The Shadow Sisters

[E1] Chapter 34 - Ryan Quick

Ryan watched Marie grow smaller and smaller until she faded completely into the night.

The others continued their obnoxious, braying laughter. Each chortle, guffaw, and snicker was like another pin stabbing into his flesh. It felt like slimy bugs were crawling down his throat and borrowing into his gut lining. His stomach churned. He wanted more than anything to spew the contents of his stomach up, but despite his forced heaves, they remained.

Stepping towards the doorway, he felt better as the fresh air slapped his face, but only slightly.

"Where are you going?" Shauna asked him.

Ryan, with some certainty, said, "I need to go after her."

There was a pause. All that could be heard was the howling of the wind and the rattling of the planks surrounding the cabin.

"Why would you do that?" Neil finally asked.

"I shouldn't have done that. I should have stayed with them, at the pier, and enjoyed my night," Ryan answered. "She was right. She was right about all of you."

"What's that supposed to mean?" Jeanette snapped.

"That you're all vapid narcissists." Ryan refused to match her angry tone. In fact, his voice was almost completely devoid of emotion as he declared, "And I'm done with you."

Tommy Forrest's hands curled into fists. His lips quivered into a building snarl, but Neil placed a hand on his chest to halt him from whatever he had planned.

Good, Ryan thought, because they both knew who would come out on top of that exchange, and in addition to the mountain of guilt he'd compiled tonight, he didn't want to add beating the shit out of someone.

"Fine," Katie said, "Go on and run after that loser. But just know that there will be no way back for you after tonight."

"I know," he said.

And with that, he left the old abandoned cabin and ran out into the forest.

He followed the path that he reckoned Marie must have taken and as he did so, vaulting over roots, jumping over undergrowth, and weaving through thick grass, he rehearsed in his head what he might say when he finally caught up to her.

He realised that not only was it possible, but even probable that no matter how much he pleaded or begged, she would refuse to forgive him. The betrayal just ran too deep. Whatever trust he had built up with her was utterly shattered.

But oddly, he was okay with that. He would explain himself, would admit his faults and his failings, and would be candid about his desire to change.

And even if she didn't want to hear it, he would change regardless, for himself. He would show her in the weeks and months to come that none of it had been an act. The person he was with her was the real version of himself. The one he was with his so called 'friends' was the act. He really was different. It'd just taken this colossal mistake to cement that.

He was actually smiling, almost joyous as he pelted forward, because he knew with such certainty who he wanted to be now and felt free of that role he'd been forced into his entire life.

As he delved deeper into the forest, he kept on calling out for Marie, wondering why she couldn't hear him or why he couldn't see her yet.

When he emerged into an area where all parts of the woods appeared the same on every angle, he began to slow and reassess. That was when he realised that it had gone terribly quiet.

Before, he thought he heard the cheering and the popping of fireworks, but that had all stopped, as had the howling of the wind.

He came to a dead halt. "Marie? Marie are you here?" His throat was constricting. He had never heard such quiet in his entire life.

It made him realise how loud his own body was, his heartbeat, his pulse, his breathing.

Above, he saw the canopy was dyed an iridescent blue and violet. One of the leaves, which had fallen, hung suspended in midair.

What was making it do that? Was it caught on a web?

Just above, through a gap in the canopy, he saw a swirl of that same violet and blue.

The vortex hummed.

It was probably a subtle sound, but when all else was quiet, it became as all-encompassing as the pounding of a fierce war drum.

His eyes widened as he cast his gaze about the forest. "Marie? Marie are you there?"

But his words no longer appeared to carry as they had before. It was like the sound waves were swallowed by the night itself, as if the darkness was made of soundproof walls.

He felt a cold which brought with it companions of other strong emotions. The cocktail made him sob for some reason he couldn't comprehend. "Marie Shadow? Marie, I'm so sorry."

There came a sound of shifting trees.

In the silence, the otherwise gentle sounds were like lashings. He whipped his head around, scanning every angle, unable to identify the source.

Until he saw it.

Every cell in his body felt like it was screaming, but his mouth never opened. His jaw was locked as he watched the thing, feeling as if he were plunged into the strange, forgotten sections of a nightmare.

Floating just between the canopy and the swirling vortex was something his mind could only compare to a sea creature. It was like those alien ones that lurked deep down in the darkest of depths, hidden from any sunlight.

It swam through the air like a predator from much closer to the surface, like a Great White.

And while this inky black thing did have a torpedo-shaped centre, that's where the similarities ended. Hundreds of limbs or tentacles lapped out of its body like so many tasting tongues. They moved the trees to the side, temporarily, like they were blades of grass, like it was trying to find the ant hiding within.

Trying to find Ryan.

He stepped back as it bore down on him and tripped over an exposed root. His arse slammed down hard against the compact earth.

What might have been eyes, judging by their positions on its face, but what only seemed to Ryan as large, endless voids, stared down at him.

Now that it hung directly over him, he saw that the thing was humongous. It was more like a Blue Whale than a Great White in terms of scale, but perhaps even bigger still. He had the sense that it was old, somehow more prehistoric than the earth itself.

A mouth like a canyon opened. That cold, horrible feeling intensified, completely paralysing Ryan.

There was a hissing, gushing sound as he felt his body, being dragged up, as if sucked through a straw, from the forest floor, into the air.

He drew closer and closer to the thing's mouth.

As he did so, his senses were shut off, one by one, like lights by their switches.

After a pop, he could no longer hear anything, including his own panicked breathing and sobbing.

Next, he could no longer smell the sweet scents of the forest.

Each of his other perceptions and senses were shut off too, one at a time.

When his vision cut out, he witnessed a darkness, deeper than any he'd ever known before.

All the memories he'd ever accumulated were burnt up, starting from this most recent year and spreading into his time as a teenager. In the end, his childhood, his vaguest but most core memories to his identity were scorched up like paper.

With one final crack that reverberated from his spine into his brain, Ryan Quick was no longer capable of thought or emotion, as he was swallowed into the great canyon.