Zoé is a young immortal. She is only 186 years old. Currently, she works in an incredible library of the occult, located in Budapest and curated by a very old immortal called Ikshan. Unfortunately, one day she stumbles upon a terrifying monster in a...
I run in the hallways and the staircases, as if my life depended on it. Wait, my life does depend on it. There is a freakin' monster behind me.
I stumble. Ouch. The creature reached my shoulder, and its claws ripped slightly my skin. I don't even throw a look behind and I run even faster, pushing every door I find to try to slow the monster down. I'm one room away from the armory now. I throw myself in it and close the door behind me, just in time for the creature to smash into it. The door is damaged, but it stops it at least for a few seconds.
I look around frantically to choose a weapon. There are plenty of choices. A crossbow? Not really handy in this situation. Nunchaku? Come on. Who am I kidding? I have no idea how to use that. Maybe a regular sword will be fine. Well, regular... I don't know if I can say that as every weapon here is one of a kind, but I just grab the nearest one, a medieval short sword that is not too heavy, and face the door, ready for a fight.
Then I realize that the door is still closed and that I can't hear any sound any longer.
I wait, panting. Nothing. Is that a trap? What am I supposed to do? I come closer to the door. Still nothing. Okay, I'm going to try to open the door. Girl, you can do it. It's okay and you have your sword.
I reach for the doorknob slowly, take a deep breath and open the door with a war scream and my sword in front of me. Nothing. The hallway is empty. There is no sound at all. I search the library carefully. No trace of the monster. It's gone. How is it possible? It appeared from nowhere and then disappeared the same way. I don't understand.
When I finally decide that this might be over, I look at the wound on my shoulder in a mirror. It's not deep, but it doesn't heal as quickly as it should. It's clearly some kind of magical wound.
I debate internally for a while before grabbing my phone.
"Hi Zoé, how are you?" Ikshan answers cheerfully.
"Hmm... Listen, when are you supposed to be back?"
"Tomorrow evening. Why? Is there a problem?"
"Well, I've just been attacked by a monster."
"What? Are you ok?"
"Small wound on my shoulder, but I'm fine."
"Are you safe now?"
"Well, that's the thing, the monster disappeared. But I don't know where it went."
"What do you mean disappeared?"
"One minute it was there and then poof, it was not."
"What kind of monster exactly?"
"I have no idea. I've never seen anything like that before."
"Okay, I can be there in a few hours. Maybe you should not stay in the library. I can meet you at your apartment as soon as I arrive and then we'll go to the library together."
"Yeah, let's do that."
"Stay safe, okay? And call me if you need anything."
As soon as I hang up, I grab my stuff and leave the library in a hurry.
I didn't tell them about the damage. Oh well, they're going to find out about that soon enough...
Oops! This image does not follow our content guidelines. To continue publishing, please remove it or upload a different image.
