“I want to call my friends. I want to call my family. They deserve to know that I am in danger! They, deserve, they should know that I need to be in the hospital.” You say to Mysticalis, lifting your arms in desperation and heightened annoyance.

“No. You can’t know who has been compromised or if your technology is being monitored.” Mysticalis shakes its head while reaching out to restrain you.

You pull back and nearly fall off of the bed. “Leave me be. This is my choice to make.” You say through gritted teeth.

Mysticalis sighs, as you think it has relented to your persistence. It reveals its actual intention as it reaches to the base of its neck. You hear a faint rending sound like the tearing of a plastic bag. It pulls what can only be described as a cowl or hood over its head. In a moment, the face that you grew familiar with changes. As its hands pull the hood that once had been its face out of the way, you see something unlike anything from reality.

You drop your phone to the ground and your jaw goes slack. This being that is before you is only akin to something out of a dream. The conscious imagination could not create such a collection of curves, colors, and horn into this being of beauty. There are dreams you recall from childhood. Like waking dreams, all the details are from your childhood life and the only strange dream like items that stands out is a creature that looks just as Mysticalis does.

You support your weight with one hand as you lean up and toward it, instead of away, as before. Your phone is forgotten on the hard floor, maybe even broken you think for just a moment. Your other hand reaches up toward Mysticalis’s face. Just as you would make contact with the skin, it moves away and just out of reach of your grasp.

It seems nervous. In all its apparent wisdom and strength, there is a child-like concern and innocence that you register in its face. You sit up and scoot back against the back board and motion for Mysticalis to come closer.

As the mystic countenance leans closer to you, you almost lose your bravery for a moment. The sheer perfection and glow almost overcomes you. You feel a fear of inadequacy.

Through both of your fears, you manage to push yourself forward and touch the warm, almost hot, skin. The glowing light of the flesh plays around your fingers and reminds you of putting your hand up to block the rays of the sun.

Your hand quickly recoils and your body stiffens as you fall back awkwardly onto the bed.

Moments later, trying to recall and describe its appearance to yourself grows abstract. You remember the feelings. You recall the warm feeling that at first comforted you. You then shiver, nearly in a panic, as you cannot shake the memory of terror that you felt. It is as if the beauty became too much to behold and all your inner most worries and anxieties consumed you.

You look around the room frantically. Mysticalis faces the far wall window, turned away from you. You quickly peer around the room for the cowl and see it nowhere. It turns to face you, causing you to wince as if about to look into the sun. Your vision relaxes as you see the strange, disarming appearance of the “cowled” face.

This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.

You are certain that you were just manipulated about something, though you are not exactly sure what. You try to think, so hard that your eye brows furrow with concentration. You mutter, “What did I... was I going to do? I just feel so tired.”

You adjust yourself on the bed and get comfortable. Just as you start to pass out, you hear Mysticalis utter, “I’m sorry...”

Your lids are too heavy to keep open, though you worry as you worry when closing your eyes for a moment while driving late in the night.

**

Long Island Motel

“Why feel you? Has your slumber aided your pains and mended your wounds?” It is leaning over you, staring into your slowly opening eyes.

With a sudden crack and a bang, the door flies open and slams into the door stopper so hard that the stopper breaks and the door impact the wall. You go to sit up, but Mysticalis shoves you out of the bed, away from the door. You shriek as you impact the ground with a renewal of wounded pain.

For the first time in your life, you hear a gunshot, no, feel a gunshot discharged in your direction. The sound of the next few moments has your imagination ruling over your thoughts. It is better than the thought of wanting to piss yourself.

You can hear a series of foot steps filtering into the room as more gunshots explode loudly in the room. No one could have prepared you for just how loud a gunshot could be. The gunshots created a cavalcade of disruption in your own skull. You put your hands up to your ears and you tuck into the side of the bed facing away from the wall.

As if the gunshots were bad enough, the light of the bare bulbs from the lamps shatter from debris falling from the walls and the darkness is a sudden friend in the fear filled air. You feel as though if you could just disappear and fall into the darkness into another world, you would be welcome to anything that could exist in such a dark realm.

You hear a shimmer of energy like a discharge of electrical high intensity currents and suddenly, the light in the room pulsates and creates shadowed patterns on the walls. It is like that of lightning firing again and again.

Screams fill the air as the sounds of gunshots diminishes and now the sounds of a brawl follow. You finally gain the courage to see your oncoming demise. Surely, there is no way that your mysterious friend can fight a gang of gun toting assassins. You look up to see the shimmer and chaotic light of a blade of energy dancing and electrically connecting Myst’s hands and up its arms.

There are still two assailants left. They are big and strong looking, so intimidating on any normal day even without guns. Myst dances as if this is a choreographed moment. It dives under one punch and its shoulder collides into the goons armpit. Its power lifts the man off of the ground and sends him careening and crashing into a side table, shattering it.

The other tries to bring the gun around to level it at Myst, you all but forgotten while the two remaining men fight for their lives. A gunshot rings from the handgun and the plaster of the far wall sends a shower of particles over Myst’s back.

Myst tosses the beam of energy into the air as if it has a mass to it. It spins and Myst grabs the other end of it, steadying it in its grasp. Then, it stabs skillfully back and the electrical blade sizzles over the clothes of the goon and then embeds itself in the guts of the man. He collapses down as jolts and bolts of electricity dance over his features, sizzling and burning them.

The other man finally starts to find his wits as he stands and rather than try to find his gun, he pulls a knife from his belt. He charges at Myst as Myst’s back is turned. You have just enough wits to toss a piece of the broken lamp that lays next to you. It impacts his head just barely. It glances off and crashes into the ground. Myst takes the moment of distraction to cartwheel over and slash the blade across the face and chest of the final assailant.

He collapses down now and Myst comes over to check on you. “We need to leave this place. You’re not safe here and the authorities will soon be on their way.”

You nod, shocked and stunned, but still you grab your wallet and a duffle bag that has some of your valuables in it. Myst takes your hand and pulls you along as it swiftly makes the blade disappear and guides you out of the hotel.