The Compromise

Chapter 4 - Meetings at Midnight

It's achingly quiet. Not the quiet that Missi loved when reading - no it was the deathly kind. The kind that put you on edge, the unnatural kind that left sanity dwindling by threads. Missi's mouth opened to let out a small whine, a whine that made no sound and she felt no movement from her lips. Typical... if she wasn't so scared she may have actually stomped her foot- that is if she could also feel them.

Her panic surged. She couldn't move her legs! Her body felt numbed by something cold. It held her down in cold patches the size of hands, exerting bruising forces and pricking parts of her skin. The sooner she realised that they indeed where hands, the sooner she could feel the sharp curled fingernails that caused the prickling sensation. Her eyes darted down to try and see her body and the arms keeping her down but the scene changes.

Everything brightens, enough to make Missi wince, and when she opened her eyes again, she finally feels a little safe. She plonked on her window seat from her study and is surrounded by the comfort of her books and cushions and thankfully able to move. She looks out to the window, but instead of looking down onto the courtyard, she's staring at a lush tropical forest, one she's seen drawings of in her books. She's opened the window and her hand is reaching out to touch a leaf when she hears a voice behind her.

"You'll never be alive to see it."

She turns behind her to see who's talking to her, to tell them that they're wrong but she seizes up up at what she sees. Those unmistakable red slits look down on her, barely several inches away, with a soulless and vulture-like glinting. Predatorial... malicious.

It made her heart jump in her throat, and her ears pick up another sound. At first she thought it was the drumming of her heart, loud in her ears however the sounds of clicking insect legs cut her sigh of relief midway. Her eyes turned to look up and down the walls beside her, only to want to cry from what she saw.

Deathwatch beetles.

Hundreds of them! Skittering and drumming their antler like heads as they moved closer and closer.

She trembles slightly, her body numb as her eyes darting back up red ones above her that glowed. Its eerie light painted its silver metal face, illuminating the sharp curves and two ear-like spikes that sat on the top of its head. Wings sprouted from its back and they twitched and batted forward sending a thick mist in her face. It burnt her lungs and eyes like smoke from a fire and she was too preoccupied with trying to cough the substance out that she almost didn't see the bat-like creature charge at her until it hit her.

Darting forward, eyes wide as screamed, clutching her rapid heart through her nightgown. She can feel the sweat pooling on her forehead and back as her eyes slowly opened. She was in her room, dark as it was she was relieved it was not the same dark from before. She could no longer feel those cold hands that felt so vivid, couldn't hear the deathwatch beetles but the glowing eyes still stayed as if they were burnt into her retina.

She barely had any time to calm herself before she heard the scuffling of shoes outside before her door was opened and one of her maids entered. The maid carried a lit candelabra with her, bathing her weathered features in warm light. It was comforting to see the familiar greying hair, and kind eyes as the older maid moved forward over to her bed, placing the candelabra on her bedside table.

"Missi." The woman dragged sympathetically, a slight gravel to her voice that came with age and with a gentle hand to Missi's shoulder, she sent the young lady into a fit of sobs.

"There there, young one, all is ok. It was just a nightmare."

The elder maid moved in to hug the girl closely like a mother would and Missi shared that bond more with her than her own flesh and blood. She had raised Missi, since her mother the Grand-Duchess of Devonshire had other priorities than raising the wailing infant from her womb. It had never sat right with Missi, the fact that her mother had cast her out so readily but it was considered a social norm that her mother would give her to nursemaid. It had hurt at one point but Missi was past that now. She knew what her mother is like, she doubted she could have dealt with her for the most part of if her mother had raised her.