Lykaon

Chapter 9: You're Not the Only One

POV: Dakoda

For the first night in what seemed like an eternity, I was not plagued by nightmares. My sub-conscious lay silent, as if it was too busy with other activities to bother with haunting me. I could not remember what a restful sleep felt like and I almost wished not to wake back up. Unfortunately my bliss did not last long.

My eyes suddenly flew open like I had been jolted awake but Jai and Calypso still lay asleep. I peered around the dark room searching for signs of what had awoken me but nothing seemed out of the ordinary. The only sounds that could be heard were Calypso's gentle breathing and Jai's snoring on the other side of the room.

I re-positioned myself before lying back down on the floor. Oddly enough my eyelids were rapidly growing heavy and it was all I could do to hold them open for just a few minutes. I did not want sleep to overtake me quite yet; I had to make sure that there was nothing wrong. My eyelids were dropping like anchors as I finally accepted sleep's warm grasp but just before they could close completely, I caught something out the corner of my eye.

It was brief and only lasted a fraction of as second but I was sure that I saw it. The air itself had seemed to visibly shift in a way that I could not explain. My senses indicated that there was nothing there but my eyes said otherwise. Maybe I'm just seeing things.. I tried to convince myself. I waited, emulating deep breaths as I did and keeping my eyes open just barely enough to see. For several seconds there was nothing but then sure enough, I saw it again. Something was definitely not right and I couldn't risk waiting any longer.

Whatever it was, it was too close to Jai for me to get over there in time. Perhaps it wasn't something physical for I could not sense it, but the chance of it being harmful was present and I didn't want to make a bet on it. Several of Calypso's small knives lay only a couple feet from me. I hope this works.

My hand darted toward one of the blades. As soon as it was in my grasp I threw it as hard as I could in the area where I had seen the air shift. For a brief moment the sound of it flying through the air could be heard, then the sound of tearing flesh as an ear-shattering high-pitched screech rang out. Leaping onto my feet, I dove towards the invisible enemy and tackled it onto the ground.

"What the-" Jai spoke groggily as he began to sit up.

"Jai! Get up now and wake Calypso! Grab your knife!" I yelled as I struggled against... What is this thing?

Jai ran over to Calypso and shook her awake, "Calypso!" Her response was much faster than Jai's and she seemed to take in the situation almost instantly. Reaching under her pillow she pulled out a large knife and leapt upward almost right at me but instead jabbed the knife into seemingly thin air. Another screech sounded and I heard a thud on the ground behind me as something collapsed.

"Holy shit!" Jai exclaimed. "How did you see that? I can't tell where they are!" I saw him rapidly moving to help me out of the corner of my eye.

That's when something I never expected happened. Before Jai could reach me, I felt the being's feet press against my stomach as I was thrown off completely. My back slammed into the opposing wall with a resounding crash and it began to crumble with the impact. How did it do that? I had no time to think on it as I quickly recovered and got back on my feet.

Calypso had grabbed her throwing knives and quickly took down the enemy I had just been attacked by, which suddenly became visible as it died. "Use your aura, Dakoda! You can see theirs!"

I flipped a mental switch and felt my body begin to heat up. Almost instantly I could perceive the yellow auras still leaving our enemies bodies. There was no others in sight as I moved over to investigate.