Summer’s mind drifted into a semblance of wakefulness, and there she hovered.

Mensha’s wide eyes when his proposal brought her to tears came to her mind, in her thoughtless reflection it was all so clear. He’d been making it perfect for her, with all the love he could – like he always did.

She flared to wakefulness; lethargy burnt from her as she remembered. She was up and out of the closet, chasing the sound of screams she knew to be a trap.

Desperation and hope fuelled her determined light, and the haze fled her even as it thickened, she was lighter than she’d ever been, each step carried her further and further as the roiling emotion in her heavy stomach burned to fuel her charge. The bat groaned under her grip.

A plan simple and direct coalesced in her head, she would beat the thing into a steaming pulp and then find her man.

She slowed when the screams turned to laughter, her gaze sweeping her bubble of light for the monster. She was a spot of austere white amidst a dark rainbow, but she was undaunted as she marched forward, she refused to be anything less.

The jubilation reached a crescendo, it surrounded her, but it wasn’t uniform.

She turned to the loudest point, the crash of her bat and straining muscles gave her satisfaction. It was launched back into the mist trailing giggles.

Giggles she heard behind her, she leapt aside in time to see it fly through where she was and then skitter into the haze its form streaming mist.

She glanced around and steadied herself, the mad laughter fell to stifled giggles. She readied herself.

She wasn’t prepared for the sting in her shoulder and the weight from above that threatened to drag her down.

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Through clenched teeth, she grabbed her passenger and threw it to the ground, followed by a swing and satisfying thunk. She retreated when it stuck at her.

It then retreated into the mist with the laughter of a kid caught in the act.

She calmed her rising anger and channelled it into plotting its murder. She was on a timer now.

It leapt again and she struck it to the ground, she didn’t let up when it tried to retreat. She chased it her light banishing the mist before it could enter.

It laughed as she hounded it, as she struck until her bat was bent into uselessness, and she resorted to throwing any heavy item she could. It had slowed under her abuse, and it was a confusing sight.

A shifting collection of spider legs and needles, emerging from and at times falling into a blob of sold mist that undulated as it ran and laughed. Sparse lights shone inside, what she could only assume were eyes.

It had no mouth yet it still giggled after their chase had left it with multiple broken legs and spines and summer a numbness that slowed her violence from a frantic assault into a more measured execution.

It entered a large room a fell to the floor a puddle of mist and sharp things. Summer hefted a stanchion she’d found along the way and closed on the creature. She needed to kill it before her stamina broke.

A brief glance at the room froze her. Bodies, dozens of them. arrayed around the room, their faces still and serene, and amongst her love lay unmoving.

Her light guttered; it leapt striking her. She struck with the last of her departing strength, it screeched, she struck it gain, it laughed.

She smashed it over and over until its jubilation was silenced, its body rendered a chunky oil slick, and her tears burst free.

She dropped her weapon from her tired hands and only a flare of determination gave her the strength to reach him.

She fell by his and put a hand to his face, she couldn’t feel a breath, she ran her hand to his neck, but her trembling hands couldn’t check for a pulse.

One. Two, she tried to calm down, her gushing tears told her she’d failed.

She clasped his limp hand in her shaking ones and prayed, to what she didn’t know, only that the words flowed from her hoarse throat faster and more sincerely than in her entire life.

She knelt there a low light in a dark doom, her mind too blasted to hold any thought.

A weak squeeze woke her, as soft as a shadow’s touch, but it was there and as she looked up into the bleary eyes of her heart. It was the best, most wonderful thing she had ever felt.

She cried her hands wrapped around him, screams and sobs wracking her frame. A soft hand circled her back.