest, but even with what was going on; I did not fear the magic in this forest. It neither welcomed nor feared me. In my opinion, we had something in common, people were afraid of us.

I carefully placed the jar in my cargo shoulder bag, stood up, and dusted the grass off me. My hill was away from the forest. The tallest hill in this place,Awnin, where you could see the town, the forest, and the ocean farther away. I took pride in my hill, that I was the only one to stand upon its grassy wisps and feel the force of the winds across my dark, black hair and golden tanned skin. I felt freedom up on this hill.

I watched the beautiful, peachy sunset and sighed; knowing it was time to head home to the abandoned church. My last living family members still lived in town but I no longer saw or spoke to them. We didn't always see eye-to-eye on some matters. I honestly didn't know what had happened but ever since that Friday when we arrived in Awnin by the underground tunnels, sometthad changed. It wasn't me, it was them.

I turned away from the last rays of light and began to walk doen my favourite hill, touching the hip long grass as I watched it sway in the wind. It was half an hour before I finally reached the dark forest. The wind suddenly transformed,was violent against the trees. I knew a dangerous storm was on its way and the forest was awakening.

The second I heard the first rumbling of thunder interrupting the silence, I broke inti a flat-out sprint. I was mindful of the dead tree roots moving or uprooting themselves to the middle of the lighted path and the branches hanging in the air at my height were reaching out for me. I ducked and weaved my way through the forest.

The lighted path was said;legend has it, to be part of a story or ancient legend where those who had fell fighting the evil witches now safeguarded one path. Their souls kept the evil out but when a strong life-threatening storm befell the forest their light was dimmed and defeated.

I turned back and watched as the white lighted path began to dull. The darkness creeping closer and closer.

I didn't stop, I ran. I fought the trees as they groaned sideways, trying to swing closer and closer as to grab a hold of me. Just as I thought I was free something grabbed my leg. I fought and kicked them square in the face. Hearing it growl, it clawed into my leg and dragged me back. I screamed in pain but held onto the wire fence. I continued to kick them until I heard the hideous crunch of bones breaking. It let go and I pushed myself off the ground and limped to the church, the safest place in this town.

I lit every candle, locked the reinforced steel doors, and padlocked the reinforced steel windows. Turning the lights off and smashing the bulbs in them, I sat in the alter, gun in hand, and waited. My leg still stung from the claw marks but I knew I was safe. That's when I remembered these monsters were like hound dogs to blood. Quickly, I pressed abutton on the ground and watched as a compartment opened revealing a first-aid bag.

Dragging the bag to me, I worried about the scraping sound it made as I dragged along the steel floor. But I'd rather them hear the scraping then smell my teenage blood. I cleaned and restitched the wound and just as I threw the bag back, I heard it. The music was being playedin every sterio, speaker, phone, anything. Quickly, I shotout the speakers in the church. Not givng it a second thought.

***********************

"But mommy, I want to play with the kids outside," the little hild asked persistantly. The children wore beautiful dresses and suited trench coats, skipping around a rose bush of blue roses, their singing so high and hypnotic. The little child's mother looked at the boy.

"What kids?" She asked.

"The ones dancing around the blue rose tree," the child answered.

"What blue rose tree?" She asked. All she could see were five blue butterflies fluttering around a red rose tree. Luckily for the little child his mother had seen them once herself and quickly locked the steel, reinforced windows and doors. But she knew she was too late.

"Z!" She yelled to the child's father but when he did not answer, she knew it was too late for her and Z but not their only child; he had a chance to escape.

"Want me to get daddy, mommy?" The child asked. The child's mother shook her head. She reached for the packed bag her husband had stashed, in cases of xtreme emergencies, and threw it at the child. The child caught it without a struggle.

"Where did your father say to go in emergencies?" She questioned, in case the child forgot.

"The underground tunnels," the child whispered, struggling to realize what this had to do with the children outside. They both heard the smashing of the windows. Steel could only hold on for so long.

"What is that?" The child asked, fear visible in his voice. The child's mother did not hesitate and pushed her child down the steel grate leading to the tunnels.

"Go down. I will follow you later. Follow the underground tunnel, I will meet you at your Aunties. I love you," she cried. The child watched as tears escaped his eyes and ran down his face as his mother pulled the steel grate back in place and drill it shut. These tears weren't of sadness though, they were of fear. The child wondered why his mother had been crying but shrugged it off and walked down the dark steel tunnels.

It was fifteen minutes when the child heard the dreadful shrill screams of his own mother and knew that they'd never meet again. The child could hear the tears surge, stinging his eyes and torturing them to be freed but the child brushed them away. The child knew he had to be strong and had to survive.

The child looked at a lit up sign that pointed to the exit into Aunties town and followed it. The child continued to follow the gloomy steel tunnel until he saw light. The child took a break. Relaxing and stretching his legs that ached from too much walking.

"Little child, little child, come into the light," something sung high-pitched. The child stayed where he was as quiet as a mouse.

"Do not fear me, little child. I am hear to help you," it giggled. The child stayed where he was seated, paralysed by fear. The children dancing arounf the rose tree had followed the underground tunnels to get him.

"I will never come out!" The child yelled defiantly. The child knew something bad had happened to his parents. He guessed these children were the result of it but he did not know how or even why.

"So be it, little child! So be it, little human! So be it! You will die in your own steel entrapment!" The children screamed inhumanly and locked the solid steel door to the outside world...

**********************

I woke up, breathing harshly; just another nightmare. The music in the street had stopped but I could hear the storm still brewing. A new tactic, I thought, using the calm before the storm trick. I knew it would work, every new method these monsters used worked. The only two safe places were my church and the underground tunnels, which was a horror show in the making. Storm drains that were flooded out emptied into the underground tunnels.  Leaving the only safe place the church.

My church was never opened to any residential people living in this town for many reasons, too many to list, and as I heard the screams of another dying victim. It almost proved one of my points; they were careless and stupid or just too damn cocky. They thought the town was theirs and in the beggining, it was but no longer was it theirs when I moved here. Why? Because the creatures followed.