Venom (Book I) ✓

Chapter Fifteen

Granny didn't look quite right. Of course, it was kind of hard to tell in the dim light. The fire was reduced to a pile of glowing ashes and the windows were shuttered. The dark was more than disconcerting. It was terrifying.

"Granny?" She breathed, and the pallid form in the bed shifted.

"Oh dear, how good it is for you to come."

Granny sounded strange. Her voice was low and raspy, not brittle like it usually sounded. It was now somehow both vividly alive and horribly afflicted. She shrunk away from the sound of it for a moment.

"Come in darling, come in."

She obeyed if only to avoid hurting the elderly woman's feelings. She may have been dying for all the young girl knew, and she wanted her darling grandmother's final few moments to be exactly as the old woman wanted them.

The closer she got to the bed, however, the worse granny looked. She stopped a few feet from the bed, her hands trembling now with her unease.

"Granny." She hissed through the dim light, "Your eyes look so...large."

The creature in the bed blinked slowly, its massive bloodshot eyes looking terrified and pained. "Of course child, so that I can see you better."

The young girl slipped half of a step closer to get a better look at the creature in her grandmother's bed. "Oh my," She gaped, "Your ears granny, they are so....pointed."

Its hands flew to the cap covering its head, tugging it over the sharp tips of its ears. "Of course, so that I can hear you better." It crooned, but the girl wasn't listening.

"Granny, why are your hands so hairy?" She choked, a hand flying to cover her mouth, now almost positive that the creature wearing her grandmother's nightgown was merely a shoddy look-alike.

But the creature responded once again with an incredibly calm air, though its eyes were still wide in terror. "Of course, so that they will be warm when I h-hug you." It stammered, and a look of venomous rage touched the mask that mimicked her grandmother's face. It bared its teeth and the child stumbled backwards.

"Your teeth." She cried, and the creature vaulted out of the bed toward her.

"Perfect to eat you with." It roared, reaching for her. It fell a few inches short and as it fell she managed to scramble to the other side of the room.

When she looked back, the creature seemed to be fighting itself. Its movements were clumsy and jerky and its visage was undergoing frequent changes. It was the face of a wolf-like beast one moment and a wide-eyed humanoid creature the next, morphing back and forth with dizzying speed.

She was so darkly fascinated by this that she barely had time to scream when the massive wolf-beast won out and lunged at her. Its claws raked at her stomach as she pressed herself into the wall. She cried out in pain and the sound caused the beast to tear itself backwards. Trembling, she sunk to the ground, holding her stomach.

Frightened and injured she began to crawl toward the door, her only thought to escape. She didn't dare chance a look at the beast hunting her. Because of this she didn't have a chance to brace herself for the weight of it throwing itself against her. Her head cracked against the floor and in a painful daze she felt herself being dragged back into the room. With a sense of overwhelming terror she realized that she was about to die.

Then, it let go of her and she clambered clumsily to her feet, swaying as she turned to gaze at the creature. Once again its face was flickering, one visage to the next. For a frozen, terrifying moment, it looked up at her, its face almost humanoid, with wide eyes and a pattern of scars across its forehead glinting in the dim light.

"Go." It growled, desperation and pain clear in its face, "Run, now Red."

She did not hesitate to obey. The last thing she saw before fleeing into the trees were its beautifully luminous green eyes fading into the impossibly intelligent black eyes of the beast.

Ruby shot upright with a start, a strangled shriek tearing from her throat. She looked around herself hastily, but there was no sign of the little cottage or the beast. Her stomach was clean and dry and no blood knotted her hair. She took a breath and raked her hand across the bark of the branch she was settled on. She was remembering. If this was what there was to remember, though, she did not think she cared to recall more.

"Red, are you alright?" A familiar voice asked, and Ruby froze, terror dancing through her veins.

When she finally managed to gain the courage to sneak a look upward a familiar face greeted her. Settled on the branch above her was the creature from her dream, its eyes wide and luminous and worried, the scars on its forehead covered partially by a mop of messy black hair.

With another shriek she recoiled and slipped, suddenly suspended over nothingness. A sinking sensation reminded her that only twenty feet of open air separated her from the forest floor. For the third time in half as many minutes she shrieked, this time closing her eyes and waiting for the imminent impact that would bring about what could only mean her death.