Anathema

☾Chapter Eight

A/N unedited, gif to the side of Archer >:) *laughs maniacally* 

July 17th 2015

Isobel Lattimore is gasping for breath, her eyes are leaking tears and she can't feel any happier than she is in this moment.

"Lewis!" Her squeals come out in joyful sighs as her footsteps slap against the linoleum floor of the gym, the soaking wet ends of her hair dripping every way she ran.

She can here Lewis behind her, his own bellowing laughter uninterrupted by the flickering florescent lights and the darkness of the locker room corridors.

As she passes an empty hallway Isobel instantly notices the dark shape at the end of it.

"What the fuck?"

Her feet slow to a slow stop as she asses the shape thirty feet in front of her, she can't make out his face, but something is menacing in his broad shoulders, and the bunch of the fists at his side.

Whipping her head back, she quickly begins looking for Lewis.

But suddenly she can't make out his lanky form behind her anymore, suddenly everything is more real. The shadows creeping against the blocked walls, the flicker of the lighting, the emptiness of the building.

Her heart pounding against her chest so fast that she can feel the beat almost tattooing against her skin.

There's a unusual chill that wasn't there before, that seems to rack her body in uncontrollable shivers.

The fear that makes an appearance in her veins isn't welcome, but it's there, very real, and it's spreading across her body faster than she can breath, faster than she can take in. More quickly than the adrenaline, and Isobel feels her knees weaken to the point it's hard to stand.

But her head swims, and all she knows is that the figure at the end of the hall has ill intentions, and she must get out.

Now.

...

"Lewis?" Lewis can hear Isobel's voice shaking so hard that the tremors turn into stuttering, and pretty soon the stuttering with turn into panic, and when she panicked it will be over.

"Isobel?" The boy's voice is cracked, as he sees her at the end of the hall, his own heart pumping with an adrenaline fueled ferocity.

He feels very much like the teenager he is, like he should be home.

Like he shouldn't have dragged Isobel to do this.

The shiny surface of everything feels superficial, like a facade about to crack, but Lewis doesn't want to think about facades or cracking, or what is going to happen the minute he reaches the figure at the end of the hall.

All he can bare to consider letting slip past his mental process is the bare bone need for survival, and to survive, the thing he needs to do is reach Isobel at the end of the hall.

And then they can leave.

There is register of the noise he makes as Lewis starts shifting his body, the shape is indistinguishable, but he knows it's her.

Of course it's her, how couldn't it be her?

And then Lewis feels safe, everything's okay. It's just an empty school, they're okay. No one knows they're here.

It's all okay.

Little does the boy know, that all is not right, that the calm he's feeling is simply a brain wave sent from the man at the end of the hall, a predator reassuring his prey.