Chapter 2

Cary

“--- on”

“Whe—“

“By the win-“

“Wha- doing?”

“Come here!”

“You’ll wake her, shhhhhhhh…”

Voices in my room, soft and faint, so faint I could barely make them out, but the more I listened the more I seemed to be able to hear. I rolled onto my back in my bed, trying to see if I could hear better, and opened my eyes. I swore I heard something. But this is my room, this is my bed, my ceiling. I’m not dreaming.

Burglars?!

The thought made me jump up. Sitting in my bed with the knife clutched in my hand that I always had tucked underneath my pillow. I scanned the dark room with the moonlight filtering through my thin curtains. No movement, no voices, no other noises other than my rapid heartbeat.

After a few tense minutes, I let my hand with the knife slump down onto my bed and breathed a heavy sigh. “Yep, definitely going mad.” I muttered to myself tiredly, pushing my knife back into its sheath and under my pillow again.

But I could really swear that I heard voices just when I woke up. Faint but still able to make them out. I sat in the dark, looking around my room suspiciously. And for no reason at all, I had goosebumps running up my arms and from my back up into the base of my skull. As I hugged myself, I stared off into space at the shadows. Was it just me, or did they look creepier than they usually do?

My window to the right was slightly open so a crisp night breeze blew into my room, lifting the light blue curtain as it pushed its way in. My dresser and closet were close to the window, but more to the middle of the room against the wall next to each other. My desk was to the left corner of the room next to the door. The computer on my desk sat quietly, clearly still off. I made sure to always put the power off by the plug before I go to sleep so not even the screen’s standby light was blinking away at me.

My bedside table had my book and a glass of water on it. My slim book case was tall and stoic. When I looked at my shadowy reflection in my full-length mirror against my closet, I had the strangest feeling of not recognizing myself.

I shook myself again and fell backwards against my pillows. Nothing out of the ordinary again, as usual… I was just psyching myself out.

I sighed and burrowed myself backwards deeper into my pillows, and was just about to drift back off to sleep when I felt a weird sensation. A slight tingling and tightening on my chest, I frowned and rubbed against my sternum, feeling the ache burn into pain. I gasped in surprise and jolted out of the little bit of sleep I managed to drift into.

Suddenly I wished that I’d never opened my eyes in the first place.

Right above me, there was this human-like silhouette crouched over me; its legs looked thin but muscled, its massively slender hand was on my sternum, pressing down on me and digging what felt like nails into my skin. I wanted to writhe; I wanted to scream; I wanted to do something, but I was utterly paralyzed. I couldn’t even blink to save myself. Inside my head though, it was chaos. I was screaming, yelling, trying to tell myself that this wasn’t real. Sleep paralysis was a real phenomenon after all. Even so, I tried my best to fight off the cold grip that was spreading over my body.

Suddenly I heard a dark cackle, my eyeballs shot to the right, and I saw another dark silhouette holding a pillow poised over my face. I could make out long crooked ears, and more spindly limbs. My bed creaked on the left corner and at first I saw nothing when my gaze shot to that side, nothing but an indentation of a knee… then I could see!

Another dark shape clearer than the other two. Sickly gray skin shining like it was set in a cold fever, eyes big and bulbous like an insect’s. A toothy grin spread over its face literally almost reaching each of its pointed ears, saliva seeming to glow on its spiky teeth, all jagged and skew, not a single flat tooth in that nightmarish maw. As my focus sharpened, more details came into full view. Its mouth seemed ringed with dry cracks and its nails were black. It wore a pair of leather trousers, its bony scarred and blistered torso lay bare to my eyes.

It leaned closer, pressing its face almost right up against mine. I wanted to gag. I wanted to gag so badly! It smelled like dried blood, rotten apples and dead mice, and having it breathe onto my face with its open mouth didn’t help me at all. Its chilled breath stirred the small hairs on my cheeks as it sniffed and breathed. Every cell in my skin that he breathed over felt like it was shrinking away or dying.

My eyes fell back onto the creature to my right, and I felt my panicked breathing picking up pace. The only way that my body was allowed to show fear.

The creature seemed woodsy but also dead on its feet. Its eyes were the milky color of the dead, purple veins making its eyeballs seem to pop out of its skull. Its skin was brown like mucky water, its fingers that still held the pillow in line with my face seemed to have had their nails ripped out of them, my eyes spied bloodied fingerprints stark on my white pillowcase. Its nose was long, hawk-like and crooked like a crone’s. Its ears were long and droopy, the bark that patched over its skin seemed dead and looked just about ready to peel off along with the skin itself.

Then I looked back up at the one with its hand still digging its nails into my sternum and started. If I could move, I would have shrunk back in a flash. I would have run for the hills, I would have run screaming for all that I was worth if only I could move!

Its nails were black as obsidian and just as hard and cold. Its eyes that stared locked onto mine seemed to have captured all the demons that should ever have existed, its smile was evil, big razor-like teeth lined its jaws, its nose and ears seemed about the same as the woody creature’s, it stank of blood, and iron, nothing else. Its skin… it didn’t have skin…

“Shhhhe sees uuuuus.” The one to my right singsonged, lulling the pillow from left to right as if it wanted to swat something with it that only it could see.

“Indeed…” the one above me breathed, lowering its head closer to my eyes. The painful heat radiating off from its skinless expanse of blood drenched sinews had me shivering in terror.

“Can I ease her suffering? Let me have her.” The one to my left said, eagerly scrambling closer onto my bed, its razor sharp nails inching closer to my throat like it didn’t want to scare me, just throttle me while I thrashed. Its saliva seemed to double in its mouth, making it gleam around the corners of its mouth and dribble to its chin.

“No.” The skinless one said, pressing harder against my chest. It was so heavy… I could barely breathe. “The bargain was struck. We are bound.” It growled out the last word like an animal ready to devour a lamb. My chest felt like it would snap under the pressure of its weight. I wanted to scream so badly! I wanted to fight! I wanted to grab onto my knife and defend myself! I wanted to cry.

I struggled, I fought to make my body move. But my body just didn’t want to listen to my brain!

Move…

Move!

MOVE!

HELP ME!

Suddenly, whatever hold was over me snapped. It felt like a force that contained my body, shattered like glass. I yelled in fury and fear, the hand that was closest to my pillow slid under and grabbed hold of my knife. In a flash, I streaked it over the face of the skinless terror, slashing its face from its ear to its nose.

It screamed in rage for a second, then it was gone. I just blinked, and it was gone. I couldn’t make sense of it for a second, until I heard a crash to my right and saw the skinless terror being held off of the ground, being choked with one hand by someone that had a muted glow around him, his hair was blonde, looking as soft as silk and was long enough to reach his shoulders. He was built like a mountain, broad shoulders and narrow hips, muscles made to pulverize anything and everything. He fricken glowed.

And for a split second I thought; What the hell is a guy doing in my room?!

The two other creatures next to each side of my bed jumped into action, moving almost too fast to see. The glowing guy moved in a fury of movements as well, taking the skinless creature by the throat and swinging it around with one arm like it was nothing more than a rag doll. He slammed the creature into the gray-skinned one and they crashed hard into my carpeted floor.

The muddy creature with the barked skin saw that his chances with the glowing guy might not be good so he turned back to me and lunged. I gasped and held my knife out in front of me to ward it off, but before it could even take one more step closer to me, it was gone too.

I blinked and looked around for where it could be, but when I spotted the glowing guy I noticed that my glancing around was for nothing. He had rammed a sword I haven’t seen on him before into the creature’s gut. It was writhing and snarling like an animal while still impaled on the blade.

Suddenly, I felt something hot wrap around my neck. I gave the best scream I could utter before my air was cut off and I was being strangled with long, skinless fingers from behind.

The gray creature had lunged towards the glowing guy, tackling him to the ground with a viciousness I’ve never seen before. I tried to twist around in the grip around my neck, tried to pry off the finders choking me, but nothing worked. I might as well have been clawing at iron shackles. I could even feel fleshy bits under my nails from where I had scratched the creature’s hand repeatedly to try and get it off, but the fingers only seemed to tighten around my windpipe.

My lungs were already burning for air, my eyes were watering, blurring my vision to everything in the room. There was also a great roaring in my ears, preventing me from hearing anything around me. In the darkness around my eyes, I saw white spots starting to float around my vision. I was going to pass out…

I grappled desperately at the hands, stomping my feet to try and reach the creature behind me, but it wasn’t working. Then suddenly it was like I had feeling back in my hands again. I still had my knife in my hand!

I gripped the handle so the sharp edge angled outward from me, raised the blade and plunged it backwards. The hands flew from my neck and I could hear the furious scream break through the roaring in my ears.

Something comfortingly warm wrapped itself around me as I fell to the ground, hacking and coughing for breath. I gripped material in my hands and was comforted by a gentle warmth spreading over me. It was so much better than the painful heat that was clamped around my neck merely moments before.

I heard some more shuffling and shrieking, to which I ducked my head against the bright warmth surrounding me and tried to keep myself from falling into panic or hysteria. When there was finally silence around me again, I still didn’t look up. I just stayed where I was, breathing in and out, making sure that my lungs got plenty of the air that it was starved of. I only startled again when I felt warm arms moving awkwardly around me.

I jerked back and opened my eyes again, and came face to face with the blonde haired muscled giant that had appeared in my room seemingly out of nowhere. His eyes were a striking blue, like light blue diamonds. His face was chiseled and looked strong. I only noted then as well that he was no longer glowing.

Sitting back, I stared at him. For some odd reason, I was developing a headache in my temples. Must be from all the excitement… but damn, this guy was huge. It was a wonder he was able to move around my room like he did without hitting his head on my ceiling.

He had on jeans like any other normal guy, and a dark blue shirt with black lining the collar and short sleeves. His boots were black, and tough as well, like combat boots. The guy could be the most popular model ever to have breathed on this earth with his face alone, notwithstanding the muscles that bulged out of his shirt and that had his jeans hugging his long legs as he was crouched around me. I realized that I had the front of his shirt clenched in my fists and quickly let go of it.

Then I registered that he had a very worried look on his face and his arms were outstretched, like he had just shielded me from something and let go only to stop when I clearly had a grip on his shirt.

The guy also looked to be in his late 30’s or early 40’s. Strangely enough… I felt nothing towards him except for knowing without a doubt that he would protect me no matter what, so weird. I knew he would dive into the deepest depths of hell to keep me safe.

This realization had my headache reeling towards my frontal lobe. This guy looked at me with nothing but confused worry in his reflective blue eyes. I was probably staring at him too much to be comfortable, especially since he most definitely just saved my life.

“Are you alright?” He asked. And damn if I couldn’t fall asleep to a voice like that any day.

I moved my mouth, but nothing came out. Clearing my throat and darted my gaze around me to make sure that those things were definitely gone. My table was knocked over and everything on it was scattered and scattered all over the floor. My window was busted, the bed was tossed to the side and my bedside lamp was across the room in a million pieces. I looked back at him.

“Yeah…” I whispered.

He closed his eyes and let out a breath of relief, dropping his hands to his sides. When he opened his eyes, he saw me staring at him again.

“What’s wrong?” He asked, frowning again.

I shook my head slowly, frowning right back at him. For some reason, the longer I looked at him, the more intense my headache became. “What are you doing here, and who are you?” I asked. Feeling like I should know, but I didn’t.

His eyes widened, and he seemed to blanch as white as my walls. “Y-you don’t recognize me?” he asked, almost fearfully.

Alright, so clearly I should remember him, apparently. My head gave a throb, and I put a hand to my forehead to try and stifle it. Then I noticed that my forehead was warm and clammy, and that I was trembling. “N-no, I don’t.” I breathed.

He slowly moved forward and put one of his hands over mine on my forehead, he squinted at me for a second, then his eyes snapped wide and he removed his hand. “Impossible… when did this happen?” He breathed to himself.

“I- what are you talking about?” I asked, as he shot up to his feet and started pacing. I was momentarily taken aback when he stood up, a slight wave of disorientation flooding my system at his height. Even just pacing around, he seemed to be looming over everything around him.

I pushed myself up from the ground, swaying slightly as my head swam. The guy had stopped his pacing the minute I stood up and looked concerned again, as if he was ready to catch me if I were to fall. I was glad that he didn’t put a hand on me or help me up though. I liked doing things on my own.

“What are you talking about?” I asked him again, looking at him straight in those diamond blue peepers of his. He hesitated, going back to his pacing as he shot me glances every few steps. Not like he actually had a lot of room to pace around in in the first place.

I was slightly freaking out inside. Who the hell was this guy? What the hell were those creatures? Why the hell did they want to kill me? Was any of this even real in the first place? Just what the freaking hell was going on?!!!

Frustration made me grab him by the arm and force him to come to a sudden stop. “Alright humongous! Tell me what on earth you’re going on about. Who the hell are you, and why do I feel like I should know you?! What the hell were those freakishly hellish monsters that wanted to kill me a second ago?! Why the hell have I been having creepily vivid dreams?! Why the hell do I wake up with scratch marks and scars on my body?! Tell me what’s going-!” I gasped as my head felt like it cracked. Pain radiated throughout my whole body. I saw the floor rushing up to my face, and suddenly stop. Strong arms caught and held me gently.

“Calm down, you have to calm down now.” He said as he lowered me onto the floor and held onto my shoulders, keeping me grounded.

I wanted to calm down, but I couldn’t. Not only was my head full of everything that had just happened but things were flashing through my head as well. A sudden cacophony of information felt like it was flooding into me. Images of lands, buildings, people, names being shouted, languages spoken and sung that I’ve never even heard before. I felt something warm dribbling from my nose, warm and smelling of copper. What the hell was happening to me?!

“You have to calm down.” The guy said again, his voice soothing as he placed a hand on the side of my head, on top of one of my own hands. I hadn’t realized my hands were clamped over my head. When did that happen?

I looked up into his eyes that were filled with pain and regret, and worry. “Sleep now.” He said. And without even a hint of anything happening, without even as much as a warning. The pain in my head vanished, the screams stilled, and blackness filled my vision.

His blonde head was bent as he knelt on the grass in front of me. The sky was blue, the hills green and dotted with stretches of forest as far as the eye could see, and the air was crisp with recently departed rain. His wings were startling in their beauty, white as rare pearls, making his massive frame look even more magnificent. His robes were tarnished, ripped, dirty and had seen hard use for a long time. He hasn’t been home in a very long time…

He was saying something as he fisted his hand over his heart, his face lifted towards me, his diamond blue eyes pinning me with his seriousness, and I stretched out a hand towards him almost as if to stop him from making a promise he might regret, my skin was pale but tanned, a tan I wish I was capable of as I am now, my nails were strong and beautiful, my hand almost didn’t seem familiar to myself…

“Accept my pledge, My Lady, as your guardian till the day you make your final stop, or I perish in my service to you.”

Feelings that I didn’t expect came flooding over me. Regret, fear, relief, and maybe a little reluctance. Regret and fear for what he might have to face, relief that I have someone to protect me when I might not be able to do so myself, and reluctance, at binding him to his word, to have to force him to keep his word when he might not want to.

My hand fell back to my side, brushing against a green textured dress that fell to my feet. I opened my mouth and a voice I almost recognized fell from my lips.

*“I accept your oath as my protector, my guardian… Hezerial.” *

My body spasmed, jerking me awake in my bed. The sun shone in through my windows, clearly meaning that I had been sleeping for a long time. I stared at the sun shining in for a minute until I remembered what had happened last night. I instantly shot up, sitting ramrod straight, glancing around at my surroundings. My heart crashed around in my chest like it was playing bumper cars with my ribs.

Wasn’t…?

No, it couldn’t be…

I buried my face in my hands and just sat there for a minute. I lifted my face again once my pulse was back to normal. All a dream… it was all… a dream.

I sighed as I looked down at my hands in my lap. Something dripped onto the back of my hand. I looked at it curiously. It was water. I looked up at the ceiling, but didn’t see where the drop might have come from. Then I felt something slip down my cheek…

I reached up to my face, and traced the path that the drop had slipped down from, and realized. I was crying. I pulled my hand back and looked at the wetness on my fingertips. I was crying… over a dream?

I stood up from the bed and walked over to the mirror on my closet door. My cheeks were slightly flushed, but my nose was clear, and there they were, the tears on my face. They were slipping down one by one, yet I couldn’t put a cause to the feelings I was feeling. I looked back around my room once again.

Everything was exactly as I had left it when I went to sleep. Everything was exactly where they were supposed to be, exactly where they have always been. Yet as I thought back at the fear, the terror, the smells, the adrenalin… the dream… Suddenly I felt so alone, I felt desolate.

That’s what it was.

That was why I was crying.

For some bizarre reason, I wished it was real…