500 votes! Mwahahaha.
~Murder, muder, the voices in my head. ~Time in the blink of an eye. You held my hand you held me tight. ~Shocked. Broken, I'm dying inside. ~ I miss you, you hurt me, you left with a smile. ~The mystery you kept, the soul behind you kept. ~I can't survive unless I know you're with me.
*****************************************************************************************************
There was no way we were ordering pizza I refused, because chances were, it wasn’t actually going to be a pizza guy.
If you catch my drift.
When we got home from the store I tried to distract myself by my strong, unnerving thoughts by going on the computer. I found a recipe online that involved home-made pizza and threw in some of the techniques my Mother had with cooking to create two four-cheese, mushroom pepperoni and pepper pizza with large chunks of fresh tomato. I set the pizza in the oven and set the buzzer dial on the side, before washing my hands in the sink.
In just one quick recipe, I swear I went from a boxed mac and cheese girl to a five star iron chef.
Ok maybe a two star Iron chef, but still.
“Hey, what time is it?” I asked Marcy as I tore open the bag of Cheetos and corn chips. Marcy had finally stopped vacuuming and seemed to be setting up the DDR system.
She lifted her light-brown haired head away from the play system and took her phone out of her pocket. “Seven fifteen on the dot. They’ll be here any minute and then we can have some ferocious DDR matches.”
I huffed out a breath “Just kill me already.”
“What?”
“Nothing.”
I was pouring the chips into a bowl when I realized something. My eyes darted to the cross situated next to the front door. I casually walked over to it and stood in front of it. I glanced at Marcy before my fingers brushed over the wooden surface. “No more cloak. No more problems,” I told myself softly.
Don’t do it. Don’t do it. He’ll never leave, my mind told me. He’ll try and kill you again! Or make you choke on the pizza! Maybe he’ll even make you pass out from extreme dancing—
I tore the cross off the wall before I talked myself out of it and right on cue, a knock echoed the house.
“Marcy? Did you buzz anyone up?”
She shook her head. “It’s not working for some reason. No sound comes out of the machine when someone asks to come up.”
I frowned. “Of course,” I replied dryly and got on my tippy toes to see who was on the other side of the door. Two petite, short haired twins stood with their hands clasped behind their back and smiles on their faces as they conversed with each other. In the middle of the twins stood a tall dark-skinned boy with a Mohawk and another boy with spiky dark brown hair.
I pulled the door open and their faces lit up. “Hey!” They said at the same time.
The one covered the others mouth and gave me a bright smile. “I’m Lisa, this is my sister Tina! And this is Cory and Danny!”
I opened the door further. “I’m uh-- Faith, nice to meet you,” I said shyly and motioned them inside. The two guys walked in and both gave me a small smile before slapping Marcy a hand five. “Do you like chips and DDR?”
I was never good at the meet and greets.
“Hell yeah!” Tina said, and did a little dance. “I’m so pumped!”
Marcy got up from the video system and pulled them into a hug. “Hey guys! You can have a seat or eat. The pizza will be done soon.”
Lisa—or was it Tina skipped over to the stereo and blasted the music, a beer already in her hand.
Oh geez.
Another knock echoed the door. My heart fluttered at the power behind the hand. It was definitely a guy. I dragged my feet to the door and pulled it open to yet another gorgeous young man with longish blonde hair and bright blue eyes.
“Hello,” he greeted.
I gave them a smile and told them to come in and watched him grab a beer on the coffee table an take a squat across from the twins and Cory, who all seemed to be laughing at a joke. There were now five strangers in my house, three of which could have been Death.
The dark-skinned boy, Cory sat up, waved at me and shouted, “Yo, I heard someone say cupcakes. Can you see if there are any in that tray? They’re on the counter.”
Cupcakes.
My stomach dropped as my eyes lingered on a tray covered with aluminum foil on our granite counter. Cory was staring at the cupcakes with a hunger, eagerly waiting them.
“Sure,” I replied and walked over to the counter. My legs seemed more wobbly and my breathing became quick.
Death has to be Cory. Why would he ask me to get Cupcakes?
I tore the aluminum off with shaky hands to reveal twenty perfect-looking cupcakes with black icing and yes—you guessed it, little sugar skulls on the tops. I took one of them out turned around, and smiled at all of the guests that had been watching me stare at the cupcakes.
I gave Cory in particular a nice scowl when I handed him the cupcake and said between clenched teeth, “Real funny.” Cory gave me a confused look and took a bite of the cupcake.
“Oooh! I want a cupcake!” the twins shouted. They got up and skipped over to the tray along with Marcy and stuffed one into their mouth.
I bit my lip as I watched everyone in the room eating a cupcake. Well, that’s what I thought until my eyes locked onto one person in particular who wasn’t eating a cupcake, had his converse propped up on the coffee table, and was wearing a dark navy sweatshirt.
Not to mention he was staring at me
“Death?” I mouthed to him.
He stuck his tongue out at me and then glanced at Marcy, who had gotten up with one of the twins and was setting up the DVR. The TV went static at his glare and so he smiled, and continued to stare at the girls setting up the mats as if he was…
My face went beat red with anger. I stormed around the room to his side of the couch. “Stop eying them up. Just take the cloak and leave,” I hissed over the music, so only the ‘brown spiky haired boy’ could hear.
I decided to call him Spiky for future reference.
“Hey I’m talking to you,” I repeated, when he didn’t answer me.
Spiky slowly turned his head towards me and ushered me to come closer. I leaned only a tinsy bit. “Kitchen,” was all he whispered.
“Can someone help with the mats? They aren’t working!” One of the twins said. I had already confused the two and prayed to God they wouldn’t be in a situation that I would have to call them by name.
“I will,” Cory said and sauntered over to what seemed like a construction site.
I crossed my arms over my chest and began to walk towards the kitchen where the cupcakes sat, took a cupcake and plopped down on a stool as I began to unwrap it. I looked over my shoulder once the cupcake was completely unwrapped.
Spiky was nowhere to be seen.
A hand grabbed the cupcake away from me. I scowled at the person who had swatted the cupcake out of my hand. Spiky. “I wouldn’t eat that, Cupcake,” he said with a bit of a laugh, and licked a bit off frosting off of it in a slow manner.
I frowned. “Why shouldn’t I be eating them, Death?”
“You’re smarter then you look.” The boy—or should I say from up close, young man took a bite of the dessert and made a noise in his throat. “Mmmm, I don’t care what anyone says. Crushed Benzodiazepamsare just the cherry on top when it comes to cupcakes. Right, Cupake?”
My mouth fell open. “WHAT did you just say? Did you—YOU PUT SLEEPING PI—“
He put a hand over my mouth. “Calm the hell down,” Spiky—I mean Death said, forcefully holding the back of my head as he spoke. “They need to go to sleep. The cloak might go all.” He made a circular motion by his ear symbolizing he was saying crazy. “If I by any chance loose a hold of it and it gets out. When I’m away from it for a long time it gets kind of…attached.” He motioned to me, “Yeah. It’s best that nobody is screaming besides you.”
“Why am I going to be SCREAMING?”I stood up from the stool and attempted to shove him backwards. “What do you mean the cloak get’s crazy and nobody should scream! I thought you had this all handled, Mr. Look at me I’m all tough and rough and can disappear into a damn shadow and have a scy--”
He put his hand over my mouth again. “Holy shit, I said keep it down, Mega-phone. That means not screaming so all of China and Egypt can hear you. Once you spill the ‘S’ word and the ‘C’ word it’s pretty obvious who I am.”
I stifled a laugh. “C and S word? I hope you mean Cloak and Scythe.”
He growled and then put a hand on the back of my stool and one on the counter as he leaned in and said, “Tell me where the cloak is and I won’t drown you today, kay?”
I twitched when he said drown. “Drown?”
His face became closer and darker as a dark shadow flowed carefully over it. “Yes, drown. As in I’m going to drown you in your bathtub until every molecule of air is out of your lungs. I mean really, did you get the memo I sent you? I told you I’m killing you numerous times.”
“No, I just got the gruesome teddy bear telegram,” I managed, my throat cracking because I was becoming so nervous. Is he really planning on killing me after all this time? Should I ask him about the intruder in my house yesterday? The flashback? Would he answer any of my questions?
What would he do once we were alone?
He snapped his fingers in my face, ironically snapping me out of my thoughts. “Well hello, nice to have you finally back. I was talking to you for like ten minutes and you were staring at my hand with a dumb expression.”
I instinctively looked down at his hand but he quickly moved it away. “What did you say?”
“Hold on one sec this music sucks,” he cocked his hip against the counter and waved his hand in the air towards the living room.
The sound of heavy objects falling thumping to the ground made me whirl around. Marcy, Cory, the guy with the long hair, and the twins were knocked out cold in the most awkward positions. “Oh my—“
Death suppressed a snicker and spun me around on the stool. “Oopsies, wrong hand gesture. I never get them right,” he said, and started to stalk—yes I said stalk, towards my bedroom hallway as if he doing lunges.
“What the heck are you doing?” I asked as I reluctantly followed him into the dark hallway. I was honestly becoming scared just by watching him lunge.
“Just stretching, Pooh-bear. It comes in handy. Plus I was so pumped for the DDR game,” he defended and before stepped into the shadows he paused and put a hand up. I swear on my life, he started to dance. He pumped his fist in the air a few times before dropping his butt to the floor and shaking his body in ways that I never knew existed ending with him thrusting his hips. His movements were so fluent and clean it was as if he was a professional dancer. I couldn’t help but burst out laughing.
He straightened himself and brushed an invisable crumb off his shirt. “Sorry. I don’t know what happened there I must after be affected by your little human drugs,” he said seriously and stepped into the dark hallway.
I couldn’t stop laughing.
“Ooh, Death likey. It’s all dark and sinister. Is this your room? I don’t remember. The lights aren’t working by the way. Not that I’m complaining. ”
“Why aren’t the lights working?” I wondered and put a hand to my pounding chest.
“Cuz I told you not to put all of your lights on because the ‘C’ word get’s annoyed. Plus ‘you know who’ probably knows I’m here and doesn’t want me to find it even though I can see in the dark.”
I bit my nail. “You know who?”
“The ‘C’ word,” he whispered. I heard the noises of drawers opening up.
I stood at the edge of the dark hallway a little skeptical. I mean it wasn’t as if my heart was pounding so hard that I was really waiting for a heart attack, or all of my friends were passed out in the room and possibly dead, or the fact that the Grim Reaper was going to be in my room in approximately—
“Hey Pooh-bear I have a question!” Death called out, “If someone was to say—raid your panty drawer… figuratively speaking of course. Where would he or she go to find some slinky-floss underwear?”
“They wouldn’t,” I said, and took a step back from the darkness. “Because that’s someone else’s property!”
“Oh shit! Jackpot!” I could hear him doing a little shuffle on the ground as he sung quietly, “Panty land, I’m going to panty land.”
Is this guy for real?
“Phew, thank god for my night vision,” I heard him say. “This is nice. I personally like the black ones with mini-skulls but that’s just me.”
I crossed my arms over my chest and tapped my foot on the ground, waiting for him to stop teasing me. Just then, a light bulb went on in my head.
He was trying to provoke me.
“Are you trying to get me into my room?”
“No,” he said a little too quickly. “I’m just asking you to step into the dark so I can snatch you, if that’s what you meant to ask.”
“Oh my—are you using me as bait to get your cloak?”
There was a pause.
“Now, that’s just ridiculous, Joy,” was the deep response that seemed a lot closer than before. I went to jump back but it was too late, two dark hands shot out and pulled me into the darkness. I struggled and hit any part of his body I could as he dragged me across the floor into what I hoped was me room.
“Let…go of…OOF!”
My back hit a bouncy surface. My bed. I frantically sat up and looked around the dark air, my heart in my throat. My sequent shirt had somehow gotten stuck on my comforter and so I struggled to get up. “Death?”
“Aw, Faithy-poo is stuck like glue.” Death teased. A deep, barked out laugh echoed the room. “You put a cross in the box, how cute. How exactly am I suppose to open this?”
I tugged my sequent shirt off the comforter with a growl. “Hand it to me I can’t see anything!”
“Neither can I stop complaining,” he shot back.
“Yes you can you lazy piece of poop. You said you can see in the dark just five seconds ago,” I spat to the darkness.
I heard the closet doors open. “Poop?” was the dry response followed by a sarcastic,“How old are you exactly?”
“Old enough. Now get the box out so you can leave.” I sat cross legged on the bed, facing what I thought would be Death. He moved around objects in my closet until finally spotting the clear container and dragging it out. “This is ridiculous. How come this thing chooses to turn the lights out when you finally get an ‘OK you can come inside’? Sounds like a stubborn little piece of dirt if you ask me.”
“Don’t worry Pumpkin, we’ll get you out of there,” Death said in a cooing voice, ignoring me all together. The container dropped in my lap and I reflexively caught it.
I laughed at a thought that passed through my head. Did he have nicknames for everyone and everything? Or just me? “I thought I was Pumpkin,” I said, in a dramatic tone. I really didn’t care if he called me nicknames as long as he didn’t call me Hope.
“Not anymore I’ve upgraded you to Pooh-bear and anything related to Cupcake. Possibly Faithy-poo, Joy and Hope can be used too, as well as Huggie-Bear. But that last one is only if I’m really hyped up on souls and or am about to disintegrate in a pit of lava and forget that I’m straight. Now open the damn box and hand it to me before I get agitated and take a leisure piss on that Gucci bag I spotted in your closet and then burn you alive.”
“Fine, fine,” I muttered and unattached the lid. Death must have came closer because I could feel his body heat.
“Don’t listen to anything it says,” he mumbled. “It will say anything to stay with you.”
Don’t trust him, an unfamiliar voice seeped into my skull as I tore the lid off and picked up the cross. It was neither female nor male and sounded raspy, static-like. He’s just using you to get your soul before the others possess your abilities. Sure he’s been protecting you from the Light Angels, but in the end you are simply a pet.Keep me and I’ll protect you again, Faith Williams. I will save you now just say the word.
“Yes,” I found myself saying almost immediately.
I felt a hand claw the cloak inside and an ear crunching hiss echo the room. I suddenly felt a snake-like object crawl up my hand and pull me across the room. I screamed and flipped over the edge of the bed as it dragged me across the room towards the window.
“Death!“
I felt warm hands on my waist and a hard tug. I could see from the moonlight the cloak was still black and was gripping the latch on the window. “Sit ire puella!” Let go of the girl! A husky voice cursed as I continued to get tugged backwards.
He’s weak from our departure, the raspy voice said. Get him while you can. Crosses. Find the light. Find the Angels. Save yourself from your evil protect—
A blast of blue light suddenly stretched along the room. I felt Death’s hand grasp my upper arm witch glowed with the brightest blue I had ever seen. Heat radiated like fire from his glowing hand and sailed throughout my body, leaving terrifying gooseflesh and a intense pain in my stomach. The milk-curdling scream of what I assumed was the cloak continued with my own until Death’s chest pressed against mine and he lunged completely for the cloak.
“Ungrateful piece of cloth. See, I told you those lunges came in handy,” was the muttered words I heard before I felt my eyes roll back and I passed out.
******
Vote for someone with some impressive abs to be shirtless! AND for the watty awards 2011 of course XDDD