𝐖𝐢𝐜𝐤𝐞𝐝 𝐌𝐲𝐭𝐡𝐬

CHAPTER SEVEN - THE ATTACK

Minerva

The world was spinning. Going on and on and on around itself. Life passing by besides me, under my feet, over my head. My eyes hardly managed to latch onto any of the blurry images passing by. My throat tightened, the breath catching in my lungs. A sound struggled to break through my lips. A shout, a cry, a whimper... I couldn't tell. It didn't manage to escape, to fly like the birds flapping their wings in the distance. It didn't come out, it never came out. Ants crawled on my skin as the pictures blackened, growing smokey at the edges until it all stopped.

Then, I fell. That part was always fuzzy. No real conscious thought latching onto the event, no real courage to remember the most terrifying bit of The Nightmare. All I knew... it involved running. It involved thighs pumping, lungs heaving, sticks and branches cutting at sensitive skin. It hurt, it burned, it ached... it took. Bit by bit, it took parts I wished it hadn't. More and more of my soul, of my energy... of whatever life I had. And it hurt...

I wanted to scream. To cry. To sob. The sounds never came out. It was just the running. The breathlessness. The fear. The pain.

As fast as it flashed, it ended. All of a sudden, I was sitting up in my bed, reaching for the dagger under the pillow. My frantic gaze searched the surroundings erratically. The only sound my ears caught on were the heavy puffs of my breaths, irregular, unsteady. My heart thudded in my ears, louder than drums at a metal concert.

Thump, thump, thump.

Ever so slowly, not to alarm any possible presence in the illuminated space, I released the grip I held over my weapon. There was no movement in my bedroom, other than my feet shivering under the bluish purple covers. The window with sight to the forest showed nothing more than the darkness behind the closest tree. An owl sat on a branch, its wide, dark eyes watching me with indescribable intent. It's been doing that every time I had a nightmare. All nights I woke up square out of a nightmare with the purpose of self-defense, the owl was there. Watching me. Any other time, it was nowhere in sight. The Nightmare was its call or it was the call of The Nightmare.

I didn't know if it was an omen and I didn't care enough to ask Odette about it.

Fighting my panic, running my hands over my face, I turned away from the window. My fingers ran through damp roots, catching in knots. I didn't have the strength to tie my hair last night. After the back-aching, long day of serving drinks to please clients, I had strength for little. A quick glance down my body revealed I managed to miraculously change into some flimsy PJs and untied my hair. Shifting my shoulder blades in an attempt to release the tension in my muscles and bones, I eyed the flickering night light in the corner of the room. It had the shape of a half moon, glowing yellow into most shadowy corners of the room. The battery seemed to be dying, probably why my heart skyrocketed for a split second when it flashed all darkness.

Nobody other than my sister knew I had a nightlight. Maybe Odette too, but that was a question in of itself. The woman knew more than she let on. It wasn't something I was particularly proud of, either. Joey thought I used it because of our previous engagement in battles with "evil", finding it on good behalf. She thought the dark stains of existence, the entities we were convinced into fighting, were the reason I needed a nightlight. Part of it was true.

I couldn't sleep in the dark after seeing some things, after feeling some things on my own skin. After knowing some horrors. But they weren't the main reason, only one of them. The main reason was much darker, much nastier than what she thought to be true.