the bibs & bobs

Night Creatures

chapter 1

Run. Get away. Run run run run hide hide hide.

“She’s over there!” a gruff voice called out, footsteps becoming louder and more rapid behind the girl as she ran as fast as she could, unsure of where she was heading to but knowing deep down just where her unconsciousness was taking her.

To the end of the forest.

“Where’d she go?” another, deep and angry voice called out as they all stopped once they had realised they could no longer see the girls’ long white hair flashing between trees anymore – knowing she had stopped, but not knowing where she was.

“Spread out!” the oldest of the crew of men set to find her commanded loudly, “find her before she gets to the end of the forest,” he demanded loudly as he pulled a knife out from its sheath by his waist and gazed over at the trees – one of which she was hiding behind. “I want her alive.”

Watching as the men dispersed, the girl with white hair slid her shoes off quietly before she counted ten breaths and then, without thinking twice about it, ran away once again as fast as her legs could take her – ran as fast as she could despite the torn and bloodied long dress that weighed her down and the shouts and angered voices of the avenged men behind her.

She was so close to the end of the forest that she could feel the pimples of bumps that rose on her skin, could feel the beads of sweat that ran down her back as the darkness of the other side reached out to her regardless of the fact that the sun that had been beating down on her relentlessly was at the very top of the sky behind her.

She was close. She was so, so close she could almost taste the horrid air as she burst through the line of trees and hesitated only momentarily before running across the grassland and heading straight into the darkness of the cave across of her – the biggest cave on the island of Ixion.

“Stop her!” a voice screamed just as she felt the first of the blades slide past and slice her arm, another cutting her dress and barely slicing past her thigh. “Don’t let her get in the cave!” the same voice yelled as another, harsher, blade hit her shoulder and stayed, causing her to almost trip and fall as a stifled scream slipped from her lips. “Get her!” the same voice cried out almost hysterically, again and again and again even as she climbed the rocky hill where the cave lied daringly, teasingly almost. 

They wouldn’t follow her – wouldn’t even think about it since nobody went in the caves; not ever.

A hand grabbed at the hem of her dress, yanked her almost half way down the small rough hill, before he let go again after she had kicked him in blind panic, the girl with white hair scrambling up the hill again until her hand finally reached the flat, harsh floor of the cave and somehow managed to pull the rest of her body up and over until she was lying on her side with her cheek pressed against the ground and breathing harshly. The angry voices from below a faint reminder of what she had gotten away from, and what she had endured for the past month.

And, as she felt the prickle of something inhuman caressing her the longer she lie bleeding in the same spot, maybe she should’ve thought twice about doing the unthinkable – of hiding in a cave that everyone knows to fear and stay away from. Yet she couldn’t feel an ounce of care in her heart and mind the deeper she fell into unconsciousness, for once not being watched by some pervert or being kicked or yelled at for closing her eyes.