2

Tiv Hawes

Friday 18th January, Year 825.

The sun had almost set.

"Marco, come on! We need to go," I called angrily to my brother.

He seemed oblivious, absorbed by Sarah's lips on his. Her laughter, light and airy, mingled with the evening birdsong as she pilfered through his pockets. He had no idea. A part of me resented not being able to part him away from her grasp; I didn't stop the scab girl pick-pocketing him.

"Marco!" My voice cut through the tranquillity with a sharper edge than intended.

He peeled himself from her, "What's the point in a double date if you lose your date and then leave halfway through? I suggest you find Sarah's sister."

I wished I had brought my own car. Marco was my height but he had a more substantial build, otherwise I might have tried to force him away. As if he could read my mind, he narrowed his black eyes, the golden flecks in them flaring hotly for a moment before he quickly returned to mashing his face against Sarah's. The way he lured girls always baffled me; perhaps his arrogance was overshadowed by the wads of cash he tossed at each new interest. He was always so outwardly successful with women and I perpetually stepped back—not like there was a contest, but if there was I would lose. That did not bothered me; I did not wish to hand myself over to a woman who expected me to uphold ridiculous Hawes expectations. To be a Hawes was to be trapped in a gilded cage. Always watched. Always used.

Last week I was promised a date with an attractive girl. She was pretty enough however, like most girls, she had looked me up and down like a treasure trove when we were introduced. No doubt wondering how much she could get out of me. Sarah had driven us all to Cassibare Meadow, not far from her house, this afternoon. A scab. Odd choice for Marco, though perhaps he'd simply gone through all the women in Central by this point.

Marco said he did not want to take one of our cars to Outer Harroworth knowing it would probably be vandalised or stolen. Sarah had tried to take us to a bar in their local marketplace, The Grange, however the moment we arrived at the gates, the Day Guard advised us to leave. The golden rings which circled our irises gave us away as different to the Vakosians that frequented the market. That, and the fact we were plastered all over the gossip magazine every week meant we were acutely recognisable.

We had decided to leave and opted for a walk around a nearby meadow. I had sulked back to the trunk of the car to get a bottle of good whiskey we'd stolen from Father's stash and when I returned, Marco was groping Sarah up against a tree and her sister was gone.

Sarah had parked in a nook between the forest and some tall grass at Cassibare Meadow. Beyond the car, the dead grass had already been pushed aside, suggesting that Sarah's sister had passed through.

Sarah's sister. Bloody hells, I couldn't even remember the girl's name.

I left Marco to his pleasures and traced the impressions in the broken grass, trying to manoeuvre quickly so I could still leave before sundown. Circling around fruitlessly for a quarter of an hour only heightened my sense of disorientation. Residing myself to the notion I would not return home before the sun set, I sat, idly wondering how painful death via Umbrith would be. There were rumours they didn't attack Lambentians, so perhaps I was safe. Although Harroworth had below-average Umbrith attacks mainly due to my father's work here as defence secretary of Vakoso.

Father's tales of The Great War—Vakoso's and Lambent's bloodiest conflict—now seemed distant compared to the prospect of being stalked by the deadly predators. Mother always told the stories better, Father almost sounded like he was still aggravated by The Great War though it happened eight-hundred years ago… and he was from Vakoso, the country that won that war.

A gust wafted through the field, chilling my skin and stirring my thoughts from childhood stories. Sarah's sister had somehow slipped away unnoticed, perhaps a deliberate act on her part to evade an awkward evening with someone two years younger than her.

It was a mild winter night for Harroworth even now that the sun traced well below the tree line. I considered rejoining Marco however decided quickly to stay put and leave him to his pleasures. If I continued to walk around then I risked being shot by the spot rifles: twenty-foot high poles with spotlights and guns upon their top. There to kill anything that moved at night. Another of my Father's clever ideas to stop Umbrith which I do not think ever worked.

I took a moment to gather my thoughts, feeling irritated by the darkness and Marco's arrogance. However, that wasn't Sarah's sister's fault. After our initial meeting she all but ignored me. She probably was not a bad person and I was hardly warm with her. Regardless, I had learned my lesson not to go out on a date set up by Marco. He already had plans for his next 'challenge', as he had put it. Alayna Jameson. He believed she would be easy because she was by far one of the poorest people we knew—one of two scabs that went to our college because their parents worked for our parents.

Mother had been trying to set one of us up with Julie Jamesons's daughter for a year, much to Father's disgust; we did not belong with them. Julie had been employed by Mother for nearly five years now and the entire time all she spoke of was how pretty Julie's daughter was, how kind she was, how fun she was. Marco had finally relented when I did not and agreed to a date. Regardless, Father had nothing to be concerned about. Marco would be done with Julie's daughter in a matter of days; Alayna Jameson was a psychopath with the nickname 'Firecracker' because she exploded so often, entertaining everyone around her with her outbursts at college.

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"Good luck with that lunatic, brother," I muttered to myself.

Abruptly, a curious hissing sound jolted me out back to reality.

"Is there anyone there?" the wind whispered.

Sat bolt upright, an uncomfortable electric current ran through my veins.

Can Umbrith talk?

I listened more intensely. The wind was simply playing tricks on me.

"Please… Are you there?" the breeze spoke again.

My body went rigid and blood ran cold. I leapt into a crouch ready to run.

"Who's there?" I hissed back.

"Please, I need help," the small voice replied, with each word spoken it got fainter.

I surprised myself when my feet followed the direction of the eerie voice. Feeling like a brainless imbecile from a horror film who wandered straight into the murderer's grasp, I attempted to silently walk through the grass. The damp earth muffled my steps, however it was hard to tell over the sound of my pounding heartbeat in my ears. Stumbling through the shadows, my foot caught on something softer than the ground beneath.

"Help," murmured the voice.

Horror-stricken, I peered down into the darkness where my foot sank slightly. I had just stood on a girl. On Sarah's sister. I fell to the floor beside her.

Recoiling with horror at my misstep, I murmured frantic apologies as she lay motionless. My fingers skated across her face to clear away the grime. They came away slick and warm with hot mud. It took me less than a second to realise the girl was in danger and, by extension, so was I. What little courage I had had withered. Hoisting her into my arms, I ran.

"Marco!" The name tore from my lungs as I sprinted. Frigid air clawed at my throat with each desperate breath, turning each gasp into a burning torture. "Can you hear hissing?" I gasped to what I realised was an unconscious girl. "No no no! Wake up!"

Pumping my legs harder, I focused on anything but the hissing sound that followed me, all the while calling for my big brother. A small voice in the back of my mind tried to remind me that I was seventeen years old and that I was acting like a frightened and pathetic little boy.

"What do you want Tiv?" Marco's irritation crackled as I ran into him, nearly knocking him over and dropping the girl.

In an instant, his demeanour shifted from annoyance to alarm; his eyes widened in shock as he took in the limp figure lying at my feet.

His wide pupils engulfed the golden Lambentian flecks. "Get in the car," he commanded, sweeping past me to shield me as he headed toward Sarah's location with determined strides.

I complied at once, abandoning the girl at my feet. Marco's face confirmed my theory that we were in real danger. I was furious at myself for staying out after sundown when I knew something like this could happen. I jumped in the car and took in the scene: seeing the unconscious girl's face in the light of the streetlamp, I was horrified by the amount of blood there was. I looked down and realised I was covered in deep crimson. The hot mud had not been mud at all. My breathing stopped. I had left her lying there.

Dying.

By this point, it became evident to Sarah that the limp figure was her sister. The raw terror and disbelief painted starkly across her face as she knelt beside her sibling, fingers trembling as they hovered over the wounds without touching, afraid that even the slightest contact might further harm her. She then turned to Marco, eyes wide with desperation, seething.

Her voice was a cocktail of pain and rage as she hissed through clenched teeth, "What happened to her?"

He didn't answer her. He couldn't answer her. Wasn't it obvious? Fists knotting, she leapt to her feet and began screaming at Marco. Her balled fists struck him swiftly and precisely. Each strike echoed with the sound of her sanity cracking. As if awakening from a trance, Sarah's gaze snapped toward me in the car—a new target for her spiralling wrath. It seemed as though she believed that both of us had conspired against her sister.

Rushing towards the car she screeched, "What did you do to her?"

I braced myself, knowing she would likely put her fist through the window to beat me too however, to my revulsion, she did not get that far. A giant grey-winged beast plunged from between skeletal trees and seized Sarah's arm with predatory ease, dragging her to ground. The creature bore a resemblance to a grotesque parody of a human if you ignored the wings. Though it towered over any human I had ever seen with ethereal crimson eyes, talons on the end of its extremities and matted black hair.

I choked on my breath before throwing myself back out of the car. Instinct drove me forward yet my mind screamed in protest.

Sarah fought back against the grasp the creature had on her arm. Her spit struck its face like acid upon flesh. It recoiled with an ear splitting screech, clawing where her saliva touched its skin. It had black blood.

Seizing the opportunity, Sarah bolted backwards yet did not make it far before it sprang toward her once more, sinking its razor-sharp teeth into her ankle. Her screaming went up an octave. I surged towards her however before I made it close, Marco tackled me and shoved me back into Sarah's car.

I looked back in time to see her fall to the floor again before being quickly silenced by the creature as it sunk rows of sharpened teeth into her neck. The horrible image of blood pulsing from her throat caused the contents of my stomach to come back up and I threw up out the window. When I blinked the image was imprinted on the back of my eyelids. I had been so distracted by the hideous thing I had not noticed Marco throwing himself into the front seat of the car. With Sarah's car keys, he started the engine, the tires screeching on the dirt road as we crawled away. The car was old and slow, not what we were used to driving.

"What are you doing?" I screamed, slapping the back of his head. "Go back for them!"

"I'm not dying tonight and neither are you. You saw them. They weren't getting back up," Marco replied, his voice hollow.

He ducked away from my second slap and the car swerved slightly.

"Are you kidding? Go back, you imbecile! We can't leave them-"

"You couldn't have just stayed with that bloody scab? You had to let her wander off! Well congratulations brother, you've killed them both. Now we need to cover it up or it'll be very bad for the family," Marco ranted.

I'd killed them both.

"People will know we were there. We were seen with them at the Grange! Sarah was wearing your damn jacket! I am covered in blood," I spat in a panicked rush. "We'll need to bribe the Night Guard to get back into Central too."

The car barely slowed however Marco swore and hit the steering wheel.

"We can't go back, that thing might get us," Marco finally replied. He paused for a few seconds then said, "We have to speak to Father, he can sort this all out. We had no choice… It was self-preservation."

"But Marco we-"

"Hold your tongue. We aren't going back," he interjected.

"Father is going to be… upset," I said quietly.

"It's fine. I'll handle it. Just keep out of the way," he ordered.

And with that, he put his foot to the floor on the accelerator. I turned to look out the back window. We'd left Sarah's sister alive. As much as I wanted to be brave, I could not go back alone. So they would both die because of us.

Because of me.