The Hunter

Call a Friend

Gloria watched Finn. The slow rise and fall of her chest and the occasional twitch in her face as she dreamt. Her darkness flitted in the back of her mind, quoting passages that would justify the darkness, but she ignored it as best she could. The terror she had felt had been so all-encompassing that it felt like there was a void of emotion left behind.

"My decision?" Gloria murmured, flinching at the sound of her own voice in the silent room. The silence was oppressive, as though it would take the place of the terror from before and Gloria stood. "You can't put that on me." She told the unconscious woman on the bed. "I have no information! You brought home a demon, scared me - no, you terrified me, and now you're dying if I leave you. That's not a decision, that's manipulation."

Gloria stepped down the stairs, not trying to keep her feet from thumping or the boards from creaking. Across from her the library door was open to the library of her dreams and she cautiously peered in. All the shelves and flat surfaces were empty, almost bereft, except for a slim volume on the chair where she had been sitting what felt like both only a moment and years ago. Her eyes flitted around the room before she shook her head.

"Nope." She pulled herself out and looked down the hall towards the area of the house where her room and the kitchen was. Between that area and where she stood The Door sat breathing in its place against the wall.

"I wish that wasn't in the way. I don't want to walk past it. I'm afraid." Gloria was aware she was speaking out loud mostly to hear her own voice and that it probably made her a crazy person, yet it was comforting to hear anything right now.

Her stomach growled and, in a fit of pettiness, Gloria stomped back up the stairs and drank the bowl of steaming broth she had brought up for Finn. Finn lay on the bed, exactly as Gloria had left her once, so Gloria left her again.

She cried as she realized she would make those same motions again and again until she died. Up the stairs, back down the stairs, look into the now empty library, wish she could leave the house and all of this behind. The demon had won and this was her hell.

Helplessly she looked into the library again. Bereft shelves and that slim volume taunting her. She looked down the hall hopelessly and, with her realization of where she was the door had moved. It wasn't there. She spun, knowing it was open behind her, and screamed when she saw the door with the ornate cross etched into it on the other side of the stairs. She bolted to the kitchen and grabbed a knife to protect herself. Hysterical laughter bubbling through her tears at the thought of something so small doing anything to that monster.

She held off the terror and desperation as best she could while she waited for her torturer to come around the corner. She didn't know how long she sat that way, and what would it matter since time couldn't exist in Hell except as an eternity, before a gentle tapping entered her awareness. Slowly she stood and looked to a window where the owl from before sat tapping with it's beak at the glass pane. When it caught her gaze it blinked and stopped tapping.

She opened the window, the knife in her hand making it difficult, and the owl hopped in. For a moment Gloria held hope she could get out, but the window had closed itself again and she knew better than to try. She heard a softly clicking sound and turned to watch the owl hop out of the kitchen. It tilted its head around the frame of the door to look at her before it disappeared again.

When Gloria followed it the door at the end of the hall was still closed. Still breathing. The owl hopped towards it and stopped outside the library. Gloria edged down the hall, her knife held up and her eyes riveted to the door. When she was close enough to see into the library by a crack the owl hopped in, returning to the hallway a moment later with the slim volume in its beak. It hopped to Gloria's feet and dropped the book before turning its head nearly all the way to glare at the breathing door.

Gloria glanced at the cover of the book. "In Case Of Emergency" it said in clear font. There was no author attributed to it and no other markings. The cover felt comfortable in her hands and somehow its light weight calmed her. Gloria backed towards the kitchen, the owl hopping along after her without taking it's predatory eyes off the door.

She sat at the table, still facing the door to the kitchen, and opened the book. Inside was a list of names with strange notations beside them. Some were phone numbers, although she wasn't sure they were North American, and some were short instructions. Some of the names she recognized, but most of them she did not. She turned the page.

Archimedes tells me you found patting him to be comforting. That it helped you to come out of that state of hysteria. He has offered to stay with you until you no longer need him. He will look after his own needs.
~A

Gloria blinked at the note written on the next page. Below it there was an etching of an owl and she looked at the owl who sat in the doorway of the kitchen, still glaring at the door for her.

"Archimedes?" Gloria asked softly, and the owls gaze immediately landed on her. "Who is A?"

The owl blinked at her and paced slowly and awkwardly to the table beside her, before he flared his wings and seemed to leap onto the table. he blinked at her and seemed to wait. She turned the page back to the list of names and he extended one leg to rest a claw along a name.

Athena. Beside the name were a series of symbols that Gloria couldn't read.
Our Holy Lady Catholic Church was beneath that, with a phone number. Gloria took the book into her room where her phone was charging and dialed, unsurprised when the Owl hopped onto the bed beside her.