I followed him through the bushes and immediately felt a wave of heat slap my face,
"Fire!" he yelled, putting his arms up to his face to avoid any fiery blasts.
The flames roared onto the path in front of us as a flurry of teenagers attempted to dowse the uncontrollable bonfire with small flasks of water,
"Do you have a bucket?" one of the boys shouted to us,
"No, but there should be something to help down near the stream" Damien suggested as he hastily guided me down an incline and onto the banks of a small river.
He frantically looked around in the nooks and hidden areas, until he found what he was looking for,
"Bingo! We used to hang out down here before the weirdness started" he panted excitedly.
He threw a dented tin bucket towards me and ripped a long piece of Ivy vine from the bark of the tree, with the aid of his sharp blade, and wrapped it around the rusty bucket handle,
"I'm going to go back up there and throw the vine over that tree. When I do this, I need you to fill the bucket with water and I'll collect it" he ordered like an army major.
I scanned my shadowy surroundings and tried to muster all the remaining courage I had, as my eyes locked onto a hidden cave further down the bank and a wave of anxiety swept over me,
"Ok, just please hurry up" I begged, filling the bucket for the first trip of water.
Damien nodded and quickly scrambled back up the slope as I could hear an echo of cheers at the extra help.
I waited for the bucket to come back down and assessed my new surroundings.
Rustling and scratching taunted my mind as I refused to move from my spot and investigate.
The flames began to slowly disperse and Damien waved for me to come back up,
"Just be careful because some of the water spilt" he shouted down through all the cheers.
I clambered up the damp slope and pondered how involved the group of tie dye teens were before a sinking feeling came over me.
It was strange because I managed to avoid the damp patch, where Damien had spilt the water, so I couldn't understand why the ground had become saturated so quickly.
My balance was thrown off and I felt one of my feet going through the muddy hill as I began to panic,
"Damien!" I screamed, hysterically trying to pull my foot out of the sinking mud,
"Luci!" Damien yelled back.
He ran to the edge of the slope, with the other teens, as they all grabbed out and attempted to find branches and vines for me to hold onto but my body was submerging too quickly and I could feel my legs becoming heavy as they continued to be sucked into muddy hill with force.
My whole body began to submerge at an alarming rate until I no longer had the use of my arms,
"Go get help!" Damien screeched to a plump, petrified green haired girl.
Frozen to the spot in terror, the blood had drained from the horrified teens face as her skinny blue haired male companion snapped her out of her trance, grabbed her hand and ran to get help.
But it was too late.
The cold mud slithered up to my shoulders and I knew I had run out of time,
"Luci!" Damien screamed.
His voice became muffled as the soil filled all my ears, restricting the air, and light to my body, suffocating me as it all turned to black and I passed out.
Am I dead? I pondered, trying to remember the lesson on the afterlife, Mr Sancti taught us in Religious Education a few months ago.
Well I'm still in the dark, so when do I move on? I wonder if there is a heaven and hell.
As I thought about the last time I prayed, my musings became distracted by a scuffling in front of me.
I held my breath and tried to think happy thoughts as the small undetectable goader used the darkness to its advantage.
Memories of my aunt Sofiya, playing with me in the park when I was a toddler, helped to keep the fear at bay for a split second but it wasn't enough for the eager intruder.
It wanted blood and wasn't going to let anything get in its way to delay its goal.
As I felt around for a weapon, or something to help myself with, I felt a heavy force knock the wind out of my undetectable chest, leaving me panting for air as a piercing, stabbing pain rock through my mind,
"Stop!" I screamed but the invisible attacker continued the savage assault.
It felt like a thousand razor sharp knives clawing at my exposed brain as I remained paralysed, unable to move or stop the unspeakable agony.
I tried to find an exit or some form of light to distract or frighten this subliminal attacker but there was nothing but darkness and an immediate sense of doom.
I had almost given up until I felt a sudden surge of electric bolt through my being and I tried to detach myself from this gorging phantom as it clung onto me like glue,
"I said stop!" I repeated and the pain suddenly stopped.
This is it. My time to move on has come, I guessed.
The pressure slowly dispersed from my mind but the pain was all still real,
"Master Tynan, you must taste this. She tastes different to the rest" a voice echoed around my mind.
The gravelly tone swept around my head as I detected another energy nearby.
Composed, calculated and vicious, I couldn't understand what was happening as I felt the wicked energies of these abusers rip and scratch at me,
"Move over" the other voice order with authority.
The sharp pain returned and rocked through my senses, with more intensity than the previous attack,
"Doesn't she taste like sunlight, moonbeams and rainbows" the first assailant rambled.
His dazed, unbalanced energy swirled around me as I got the feeling of drowsiness and a lack of my own mind,
"Are you drunk?" the stern voice barked, unamused by his partner's lack of composure.
A giggling noise echoed behind me,
"I don't know. Can you get drunk off human blood?" the inebriated voice tittered.
A piercing silence rocked through the dank space,
"No, not from human blood" the hierarchical voice concluded as it stopped the attack and stepped away quickly.
I could feel a mixture of emotions coming from this individual but the one that was most dominant was intrigue.
Intrigue, over something that interested but scared it, however the curiosity to know more overrode the trepidation and it was in that second that I knew, I wasn't dead but I was soon going to wish I was.
If you enjoyed this chapter, please support me by voting for it and / or leaving a comment with your feedback!
Thanks everyone! :-)
YOU ARE READING
Love Bite (Love Bite Series #1)
FantasyLucia has reluctantly moved to the rural town of Umbra, in the English countryside, to live with her absent father, after she found her aunt Sofiya in the alley, at the side of their London home, bloody and bitten. Struggling to cope with village l...
