MADDIE SCREAMED, THE DARKNESS slithering around her neck with a low hiss, the tendrils of smoke tightening around her lungs.
As the shadow tugged on her neck she thrashed in pain, her reflection on the white, linoleum school floors a sight of young terror. Behind her, Elle was bound to shining, supple blue metal, the rows of lockers behind her splattered with blood and shredded by fast, glittering claws.
The moonlight dripping from the large, paneled windows of the hallways illuminated the beast, it's silver claws the size of snake fangs ripping through skin and school books, tearing through cheap backpacks and wooden desks and the faces of all the kids Annika had known her whole life.
Ablaze, the wide corridors she'd walked through every day since freshman year rang with shrill screams. The janitor was sprawled on the floor, his cleaning supplies standing beside him and his mop submerged in a foamy, lemon-scented liquid that looked terrifyingly similar to blood.
Hundreds of students were pinned to the walls, their bodies pierced with pieces of metal rods that had previously accompanied the stairs. They lay there, lifeless, like large black letters burning into fearful minds, written into long messages pinned to the school bulletin, left for visitors to read.
A thunderous roar ran through the walls. Annika shivered, her breath entangled in her lungs like the chewing gum stuck to the bottom of the table she was hiding behind. Beakers on the shelves beside her shone in the moonlight, reflecting a warped version of her bleeding face and tear-filled eyes.
Suddenly, a loud rattle shook the classroom door. Her breath hitched, her heart collapsing under the vision of being torn apart into shreds of singed skin and pain like her friends. Turmoil swirled like cafeteria food poisoning in her stomach, and she felt sick. This was it.
The sound of screeching metal crept towards where she hid. Stools were thrown to the ground, making her flinch. There was a pause, a curious sniff, a wide, creeping grin. Next to her, the dripping scent of massacre and fear hung in the air.
She didn't have to open her eyes to know the beast was beside her. Moments later, there was a sharp slicing of air, claws springing up from the floor to deep into her skin. Naturally, she screamed, but did not resist. Instead, she waited amongst the burning sensation of teeth sinking into her arm, the prolonged, painful feeling of each fragment of her soul fleeing her body, before she finally fell dead.
Then, Annika's eyes flashed open.
Immediately, maniac laughter surrounded her. A white gauge had been carelessly tightened around her mouth. The skin around her wrists was bright red, restrained under a tight, winding rope that bound her to a brown chair. There was a weight hanging at her feet, and she understood the sensation to be her heels. She was still dressed in her clothes for the art gala.
It felt like there was a storm in her skull, her nerves erratically shooting off in all directions as she struggled to comprehend her dim surroundings. White lights overhead burned into her vision. Blinking, Annika carried the leaden weight of her bones forward before falling clumsily back again, her skin rubbing against the thick fabric of her dress.
In her peripheral vision, two figures stood meters from her, doubling over in laughter. The wretched sound angered her mind, and her thoughts arranged themselves in defense as if soldiers. Memories and fury flooded her mind. Finally, she remembered where she was.
Two beady black eyes swept over her. "I haven't tortured someone in so long," the man grinned. "Mind games are my favorite."
Drained, Annika failed to reply. Words she wanted to shoot at him latched onto her tongue, remaining unsaid. Instead, she observed him in quiet remembrance of how he had captured and brought her here.
It was difficult to concentrate. Violent images of the nightmares she'd woken up from flashed in her mind, one bloodied scene to the next, a collection of photographs flying past one another, attached to a synthetic, stretched reel.
Memories of anything else felt hazy. Thoughts of desperation flickered uselessly in her brain, words made of letters and weak signals like cheap, hanging lights on the streets, so that she could barely comprehend them before they vanished, before her mind filled with blackness once more.
Annika could barely think. Fleeting, generalized emotions were the only feelings she could recognize, hanging clouds of anger to splayed out sheets of sadness and self-pity to bright, neon explosions of alarm. They passed her mind so quickly she hadn't even realized they were there.
A stab of pain shot through her skull. Outside of the room were several voices, all of them loud and ringing in her ears, invading her mind. It felt as if she were frozen, every erratic nerve and atom coated in a layer of numbing ice. The voices blurred into an indistinct, clouded pattern of steps leading to the door, and Annika's breath coiled in her throat.
Kazimir strolled inside, greeting the other two men. As he walked, Annika could feel the extent of hatred inside of her, and the plunging urge to tear him apart with a small wave of her hand. If her arms weren't ensnared, she would have killed them all.
He turned to face her curiously, as if only now acknowledging her presence. His lips quirked upwards into a sideways smirk. Twisted lengths of rope chafed her skin as she struggled, throwing herself forward.
The legs of her chair knocked against the floor. Aggravated, Kazimir extended his leg and kicked the chair impatiently, standing over her as it stabilized in rocking motions and reeled her backwards along with it. Another loud knock echoed in the almost empty room.
"Do you know how long we've been wanting to do this?" he purred, placing his arm lazily on her shoulder. "To torture one of you?"
His touch burned through her skin, like the hot wax of a candle dripping down onto her bones. Annika's teeth slid against one another. "Don't touch me."
Kazimir kicked again, this time at a blurred, hardly visible shadow of grey only present in the corner of her eye. A rattle of metal shook her nerves. In her peripheral vision, sharp glints of silver neared her, what looked like the shining of foil sheets and small shapes of dull white.
"I don't have a choice," she heard him say. Then, his fingers reached up and locked around her neck, the touch of a viper, curling down to the nape of her neck as he hissed nightmares into her ears.
Annika's clouded eyes landed on his face, wavering. A sick smile curled onto his lips. The razor-sharp needle positioned carelessly in his fingers neared her skin, and she flinched violently, clenching her teeth. "Get the hell away from me-"
Kazimir looked down at her. A sharp click and his arm met her skull with brute force, the shock of the blow bleeding into her bones slowly and painfully. Sparks of fury exploded within every atom in her body. Head spinning, Annika fought for a moment longer, thrusting her arms and ankles against the bounds that kept her from collapsing on the ground altogether.
Eventually her energy dissipated, her ribs leaden and her breaths bottled in her lungs. Tears of rage threatened to slip out onto her cheeks, but she couldn't cry, not now when he was still watching her, reveling in her terror and pain.
It was impossible to prevent him from twisting her arm back against the chair, impossible to thrust a knife in his heart like she wished she could before he plunged the needle unforgivingly into the skin of her neck.
A single drop of blood dripped onto the waistline of her dress. Searing pain invaded her mind, growing to diminish any last thought of clarity. Once again, her mind clouded with lethargy, her soul drained. Her last recurring thought fought to reach a large, lethal space in her mind.
Murder.
"Bloody murder!" Maddie muttered, violently kicking at a passing plastic bag on the sidewalk of the deserted street. It had been hours since, and there was still no sign of her, or them.
Venice seemed intensely bleak at dusk, where a rare orb of light twinkling in the distance was still not nearly enough to light the path they had been searching for the last half hour. Instead, the blue light spilling onto the street bled through their veins to their hands, and now it was slowly dying out.
Violet let out a small sigh. "Do you think we'll ever find her?"
Amongst the hazy remnants of magic glowing in the darkness, Maddie thought she saw Alex's head lower. "I'm sure we will," he said quietly, melancholy drowning his words. "Don't worry."
Maddie knew this was also Alex's way of comforting himself. It was clear enough; the twinge of guilt now pulling his lips into a frown, the creases forming near his brow bone, the hopelessness in his dropping shoulders. Why couldn't he trace her? How had they lost her?
Leah abruptly stopped walking, pressing her coral lips into a firm line. "Stop doing that."
The others paused, Asher softly nudging Alex back to reality. His bright green eyes rose from the ground slowly, rising to meet Leah's hard glare before lines of concern graced his forehead. "What's wrong?"
Maddie glanced at him sharply, stopping short beside Leah to cut in. "Stop blaming yourself. We're all equally responsible, Alex."
He shook his head in disbelief. "Don't talk to me about that right now, please. I was leading all of you, we were there because of me!" his tone hardened, as if the situation was so ludicrous he could have punched something. "I can't believe I thought we were prepared!"
"We were prepared." Katya snapped, her tone icy. "Do you really think I would have allowed us to attend if I didn't think were ready? We killed one of them, remember?"
Alex curtly looked up at her. "Then how did they escape with her in their hands? How did your wretched brother survive, even after I called on Poseidon to help me drown him in his own damn blood, as soon as they grabbed her?"
The sunlight began filtering in through the clouds above them. Flashes of her red hair darted through the newly shining light like some form of rare metallic as Katya reached out to kick Alex swiftly in the shin. "I'm not fighting with you now. Focus."
Once again he shook his head, though this time as if trying to clear his mind. Ribbons of sunlight draped over his skin, highlighting his tired eyes. Maddie reached out to place a hand on his shoulder comfortingly. Alex shot her a small, grateful smile.
They walked on, unquestioning of the empty winding streets they traced for half an hour in prolonged silence. None of them could forget what had happened mere hours ago, and so dwindled on the topic of yesterday night, replaying its events in their minds.
It was a while later that Asher tensed. At first he was hesitant to even speak.
"Guys..." he mumbled unsurely. "I think - I think I can sense her."
They all paused. Now that the sun had risen, the city was much more distinct, and they took a moment to look around. Blinking, they stared hard at their surroundings, searching for some kind of clue. As far as their line of vision stretched an array of beige houses, seemingly endless.
"I don't see much." Violet retorted, craning her neck to look around.
Asher continued to scan the area, approaching one of the houses with piqued interest. "The pulse is stronger here," he muttered, more so to himself, whilst pulling out a blue hair clip from his pocket.
They all quickened their pace, following him into a small garden. Maddie quickly realized that they had stumbled into an older part of the city; now that they were closer, she could grasp shrouds of green ivy and small flowers, accompanied by peeling brown paint. At the foot of the structures were bouts of sand, littered with trash.
Asher continued to fiddle with the sparkly blue accessory, and Leah's gaze dropped to what he was holding. "Isn't that Annika's?" She narrowed her eyes in realization. "Have you been tracking her this whole time?"
There was a short pause. "I've been trying, but-"
"But what?" Alex drawled, his words laced with impatience. "What happened?"
Asher halted, crystal blue eyes widening in sheer panic. His lips barely moved. "Damnit."
Maddie, Leah, Violet and Katya stopped to look at each other, anticipating the worst. Then, a rush of voices sounded from a few houses away. The six magicians froze, and another wave of voices flooded the perimeter. They were no longer alone.
Alex lowered his head, his next words barely audible. "Invisibility spells, now!"
A chorus of obsucro swept across the six of them, a small orb of diamond light releasing a wave of magic. The current washed over them, a slightly numbing sensation running down their arms before they became hidden amongst their surroundings. The six of them dispersed, backing up against the wall behind them.
It was only seconds later that a herd of drunk men streamed inside the area through broken walls of the abandoned houses, their black robes being whipped back and forth by the small breeze as they celebrated their latest victory.
Some American millionaire bitch, one man laughed, holding up a sparkly blue hair pin identical to the one in Asher's hands.
Maddie's breath hitched, and she glanced at Alex, who's hard gaze morphed into realization. All along, Asher had thought he had been tracking someone else...
The words slipped clumsily from another drunken man's lips: Annika Cho Liang.
AN:
Click on the little ⭐️below and leave a comment if you liked this chapter! Don't be a silent reader and feel free to yell your feelings at me, including feelings of anger because hi it's been a month-
Hey readers! HehE yes I'm back after five million years and I'M SORRYY I know you guys probably want to kill me when I disappear off of the face of the Earth, but again I don't have any valid excuses for you guys. Mainly, it's just me being a lazy idiot and not putting in the effort that I should be putting in for you guys, so thank you so much if you've stuck with me after all this time! <3
As some of you may have noticed, there's been a name change – Annika Wang is now Annika Cho Liang. I know the previous name was super generic and I wanted to diversify the characters a little - I also know that it seems stupid to add this in right after it's written but I thought some people might have been a little confused after reading, so yeah please ignore my complete incompetence and thanks for putting up with me!
I lurv you guys for real and I'll see y'all in the next one. Thanks for following me along on this journey! 💞✌🏼