•••
"It's coming."
My fingers grapple at Elianas vibrant shirt as they dig into her skin, my body heaving itself forward through the aching pain the ripples through my veins. There's a slight chill to the air as I push her into the musky fabrics hung within the dark, dusty wardrobe, the scent of untouched cloth filling our senses. I grab at the handle of the door lined with small identical gaps. Wood smacks against wood, a click ringing out as my knees thud against the carpeted flooring, my fingers feeling the bottom of the boxes littered there by me when we first moved in with nan, years ago.
My nerves tingled as something bangs against the door, a repetitive clang of flesh couliding with wood, a faint cracking grows stronger with each blunt thrust it makes.
"God, where is it?" I murmur beneath my breath.
The light is nothing shy of nonexistent, leaving me with only the sense of touch to guide me as I search for the cool chill of the metal that resides in one of these boxes. A box I never thought I'd have to uncover.
A long drawn out splintering of wood whispers against the tired walls of the apartment, and then a loud smack rings out through out our apartment, companied by the shattering of glass, shards and the thuds of the creatures feet scramberling the area around it, searching the creases of the small home.
It's hunting us.
"Naseria," her voice is small, barely a whisper.
My fingers gaze over a cardboard that has wilted and and collected a thick layer of dust. I dig into it, my skin grazing a cold, hard metal from within. A shiver runs up my stiff back, my heart thudding against my throat as my fingers wrap around the heavy handle, grasping it within the loose grip of my palm.
I found it.
I feel a tug on my jumper, straining across my chest as it gets pulled upward, a slight shiver running down the fabric with the motion. I stop, motionless for a brief second as realisation dawns on me.
It's no longer breaking our stuff.
My body is cold as my eyes shift to the door we just slammed close, a heavy, laboured breathing seeps through the small shields of fluttering light, a rot killing any other form of sense I once had.
Crimson teeth peek through the gaps, cheeks dripping with dark blood, eyes white as death itself fleeting through the wooden planks, searching.
It can't see us, not from that side. When I use to played hide and seek with Eliana, I always chose this spot, because no one could peek through the blinds from the other end, the shields positioned in a way where it protected you from their beady gaze. And most were too impatient to actually search through the cupboard for a child, I just hope the same applies for it.
Slowly, I grip the handle firmly between my fingers and leave it gently from the box it had been hidden within, until the gun is levelled with the creature on the other side, mere inches away from the loaded barrel. Its nostrils flare, a gush of air filling its lungs as though it's smelling for us. Its eyes stop moving, now deathly still as it gazes through the blinds, locked on its victim.
Its lips move, just slightly, forming a singular word.
"Human." It is low and gutural as it draws out the unfamiliar word from the depths of its being, an inhuman speech.
A click rings out as it extends its jaw open, never stopping as it only gets wider by the second. My eyes gaze at the creature as it tilts its head back slightly, its jaw now cracking as it extends, like a snake, it widens its jaws for the prey that is to be devoured, bones snapping as a low screech gurgles from its throat. Eliana wimpers beside me as she crouches down where I kneel on the floor, her fingers twisting into the fabric of my shirt. Through the small gap shining light through, I witness in terror as the skin at the corner of its mouth begins to tear, splitting in two, as though it was never large enough for it. The flesh rips the fpale flesh of the puffy cheek apart, the stings of the inner muscle twitching as they hold the remaining jaw together. Its blooded teeth now visible through the side of its face.
With black ooze and crimson mixing together across its mouth, it lets out another screech so deafening I feel the last remaining warmth being sapped from my trembling body, and Elianas head burying into my shoulder, my shirt drying her wet cheeks.
It jumps at the door, its fingers slipping between the gaps as it grips the panels between its blooded fingers, the wood splintering beneath its grip.
The bang mixes and blends with the bellowing screech for just a brief second, now only leaving us with the echo of the barrel and the soundless creature slumping to the floor with a wet thud. The corpses dead eyes stares at me through the blind as black ooze pours out of the back of its mouth and into the carpet. A brandnew colour being adding to others.
My gaze stays locked on it, with the gun still gripped between my trembling hands, until the whites of its eyes fade, revealing a deep shade of brown amongst the limp pile of limbs.
The gun becomes limp within my hands as I let go of its grasp and push the broken shards of the door open, revealing the body before me, as it lays cold on the course floor. My gaze runs down the thin limbs slumped over itself, strands of her dirty blond and blooded hair falling over the ripped flesh of her puffy cheeks. My vision begins to blur, but never taking the image from my mind that now resides within me.
She isn't much older my own sister.
Something twists within my gut, like a ragged dagger cutting me from the side. My lungs heave in air, begging for anything other the suffocating reality that lies before, but still, I can't breath with each moment that passes, each inhale it becomes worse, the image before me only getting brighter, more sickening, a terrifying claity smothers me.
I murdered someone.
Copper hair shifts on top of my shoulder as the pale of Elianas skin peeks through, but my hand rushes up, my fingers clasping together to hide the body from her sight, hiding the horror of what lies mere metres away from the both of us as we kneel, trembling within the shadows of the shifting cloths above. With shaky legs, I somehow pull myself from the floor, stepping out of the coven that hid us, my shoes sinking into the crimson carpet, a quiet slush with each twist of my sneaker as I keep elianas gaze turned away from the girl's stiff figure slumped across the floor.
My sister's fingers twist within mine as her face stays buried in my shoulder, her breaths slow and drawn out. The handle of the door is cold as it creeks closed, as though it knows that death lies behind the old, blistered wood.
And yet it is heat that consumes me. Burning bright from the flowing blood that courses through my veins, scolding me from within.
I never thought I'd ever see death, not like that, I never imagined the eyes of death would be so bleak, such an abrupt end. I suppose no one really talks about it, the finality of it all. Because to acknowledge would be to set a flame to it, to alight it and watch its flames burn anything daring enough to get close. To utter such words, is like being sucked back into that moment once again, reviving a monster that fests on the terror that resides within you. It hurts. And no one wants to be hurt again. So it's easier to just ignore.
To forget the stare of death and close your eyes, pretending the monster isn't lying beneath the boards of your bed.
My shirt strains across my waist, pulling me from the darkness of my own mind, realisation falling upon me as I stare at the bleak door. My head twists around, Eliana comes into sight, her freckles fading into the red puffy skin surrounding her eyes.
"Where's Nan?" She whispers beneath her breath, a clear sheen coating her gaze as it bores into my own.
I take in a deep breath. "She's going to be okay, the people I left her with, they going to take care of her for us."
Her light copper brows drag downward, her eyes fleeting across my features as my hand raises to her shoulder. My gaze flickers acoss the room to the small, square window shining the glowing morning sun through its portal, and the tall, brick building across from ours. Right in the middle sits a window, shattered with a bright red dripping down what's left of the broken shards.
My stomach twists.
"But we can't stay here, we have to go."
Her nails dig in my arms. "What...no, we can't go out there. Did you just see that thing, there could be more of them," she chokes out, her words fumbling over one another.
My hand is now firm on her shoulder. "We can, I know a place we can go. It's far away from the city, nobody will know we are out there. We'll be safe, Lena."
My breaths are hard as I say, "we just need to get out of the city first."
•••
Chapter word count // 1,625
Overall word count // 18,561