Taint (Formerly Claimed) Dark Midnight 1

Chapter 32

Sorry for the late update.  I'm away from my apartment and the internet where I am is crappy crap.  Therefore, my editing process suffered a lot in the process. 

Therefore, honest feedback is especially important.  Please let me know what you think.  Good or bad, I'll take it.  :)

Does everything in this chapter make sense?  I'll try to clarify if it doesn't.

Spelling errors are probably a dime a dozen in this chap.  Sorry. I tried.  I'll try to go over it again when I get back home.  

Until then, any feedback at all is much appreciated.  

Chapter 32

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Real life wasn’t supposed to be like this. 

You weren’t supposed to run into stalkers and still feel safe.

Especially not a stranger—who, at one point, claimed to be a bloodthirsty monster from children’s nightmares.  

A stranger who also had a habit of just being plain out creepy. 

She shouldn’t have felt safe. 

For those reasons, Miriam figured that—as she locked the shed door with a trembling hand—in the space of a millisecond reality had descended from reality, right into fantasy. 

Insanity. 

Not that she could complain. 

At least in this parallel universe there was something a little darker to fear than the threat of a seizure.  And, at least for now…she wasn’t alone. 

Though, does it really matter?

Her heart sped up as she hiked her backpack over one shoulder and turned to face him.  He was watching her, of course, waiting patiently up ahead. 

In another universe, they could have been just a normal pair of teenagers out after hours playing a taunting game of hide and seek behind the creepy school shed. 

Of course, in that world, unicorns probably existed.  Fairies to boot.

As much as she didn’t want to, a part of her realized that Eliot wasn’t real—at least, the idea of him wasn’t. 

There were only two likely scenarios into which someone like him could possibly fit.  

One, he was an escaped psycho from the loony bin thoroughly convinced that he was a bloodsucking monster from horror movies. 

And the second…

Well, she hadn’t really considered the second option yet.  It was still there, of course, waiting unspoken out of reach—but she couldn’t bring herself to think too hard on it.

Bad, her senses warned.  Just focus on the here and now—minus the fact that he just so happened to have spent the day ignoring you, only to come to the rescue at the last moment. 

It didn’t help any that he looked perfectly at home in the darkness that drifted over the field. 

As if reading her mind, he paused, head tilting casually, red eyes seeking out hers in the glow of the overhead field lights. 

You coming?  It was what she figured he would have said if he were a normal boy.

Instead, he didn’t have to say anything; his body language told it all.  His head was cocked slightly to the side and those dark eyes demanded a response.