Hunter

Chapter Fourteen - Buried In Darkness

"Hayley!" My mother called out to me, obviously having heard the racket. It was pretty hard to ignore the sound of a train being tipped over like a cow.

"The movie has started! Gotta go!" Hanging up quickly, I pried myself from Jasper. The dim glow that illuminated the train was gone, leaving us in absolute darkness. I pulled out my dagger, the red glow luminous enough for us to take in our immediate surroundings.

"What the heck was that?" Deirdre asked, gathering our belongings.

I listened. There was no sound coming from any direction, so I called it safe to proceed. Willing my dagger into a sword, I used it to pry open the doors to our room. Once open, I climbed out first, crouching due to the lack of space. All three of us crawled to the main exit, and I popped those doors open too, glad to see whatever light was left as the sun set. I inhaled the air as if I was some kind of convict who had been locked up in solitary confinement for several years. I jumped out of the invisible train, which was still invisible, and almost fell off of the edge. Sliding down the side, more carefully, that time, I landed on the cracked tar road.

The first thing I saw was emptiness.

There was nothing. Absolutely nothing, and no one that could give us a clue as to where we were. Rows and rows of buildings stood deserted and unkempt. Cracks covered our surroundings like an aged skin that would never heal. Everything was dry and dead.

There was nothing. Nothing left of that place at all.

"Where are we?" Jasper whispered.

Someone, or rather, something, answered his question.

"Welcome to the Village of Townsend. Current day population: 450."

That voice.

That voice.

It made me want to stab knives down my ears and watch as my blood pooled around me. It made me want to burn a city to the ground. It ignited the flames deep within me that could only be quenched by a state of extreme rebellion. It made me want to fight. Anything. Anyone. I regarded my friends, seeing the battle for control plain on their faces.

"Split up. Now!" We rushed off in different directions. Sprinting away from them as quickly as I could, I snuck off into a grove of darkened trees. It wasn't too far from the main road of the town, where the barren buildings idled lazily in the streets, looking like nothing but blocks of wood left there to burn in the blazing sun.

"Little Hunter." The voice cackled, chilling me to the bone. I unsheathed my dagger once again, prepared to defend myself against the unseen enemy. I regarded the setting sun with unease, focusing on the growing night as the bulb dipped beneath the horizon.

I faltered aimlessly through the trees, their long, pointy branches reaching down to grab me almost as if to rip me from the very forest through which I wandered. But it was almost as if they were my friends: as if the only thing that could protect me was the very darkness from which I sought solace. The sun had, finally, completely set, and with the darkness came an eerie feeling: the feeling that there were thousands of eyes batting their lids at me like the wings of a butterfly. It sent an unearthly feeling down my spine, almost as if the cold, grasping hands of death were trailing their fingertips up and down my back. I didn't dare look behind me, for fear that I would see nothing there. For an unseen enemy is more frightful than one known.

"Little Hunter," the sonorous voice croaked all around me again. I spun wildly, trying to locate the source from where it came, but then I realized that it wasn't a person that spoke: it was an aura, a feeling that surrounded me completely, leaving me one hundred percent defenseless. There was no physical being that I could protect myself against; it was a game of the mind.

It was terror versus knowledge.

And that scared me beyond imagination.

Would I be able to distinguish the difference between reality and what was fake? Would I be able to prevent myself from running through the hands of insanity? Would I be able to see through the veil? Questions zipped through my mind as panic crept up my throat, leaving me as quiet as the night which surrounded me. Seeing no other option, I snuck into a nearby house.

"You think going in there will help you, Little Hunter?" The sensuous voice sounded like it was directly behind me. I turned around, this time slowly, examining the portraits and paintings that hung on the wall. Elaborate chandeliers hung from the ceilings like dead bodies. Shining faces smiled in the pictures, but no future adorned the house. Empty corners, no shadows, and nowhere to hide.

Where was everyone?

A population of four hundred, and I hadn't even seen a single soul. I backed into a nearby corner, something calling me right into the depths of the house, right into the darkest deepest crevice, right where nothing could see me. Something called to the coward within me; it called me to hide, for there was nothing that I would be able to do to protect myself from the voice which taunted me so mercilessly.

"Aww, Little Hunter. Are you scared?" The woman didn't stop, and soon, I realized where the four hundred had gone.

Well... I knew where their bodies were, but their minds, I had no idea. Rocking gently back and forth, almost to the sway of the melodic pain that was the voice of the unknown woman, were the inhabitants of the town. I watched as their bodies stayed rooted to where they were.

"I see, Little Hunter," she spoke. "You have found my own personal army. What can you do to prevent them from killing each other, Little Hunter? Nothing much, don't you think? I am the one with complete power. Do you know who I am?"

"You're not real," I crooned, trying to prevent myself from losing my grasp on reality. "You're not real: it's all a dream. It's all fake."

"You can try and tell yourself that, Little Hunter, but this is all reality, and there's nothing you can do about it."

As soon as the words left the foul mouth of death, a single male head snapped up and stared down into my face. Kind green eyes washed over and turned black, a sinister sneer replacing the polite smile that was once there. I heard nothing, as slow lingering steps shuffled towards me in a dance so cruel, it made me want to hide forever. All too quickly, the man was standing in front of me, his vile breaths fanning over my face.

An innocent man. Nothing but a soulless body left to complete the malicious undertakings of an unknown ambiance.

"His name is Geoffrey. He's a 38-year-old man with two kids and a wife, Little Hunter."

The man craned his head to the side, almost as if challenging me to disbelieve that which she had said. Sharp, white teeth glinted back at me, and my eyes dropped from the soulless orbs that were supposed to be his eyes and landed on the large razors that were considered teeth. He grinned.

I could feel my hands shaking, almost as if to play a single tambourine that hardwired my fear. I closed my eyes and took a deep breath, trying to calm the heart that was playing a frightful tune deep in the cavity of my chest.

I didn't know what to do. I felt like a helpless child. He was an innocent, possessed soul, and there was no way that I could bring myself to harm him for my own protection.

A single steady hand reached out for me. The cold fingertips traced the slight contour of my cheeks, causing my eyes to shut closed like the unforgiving lips of a Venus Fly Trap. The hand trailed ever so slowly down my jaw and over my chin. Fingers wrapped around my throat and began to squeeze.

I reached for the hand and opened my eyes, chaos gripping my soul, but there was nothing there.

Absolutely nothing.

Complete and utter darkness.