Portnashker

Chapter 9

I woke up but this time it didn't feel like a dream. I was in a huge room with no one and it had no color to it. There was black everywhere but I could still see in the darkness normally. I looked on the ground to see the blood up to my ankles. I started to walk until I saw that the man in the suit was in front of me. " Nightmare". I said. He tilted his head and smiled. He started walking closer to me then stopped and with one tap from a shoe the blood formed as a chair and I was strapped in. This was the first time I saw him up close. He had a black suit with dark gray stripes on it. His face had a big smile that he never lost and crazy hair that looked like it stood up. I tried my best not to panic until he said " Your pops has taught you a lot. Such a shame it'll be his last ". He opened what looked like a vision portal from the outside. I saw Otis pinned up against the shadow. I looked quickly back at the Nightmare but he looked at Otis with a smile then raised his hand, commanding the blood to go to his neck. I screamed at Nightmare to stop but he hushed me with the blood closing and locking my mouth shut. I looked at Otis who was now blue while Nightmare with one final look closed his hand and Otis was motionless. The Shadows dropped his body and he lay there lifeless. I wept the hardest I have ever wept and put my head down. I heard the footsteps of Nightmare come closer. He leaned over and picked my chin up. " Oh well my dear. " He said while he smiled. He straightened up and raised his hand again but this time at my brothers. It wasn't time to mourn, I thought. I was filled with rage and I was not going to allow him to take the only people I had left. I ripped through the blood and Nightmare looked at me and was not shocked but perplexed. The darkness around me turned white while the blood turned black. I turned the black liquid to a cane and with one slam to the ground I overthrew Nightmare. Not only in the mind but in the real world I threw the Shadows off. Nightmare and I threw other sides around with him thickening his blood and I lightening my light. I captured Nightmare in the black and white. I pinned him to the ground. As for real life, I freed Avala and my brothers who killed the rest of the Shadows who were in great desperation to kill us. I walked to nightmare and with the cane in hand I raised it and drove it through his head. In real life I went to the shack and grabbed my knife that Otis gave me and cut every drop of blood until it withered up and dried to dust. Nightmare soon became the blood dissolving into the light. A few moments later I left my mind and stepped outside the shack. I ran to see my brothers and Avala. We all hugged while they were exhausted physically but I had the blood on me from my physical war and my mental war. We shared our company but I remembered Otis. I ran to where I thought he was and he was there motionless. I fell to my knees beside him. " We did it ". I cried. " Please Grandpa we did it, you can come to us now ". I hugged him and pleaded for him to say something. He never did. I put my head on his chest and wept tears of sorrow. My brothers and Avala behind me paid their respects. After a few minutes I stood up and my brother's came and said their goodbyes. We stood there looking at our grandpa and looking all around at the dried blood on the ground. We decided to put him in the shack in a form of respect for the war he fought and where he laid. We said our last goodbyes and closed the shack doors. The statues of the bone hands were gone and the blood that filled the valley withered and dried as dark spots on the grass. We got to the end of the forest and looked back at where the shadows used in rome. We turned back, promising that we would never dare come back here again. As we walked back to town there was no feeling of dread or the Shadows that passed over and not even a sound that came from the forest. There was only deep sorrow that laid over me and my brothers and shock that fell over Avala. As we made our way to town I looked at the knife that Otis gave me and it had the hardened blood plastered on it. I took it as a way to show how old his death was and why we defeated Nightmare and his army of shadow puppets.

We got to town and saw it in chaos with the town being destroyed. I saw the hardened blood all over the town as well. I also saw families reunited, the one thing that I wished I could do. Avala ran to her parents with big open arms. Even though I never got that, I was happy to see that type of love at a reunion.

As I looked all around I felt a hand on my shoulder. I looked behind me and Jax and Mark hugged me for the longest time. We sat down as first responders came around helping the ones in need. One officer asked if we were okay and if we had seen Sheriff Otis. I looked down and then looked back up at him and said that he was taken by the shadow creatures. He asked if we knew him and we told him that he was our grandpa. The officer told us that he was sorry for the loss. The officer took a moment of silence then hurried to go help others in need.

My brothers and I sat there half morning and half happy to be alive. Although I lost my grandpa I still had my brothers and that was the only family I needed.