Labyrinth of White - The Moon Trilogy - Book #1

Chapter three:

Clarity was awake. She tried to recall why she had so suddenly woken up. There had been a loud thump downstairs. She slowly sat up and listened. Sure enough there was someone downstairs. It sounded like whoever it was, was trying to right whatever it was that had fallen.

Clarity slowly put her feet to the floor. She padded as silently as possible across the floor. It's a good thing the floor boards don't creak

She carefully tip-toed down the stairs and was soon in the dim living room. A light was on in the kitchen. She didn't dare risk calling to find out if it was her mom or not, especially after having read that article earlier.

She walked closer to the bright kitchen, careful not to knock anything over. She heard rustling and the fridge opening. It was definitely not Mom. She would never get a snack so late at night. Hot fear rushed up into her throat. It can't be the thief. Can it?

She walked up to the doorway, approaching it slightly from the side so she wouldn't be visible to whoever was in the kitchen. She peeked around the doorframe and saw, in the middle of the room, a tall figure wearing a black hoodie and black pants. It was facing away from her. There was a few canisters of food on the counter in front of it. She ducked back behind the doorframe, her heart pounding. She scurried over to the closet and opened it as quietly as possible. She strained to see in the darkness. She took a tennis racket out of the closet and slowly closed it again. It made a slight click.

She walked as fast as she was able to without making a noise. She was at the doorway again, bracing herself. She started to wonder if she should call the police but quickly dismissed the idea. Making a call would be far too noisy. She gripped the tennis rackets' handle with both hands and took a silent deep breath. Well, here we go.

She jumped into the doorframe and said "Don't move!" the figure whipped around and looked at her. Its hood was over its face so Clarity couldn't make out its features. It just stared at her.

Clarity's mom came up behind her and in a sleepy voice asked: "what's all the noise about?" she looked beyond Clarity at the mysterious figure and let out a loud gasp. "Who is that?" she asked fearfully.

"I don't know who it is, but they are breaking and entering, not to mention stealing, and that's against the law." Clarity replied.

The figure was still standing there, staring at them. Suddenly it broke into a run, heading for the back of the house. She ran after it just in time to see it vault out of the back door. She followed.

It was frantically trying to scale the chain-link fence that surrounded the back yard. After several minutes of failing to climb the fence it gave up and whirled around. Clarity faced it down, looking a lot braver than she felt, holding her tennis racket in an attacking stance.

At first, she thought it was going to attack, but it just held up its gloved hands in a gesture of surrender, and backed up against the fence. Just then Mom came out of the back door looking pale and dazed. The figure slowly lowered its' hands. It was backed into a corner. Clarity thought it looked vaguely frightened, despite the fact that she couldn't even see its face. It slid down the fence until it was sitting on the damp turf. It acted utterly defeated.

Clarity stepped closer and lashed out. The figure flinched away but she was too quick, and she had its hood off before it was able to stop her.

Clarity gasped and stepped back. The figure was ghostly white with shoulder length white-with-a-hint-of-blonde hair, but the strangest thing were its's eyes. They were bright red and glowing slightly. She thought for a moment that it was a mutant, but she quickly decided against it. She had never seen a mutant like this.

Clarity heard a dull thud and looked behind her. Her mom had fainted and lay in a heap on the grass. She looked back at the strange figure. It appeared to be female but she wasn't sure. It was crouched on the ground in a defensive posture. She could see fear in its eyes. She quickly looked away from its eyes because of the way they glowed. It scared her.

A few seconds passed. The whatever-it-was opened its' mouth as if to speak but closed it again immediately after

After a second, it apparently decided to talk after all. "Please don't hurt me." It said in a whisper, its mouth barely moving. Clarity decided that it must not be dangerous if it was pleading with her. She held out her hand to help it up, but it must have thought she was going to hit it because it flinched away.

Barely a second passed before it realized that she meant no harm. It reached out a hand and grasped hers with surprising strength. She would never have thought such a slender hand would be so strong. Clarity was sure that there was something seriously off about it.

Whatever it was, it was very light and didn't take much effort to lift it to its feet. She shook the hand that was still in her own and said: "These aren't the normal circumstances of meeting someone but, my name is Clarity Aspen."

It was still wary of her and didn't say anything. It dropped her hand and looked over her shoulder at Mom. A flicker of concern passed over its' face. Clarity looked too. "She should be fine, but I should probably get her inside." She said.

She walked over, gripped her mother by the hands, and started to pull her towards the house. It was hard and Mom's body was limp and heavy. She struggled for a few more minutes and only succeeded in moving her mother an inch or two. She huffed and plopped onto the ground, racking her brain for a better way to move the limp body of her mother. She stared at the dewy ground as she thought.

When she had given up on finding a better idea, she looked over at her mother and to her surprise, there was the strange figure. It lifted Mom up over its shoulders and walked up the porch stairs and it entered the house. It didn't seem to be having any trouble whatsoever carrying her mom, but it looked very skinny and, at first glance, Clarity would have thought that it couldn't have lifted even half of her mom's weight.
She stayed on the ground for a few more minutes puzzling over the strange figure. It couldn't possibly be human, but what else could it be? Certainly not a mutant. The only mutants that she had seen only seemed to be human, but with some sort of quirk, like a tail or fur, or maybe a strange ability. Not one had glowing red eyes and unexplained strength.

It was getting rather chilly, so Clarity got up and walked back into the house, planning on finishing her train of thought there.

Her mom was laying on the couch in the living room. The mysterious figure was nowhere to be seen. She walked over and felt her mother's forehead. It was cold and damp. Clarity began to worry. What if there was something seriously wrong with her mother?

In the kitchen, the kettle started to whistle. Puzzled, Clarity got up and started to walk over to the doorway to investigate.

The strange figure walked through the doorway just as Clarity reached it. They almost collided but it swerved just in time. It was holding a mug with steaming liquid, which spilled a few drops when it swerved from the collision. The kettle had stopped whistling.

The strange figure walked over to the couch where Clarity's mother was still unconscious and knelt in front of her. It moved her head so that she was facing the ceiling and started to poor a thin stream of the hot liquid into her mouth. Clarity bit back the urge to tell it to stop and that the liquid might burn her, after all the strange thing must know what it was doing, and yelling would cause an unnecessary distraction.

The adrenaline of the night's events was wearing off and Clarity started to get tired. She collapsed into an armchair and watched as the strange figure poured the rest of the liquid into her mother's mouth. She must have swallowed because she wasn't choking. Some of the color had returned to her cheeks. Relieved, Clarity drifted off to sleep.