Kisses From Death | Book 1

S E V E N

S E V E N
Friends & Foe

MY FEET THUNDERED heavily against the wooden planks used as the boathouse flooring. It had to be barely even five minutes straight of running but I could already feel my breath coming short. Exercising in the cold had its clear downsides, all of which were acting against my chances of survival as of the moment.

The wailings had not completely stopped yet, now reduced to occasional echoes and a few random screams here and there. The further I got away from the room which I had originally woken up in, the colder it got. The air was definitely at icy temperatures, the damp old wood walls of the boathouse already starting to frost at the edges of each plank.

I couldn't help but frown, my eyebrows crinkling as I placed a hand against the wooden walls. Immediately upon contact, I jolted my hand back towards my chest, shocked at what I had just felt. The cold was prominent, the shivering frost creeping onto my fingers the very second in which I grazed the walls with the tips of my fingers. Whenever I opened my mouth, a puff of white smoke would appear, drifting off into the air as if I had just smoked a nice plump cigar.

Shaking my head, I edged away from the wall, giving it one last glance before continuing on into the darkness. Ever so occasionally, a random side table would be propped against the wall, a fake electric candle illuminating the hallways just the slightest. I had not noticed such a decoration until entering this particular corridor, and I soon understood why.

At the end of the hallway stood a large majestic set of doors, one in which I was so sure would be the entrance of the master bedroom of this old structure before it had been changed into a boathouse. Long ago, this building had once been a town hall and I was no doubt facing the old mayor's room.

Other than the room, the corridor was either a dead end or I had to continue on towards the right, back into an equally creepy-looking hallway. Knowing that my fate would be sealed if I had stayed cooped up in a room instead of openly trying to find the pieces of my soul, I turned right and continued walking.

How ludicrous! Do I even hear myself right now? I was on a hunt searching for extracted pieces of my soul, something that could only possibly happen in the darkest of fairy tales or the most insanely scripted horror movies. Wherever I was, it definitely was not part of the reality in which I had grown up in.

This creation of fairytale worlds and mythical monsters was not daily occurring in the days of modern society. To explain this on a rational side of thinking, I would have to be either insane or dreaming a rather vivid scene.

However, there was a part of me that wanted to believe. I wanted something more than my mundane boring everyday life. There had to be something more than the daily routine, something that could make my life more special. And this was what I was stuck with. The something special in which I had wanted. An adventure.

As I continued my journey down the hallways, yet another wail echoed down the hallways, this time accompanied by a freezing cold that swept my hair backward. I could feel my body actually moving along with the wind, pushed back as I struggled to stay on my feet. However, I was not able to pinpoint exactly where the sound had come from, causing me to run blindly into the fray, heading straight until I could find safety.

That was, of course, not a good decision.

There was a man lying on the ground, his body convulsing rapidly as if he was being electrocuted. His eyes were rolled back, face darting from side to side as a dark black mist hissed away from every part of his body, particularly his lips. His cheeks were forced in, carved in too intensely that I was almost sure that he had no bit of flesh, just skin and bones.