Chapter Seven

Before the Dawn

The door swung open and the world let in a breath. The same hulking figure as before loomed in the pitch black. Hunched and growling in the shadow, its horns scratched the ceiling above. Its breath plumed in the moonlight like chimney smoke.

Michael backed up as far as he could and felt his fingernails peel the paint from the wall. He looked to the window in a moment of pure desperation..

The creature’s cold, sinister eyes glowed with a red hue, like the depths of a fire-pit, hungry and faraway. It seemed to regard him with an amused interest and for a beat came no closer.

Michael’s entire room was only three strides wide. He had to try.

The boy broke into a sprint and threw himself at the window, sending a vicious crack in ten different directions throughout the glass. He drove his elbow against the pane again and again, but behind the dirty glass lay security bars, newly fixed to his window. His mother must’ve had them installed to keep him safe.

The glass had cut the underside of Michael's arm and the distant pain of it was the only thing keeping him anchored to reality.

The creature stalked across half the room in a single pace and forced him into the corner, with the shattered window letting in a new host of light in between them.

Michael trembled in his bones as the monster walked into the rays of the moon, but even in the face of it, he couldn't believe the very reality of it. It was only when he felt the tears rolling down from his chin to his neck that he realised he was crying. And it was only when the monster put one more foot in front of itself, tilting its head at him, wondering something lost in the dark, that he knew this was the most awake he'd ever been.

It was muscled like an oak tree, strewn with hulking tendons, all matted with black fur and dripping with rainwater. Its feet were long, with talons protruding from three toes, each as thick as Michael’s wrist. Its arms drooped low, bearing four fingers on either hand, clawed and curving. Its maw was almost horse-like, only wider in its jaw and shorter in length, fixed with pale, crimson eyes, and dull, white teeth, curving out from the edges of its mouth.

Michael hadn’t taken a breath for a long minute, and as he finally let it out he closed his eyes and spoke to the dark. “What on Enthall are you?”

The beast opened its mouth and a hollow, ragged noise filled the room that chilled Michael's blood. In demonic, matted Common Tongue it uttered, “The question is, boy, what are you?”

Michael opened his eyes in confusion as chaos erupted about the room.

The cracked window burst and glass sprayed across the chamber, showering his bed and floor with shards. Something amidst the debris had caught the monster high on the throat and tore through it like wet paper, sending the hulking beast stumbling to the ground.

Thunder snapped and rain poured through the now-open window as lightning flashed. Michael stared in horror, watching the monster slump to the cramped floor of his room.

Speckled by the rain, the monster bellowed out in muted pain and its flesh turned to dust in the pale moonlight.

Michael was frozen in place as he watched it crumble to the floor, like a sand-castle eaten by the oncoming tide. After a moment, it was little more than a pile of dark grain and wet dust, collecting in the gaps between his floorboards. He stood there for some time, staring at the melted corpse. He likely would’ve stood and stared all night if he hadn’t heard another noise downstairs: A floorboard creak.

Michael wiped his face and clamped his head in his hands. Breathe. Square your shoulders. Go. Breath. Square... and walk! Michael tried to force the panic in him to shift into something else- anything else. In the pit of his terror he found something and his fingers raked against his scalp.

Another floorboard creaked downstairs and Michael shook his head, letting a brittle anger fill him. He stepped over the shattered glass. As he reached for the door, something glinted in the corner of his eye. Michael glanced into the moonlit corner of his room across from the ruptured window.

An arrow was stuck, protruding from his wall, gently covered in its own fine layer of monstrous essence. It was shining metal, silver in the light and long as his arm.

Michael walked over to it when another noise muffled from downstairs. He ripped the arrow free and slowed his breathing as he made his way down the steps.

Soft voices resonated from below, speaking in hushed tones, nothing at all alike the beast.

Michael hid behind the wall of the stairwell and felt the rest of his confusion begin to plume into anger. His hand began to twitch and heat radiated deep in his head.

Before he knew why, Michael stepped off the stairs and into the kitchen and roared, “Who’s here!” with the glinting arrow, tight in his fist.

Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

Nobody was there.

Silence lingered thick in the air, interrupted only by the occasional rolls of thunder and the drone of the rain.

A soft voice uttered from the dark , “Those arrows aren’t easy to make, you know.”

A spark was struck into the base of a hand-lantern and a small flame billowed. Flickering shadows were sent scurrying to the corners of the room. A young woman was stood at its source, a the light held aloft. Her eyes were dark in the dimness of it all, but they twinkled hazel and green.

“Hello, Michael,” she said gently, as though comforting a startled deer.

Michael only twisted his arm and brought the arrow-point around to face her.

She smiled softly at the gesture but otherwise ignored it. “You’re safe, now.”

“After all,” another voice erupted from the thick shadows to Michael’s right, startling him into the space behind the kitchen bench, “if we’d wanted you dead, we could’ve just waited five seconds.”

Michael brought the silver point out before him, sweeping back and forth between the two of them. “I’ve had a real fuckin’ long spell so let’s skip the bullshit. Who are you?”

The second to emerge, still lurking in the dark, sighed and Michael heard the tell-tale groan of his house as they casually leaned against the wall. “Weary friends.”

The young woman raised the lantern and the golden light bathed her face. Michael blinked, expecting some kind of dead-eyed marauder, only to find rather the opposite. “Mind if I sit?” she asked.

Michael didn’t know quite how to respond. In his experience, home invaders didn’t ask permission. “Go ahead...”

She pulled up a stool and laid both hands quietly on the bench. She looked him quietly over in a way that unnerved him. Not because she had an unsettling energy or because she seemed dishonest, but because she seemed, again, precisely the opposite. A full quiver hung bound to her right shoulder and hanging on the left was a bow, silver as moonlight, just like the arrows. She had a head of thick dark hair, swept into a quick, no-nonsense ponytail which had long since come slightly loose. Her face was small and round, but her dark eyes held a quiet storm.

Michael felt the weight of the arrow in his hand. “Who are you? What are you doing in my house? And how do you know my name?”

“I’m Nicky. Nichole. That’s Aroha. Honey, come say hi."

Aroha stepped quietly into the light, both hands aloft so Michael could see she was unarmed. Despite how earnest the gesture seemed to be, Michael knew she was teasing him. Her jawline was sharper than Michael’s and her face was full to the brim with swagger. “Hey, there.”

Michael folded his arms softly and nodded. One less question eating away at him.

“As for why we’re here. Well...” Nichole glanced at the staircase. “We came to ruin that creature’s day.”

Michael's chest tightened but he restrained the question and nodded.

Nichole had been watching his face and seemed lightly impressed by the restraint. “And lastly. Well, Connie told us your name.”

Michael frowned and took half a step closer to the benchtop. “You know my mother? Where is she?”

Nichole’s hands retreated back to her side and she shrugged. “That one, I don’t know. She made us aware of you but not much else. Seemed like she had somewhere to be and no time to waste.”

Michael wanted to tear his hair. He ignored it for the time being and nodded. “Fine.” He dropped the arrow on the bench and reached under the tabletop, pulling out a mug. He then glanced at the two young women and asked, “Drink?”

They both sat on the other side of the bench, quietly watching as he poured. Michael looked up briefly to the second woman, Aroha. She was about the same age. Her hair was messy in the purposeful way and short in the fashion of a wolf-cut. Her oaky eyes eyes seemed to be permanently lined with a quiet grin.

Aroha met his eyes and then smiled far too comfortably for the amount of tension in the air. She then looked at the cup and snorted. Michael looked down to realise he was spilling wine onto the bench.

Nichole looked at Aroha sternly and without needing to be asked, she grabbed a cloth and began wiping it up.

Michael filled the other two tankards and moved them forward, saving the fullest for himself. “What was that thing?”

Nichole folded up the used cloth, nodding expectantly at the question. “A Creation. You’d call it a monster, probably. That one was a Nethotar.”

Michael, mid-way through a sip, coughed into his mug of wine. And despite sloshing much of it onto the bench again but he didn't take much notice.

“It nearly skinned you alive, and you’re going to laugh because of what it’s called?”

Michael blinked and finished his drink. “Nethotars live in storybooks. They guard princes, they don’t hunt Dim-side paupers.”

Aroha took her drink and swirled it in a vortex. “I think you’ll find they hunt princes and paupers alike.”

Michael's face was tight with confusion. “Why was it trying to kill me? What have I ever done? What did it mean when-”

Nichole raised her hands in a calming manner, bringing his questions to a stop. “Look, Michael. The fact is, we didn’t come here just to stop that thing butchering you. We came to get you out of here.”

Michael snorted and pretended to look them over. “I don’t see any shackles…”

Aroha smiled at Nichole and shrugged. “He’s a lost cause. Come on, let’s just leave him. I’m not waiting for whatever else is coming." Aroha stood up and then added, “I’d tell you to lock the door, but frankly, it’ll just make the horror last longer... come on, Nicky."

Michael straightened up and stuttered, “Wait! What?”

Nichole stood too, slightly baffled. “Michael, did you think this was a one-time thing? That you were just going to go back to sleep, wake up, and head to school?”

Michael threw his hands up and said, “You haven’t told me anything!”

Aroha moved passed her partner and put her hands flat on the table. Her short, dark hair was shaved close on the side, Michael realised, and her eyes were somehow both hazel and dark, twinkling with grim amusement. “You want answers? Come with us. We saved your life. I don’t really feel the need to prove anything else to you.”

Nichole rolled her eyes and said sternly, “Your bedside manner is dreadful, dear.”

Michael roughly ran his hands through her hair and took a deep breath. “Just- just help me out. Give me something to understand. Please?”

Aroha’s hand was firm on the door but she let it go, resigning to lean against it instead, not so much as turning back. “You want to tell him?”

Nichole rubbed her face and glanced out the window. It was nearly Rising again. Her right hand twitched toward her pocket but fell short. “What can I say to convince you?”

Michael had too many questions and knew there wasn’t time for all of them. “What did you mean that more of those things will come? How can there be more of something I’ve never heard of in my entire god-damned life?”

Aroha huffed but Nichole shushed her and walked back over to the bench. “Pour some drinks.”

He did as she said.