Deadly

What Does Your Fear Taste Like?

            Calamity stirred softly and lifted her head, the ground underneath her cold and slightly wet which caused her to open her eyes slowly, as her eyes adjusted to the scene around her, she was slightly taken aback by what she saw. She was laying face down against a wet cobblestone road that was only lit by a nearby lamp post, the stone under her slightly glistening with a bit of water and the air felt damp like it had just rained. She pushed herself up from her stomach and sat on her knees looking around her, the thin street around her quiet in the night. She stood to her feet slowly and put her hand against the brick wall closest to her, her fingers running along the bricks before she turned her attention to the street that stretched out before her. It stretched for what looked like miles before slowly fading into the darkness at the end of her vision, though all the buildings around her looked identical. The street itself looked like it had just been copied and pasted repeatedly to fill the world around her, and the stench in the air made her sick.

She found herself starting to walk down the stretch of street, she wasn't sure where she was heading to, but she felt like staying still wasn't much of an option either. Her brain was cloudy, and she couldn't seem to focus in on any details about the buildings or the area around her, every time she tried to focus her vision became blurry and faded so she just focused on what was immediately ahead of her as she walked. She felt out of breath, every inhale getting heavier each time she tried to pinpoint the smell that engulfed her nose. The sound of her footsteps echoing in her ears as they bounced off the walls around her, the smell growing heavier on her senses as she walked down the seemingly never-ending stretch. She walked for what felt like hours before she stopped and leaned against a wall, attempting to catch her breath as her legs ached before she felt her body tense up. A soft clicking sound met her ears, like the sounds of horse hooves against concrete or brick yet they didn't sound much bigger than a pony of some sort. As the sound grew louder, she forced herself off the wall to look behind her, the lamp posts that stretched behind her slowly going out one by one as the sound inched closer. Her legs were on fire, yet her body screamed at her to run, which she started to. As she began to run the sound only grew louder in her ears, as if she were running in place but watching the world fly by around her, she knew she was sprinting blindly as fast as her aching legs would carry her.

She turned to look over her shoulder as she ran but as she did the light closest to her shut off leaving her in the dark, causing her to trip over her own feet and slam hard into the cobblestone under her. She slid against the wet stone, feeling her cheek scrape the ground as she slid. She quickly lifted her head and looked around her; her eyes unable to adjust to the pitch-black world around her as she felt the wetness from her cheek drip down her chin to her neck. As she lifted herself up onto the palms of her hands the clipping sound of hooves came to a stop, the final clip sounding like thunder in her ears as she could feel whatever had been following her was now on top of her in the dark void around her body. The air only grew heavier with every panicked breath that left her lungs, though she was able to see her breath misting around her face as the temperature began to plummet around her. Her body was on fire, yet she found herself shivering heavily while the smell of metal and dirt filled her nose once more.

"Whoever you are, I am not afraid of you!" The statment left her lips as if on impulse as she looked over her shoulder into the void for the source of the sound, her next breath sending her lungs into a coughing spasm. It felt like her throat and lungs had just inhaled the flames of hell itself, her hand grabbing at her throat as she choked and gasped for air yet every breath in was only making the burning more intense than the last. The clipping started again, she could hear it even over her own violent gagging and gasping and it felt like the sound was burning itself into her brain.

"You may not be now, but you will be." She looked up, feeling her eyes welling up with tears as the burning feeling was stinging her eyes yet there wasn't a fire around that she could smell or feel. The air felt like it was sub zero and the only sounds she could hear were her own choking and the footsteps yet somehow the voice she heard sounded soft and sweet. "Soon you will see what I am really capable of, soon you will understand." She fished around her neck for her necklace but felt her heart stop when she couldn't find it, gagging harder as the burning became too much to handle. The smell was overwhelming now, the smell was like roadkill that had been in the sun to long and it was filling her senses even quicker than the burning sensation. She felt a cold hand cup her chin from the darkness, her eyes attempting to focus on the hand as her body trembled from her inability to take a good breath. The hand was pale and small, the touch even colder than the air around her as the hand forced her head up at an awkward angle which only made it harder for her to get a good breath in.

Her eyes widened and stung as a face appeared from the shadows, the blurry face of a child now in her full vision. She could hardly make out any real details, but she could make out two burning red eyes, the shine from them almost enough to blind her compared to the void around her.One half of this childs face was heavily scarred, from what she could tell it was similar if not identical to the scar that adorned Adrians face as well. The red tint of the glow from the childs eyes itself reminded her of Adrian's, yet these eyes were some how colder than his by a land slide. The gaze of this creature in front of her felt like it was freezing her body cold in its place and all she was doing was looking at it, the child used her hand to turn Calamity's face a few different ways before it dug its nails into her chin which felt like the burning in her lungs. The feeling of the nails slicing her skin was cold at first but it quickly felt like a flame was burning her skin from the inside out as the nails punctured her skin like it was thin paper.

"Pathetic, it really is. His hold on you is so weak, I trained him better than this." Calamity tried to open her mouth to speak but all she could do was cough and choke, the hand letting her go just as quickly as it had grabbed her but as it left her skin her head fell forward. She coughed a few more times as what felt like a river of wetness spilled from her mouth, the metallic taste bringing her close to vomiting. Her eyes were blinded by all the lights turning on just as quickly as they had turned off moments prior, her vision of the street surrounding her returning, but all the buildings looked like they had been cracked by an inky blackness. They all looked like shattered mirrors as the black lines oozed a tar like substance from them, the cobblestone under Calamity covered in her own blood as she continued to cough and vomit against the stones. Her vision began to blur and fade as she weakly tried to lift her gaze between each coughing fit that only seemed to produce more blood from her mouth, though at the end of the street and just out of her field of sight stood a black silhouette of what looked like a young girl with long hair. The only visible detail in the mass of shadow were the bright red and soulless eyes that watched her choke before eventually she felt her body fall limp against the cobblestone once more.