demons | lrh

-03-

demons
tea parties
—03—

Nora, surprisingly, did not wake up with a pounding headache, despite her fall earlier. She didn't wake up with the feeling that she would be violently ill, either, and was completely void of any sort of pain, any form of discomfort. In fact, it was as if she'd just had a full night's sleep, well rested and ready to go on about her day like nothing had happened. But something had, she knew that much.

Because she wasn't in her bed, with too many pillows and blankets completely burying her body underneath. There wasn't her nightlight besides her, which—even though, yes, she was seventeen, or...eighteen now—she needed to fall asleep.

Instead of all of that, Nora was lying in a room that certainly was not her own, one that was pitch black due to the lack of light seeping in through the heavy curtains and the fact that everything was a mix of shades of red, and blue, and black. A single bed was all she'd been given, it was only covered in one blanket and she wasn't even lying under it.

Whoever had put her there clearly struggled with the idea of comfort.

That was when the girl began to panic, as memories of what had happened before she'd passed out came flooding back to the front of her mind like a devastating tidal wave. She remembered her parents, the storm, the fallen tree. She remembered praying that it was all a dream only to be ripped from her hiding spot by something that appeared to be human but seemed something else entirely.

Trying her hardest to recall the strange man's face, it wasn't long before she realised that she wouldn't be able to remember it, because she hadn't actually seen it.

And then the fear began to settle, starting off as the tiniest of sparks deep in her gut, and slowly erupting through her body, spreading beneath her skin like wildfire until her throat closed up, her body froze, and the roaring of her own blood in her ears drowned out the sound of approaching footsteps until the door to the room flew open and she scrambled up the bed, back flushed against the wall, completely startled.

A figure emerged into the darkness, a single foot crossed over the threshold and Nora barely managed to get a whimper out before something clicked, and then a dim, but warm light casted its glow over the shadows.

That was when Nora saw it...saw him. Although she might as well have had her eyes closed, as she still would've been able to sense the person's presence. For some reason, she could feel it in the way her blood turned cold and her heart skipped multiple beats beneath her skin before it then resumed pounding against her chest like a maddened prisoner.

"Rise and shine," the stranger chuckled, leaning against the doorframe with a nonchalance too human-like to have been that...thing from her memories. But the voice...it was so similar...and the way her own body reacted by the man's simple presence was enough evidence to proof that this was not a stranger at all.

But he was also not the monster Nora had remembered.

No...although he still towered above her, his physical appearance was definitely human. Intimidating and, regretfully, a sight to behold, but human. Shaggy brown hair framed an angular face, light traces of stubble casted a shadow across his jawline, and his lips were prominent against the golden tone of his skin. He looked perfectly ordinary.