Don't Open That Door - GoM 1

Anniversary - 8

Claire struggled to open her eyes. She felt heavy and stunned. The only thing she was sure about was the stinging pain in her neck, under her ear. She tried to look around, but everything was too blurry to recognize the place. She heard noises, like muffled voices, but she didn't understand a single word. When she tried a simple move with her hand, she found her wrists tightly tied to the arms of her chair.

She heard voices again. Laughter. Behind her. Then she felt two burning stings sinking into her shoulder. She tried to scream, but she didn't even get to open her mouth before passing out again.

Ollie. His face was clear in her mind. His bright eyes, his warm smile. She could almost smell the scent of his skin. She wanted to be with him. She wanted to hear him whisper that he loved her. Just like the day before by the lake, on their way back from Concrete. She needed him so badly, she jolted awake.

A hand slapped her face roughly. A stranger stood before her. A girl. Blonde, pretty, only a few years older than Claire. Her smile revealed two sharp, horrible fangs dripping blood on her lower lip and her chin.

Then it all came back. The old blood stains on the dusty floor, the books and the weapons in Old Bootter's workshop. Alex fighting in the kitchen.

She sat up and the erte smirked.

"Well, well, Sleeping Beauty is finally up," the blond erte said.

A hoarse moan across the table made Claire look away from the erte. A cry escaped her lips when she saw Will Murray. Tied up to a chair across the table, the brunette Alex had fought back at the farm stood by him. She was cutting Murray's sleeve open with a hunting knife. The man groaned, his head swaying from side to side. His face, his neck, his chest, every bit of his body Claire could see was covered in cuts and bites and dry blood. His eyes were so swollen, he couldn't open them anymore.

Claire watched in horror as the brunette erte sank her fangs in Murray's forearm and tore a mouthful of flesh off. The poor man moaned louder as the creature chewed with a slight frown. She dropped Murray's bleeding arm and shook her head.

"Not so tasty anymore," she said.

She shrugged, grabbed Murray's head and snapped his neck broken with a swift move. Claire was frozen in sheer terror while the ertes laughed out loud. She looked up at them, horror burning her chest, in time to see them turn to her.

"And what should we do with you, little princess?" the brunette said. "Should we taste you before or after your sister shows up?"

"A bite can't hurt," said the blond erte.

"A little one, sis. I want her alive and awake, so when we have them both, they can watch how we feast on the other."

The blonde caressed Claire's hair and she closed her eyes, the purring voice in her ear making her shrink in her chair.

"Your sister's gonna love what I've got in store for you, princess."

Claire held her breath, eyes shut, expecting to feel those hideous fangs sink in her flesh. Instead, she heard a quick hiss and the hand on her hair was gone. The blonde cried out in pain and surprised, and the brunette growled like an animal.

The girl dared to open her eyes.

The blonde was stepping back, grabbing one of her own arms, where a short arrow showed stuck in her biceps.

Then it hit Claire. The mix of emotions blowing like a violent storm, like nothing she'd ever experienced: rage, hate, blood thirst, and a murderous satisfaction born from that first shot.

She didn't want to find out whose those dreadful emotions were, but she looked anyway. And she saw the slim figure clad in black from head to toes, standing at the doorway of the open backdoor, a crossbow in one hand, a dagger in the other and a crooked smile under glowering eyes.

An icy chill ran down Claire's spine when she recognized her aunt.

The brunette attacked Alex. She dropped the crossbow to wield one of the short blades. The erte threw a punch to her chest. She ducked and sank the dagger in her other hand in the creature's leg. The erte limped back, growling like a rabid animal, while Alex unsheathed the other dagger.

The blonde grabbed Claire's hair with her good hand. Alex didn't give her a chance to even try a threat. She punched the brunette in the face and threw the second dagger at the blonde. Claire had a glimpse of the blond erte crumbling behind her chair, the dagger sunk in her chest up to the hilt.

Frozen in a terrified shock, Claire saw the brunette attack Alex again. Alex flashed a fierce smile and cut the creature's forearm. The girl noticed her aunt didn't take the offensive, but waited for the erte to try to reach her. And every time, she would cut the creature, inflicting a painful, weakening wound. It was hard to breathe in the swirling mix of the erte's agonic fury and Alex's twisted satisfaction.

Knowing herself doomed, the brunette jumped on Alex one last time. Alex launched her knee up to sink it in the erte's belly and hit the back of the erte's neck with the hilt of the silver blade. She grabbed the long dark hair and forced the creature to kneel down before Claire, her dark blood pouring from cuts that looked like burns.

Claire gasped for air, wrapped in Alex's violent emotions as she stood behind the erte and leaned in to speak in her ear.

"I could torture you like you meant to torture us, bitch," Alex said, her voice full of hate. "For days and days, like you tortured our family, until you beg me to kill you." Alex rested the tip of her blade against the erte's back. "Be grateful I'm nothing like you, and it'll only take you a few hours to die."

Claire cried when Alex thrust her blade slowly into the creature, until the point showed up beneath the brunette's chest with a gush of black blood.

Alex let go of her hair and the erte crumbled down, face to the floor, gasping as blood fell from her mouth. She tried to reach the hilt of the blade in her back, but she could only brush it with her fingertips. Understanding she wouldn't be able to remove it, the erte let out a hurting groan and crawled toward her sister's dead body, leaving a gross trace of blood on the floor tiles.