Fairytales

Chapter 14- Chase

Chase felt sick. No, not sick, just...wrong.

With effort, he opened his eyes, his vision blurring for a second before coming into a sort of extreme focus, like he'd zoomed in on a very expensive camera. He could see every nook, every cranny and crack of a room that should have had hardly enough light to see much farther than his hand in front of his face, if that.

Not a room. A basement.

The four walls surrounding him were dirty and water stained, just like the patches of cement on the floor where someone—or something—had torn the tile from it. The feel was oddly claustrophobic, despite the single window to the outside world that sat at the very top of the farthest wall, letting in the tiny stream of light that he could, presumably, see by.

The damp room, which had smelt like nothing more than air and a little bit of mold the last time he remembered being conscious—granted, he hadn't been paying much attention to what he was smelling at the time—was suddenly alive with scents. Sure, there was still that strong scent of mold, but he could smell the hearty scent of the thick wood beneath the plaster, the biting smell of the paint on top of it and the musky scent of the rats that scuttled inside them.

In the back of his mind he recognized the sound morning birds singing, of people talking, their voices so clear that it was almost as if they were standing right behind him. It would have been maddening if he hadn't been too disoriented to care.

A door opened, shining a block of light into the dark room. Chase, who still hadn't moved, watched as the silhouette of a woman descended the stairs, bringing with her the strong scent of flowery perfume, expensive wine and something else he couldn't quite identify, something that made his stomach tighten with...need.

"Finally awake I see."

It took so little effort to sit up that Chase nearly doubled himself over, forcing him to take a second to steady himself, a second he wasn't sure he had to waste.

A strange thumping echoed, just slightly, over the other sounds attacking his ears, a sound he eventually realized was the sound of his blood pumping through his veins, slower than the usual 60 beats per minute he was used to. Much slower.

Mingled with it was an even slower thumping, no louder than the whisper of fingertips tapping on a mattress. A second heartbeat, slower even than his, presumably coming from the woman walking towards him.

"One night." she said. "I'm impressed kid. I didn't even think you'd to make it to the morning."

Now that she was out of the glare of the light Chase watched as her features drifted into focus. She was tall, probably almost as tall as him, with bright eerie blue eyes and a pointed sort of face framed by a stringy blond bob. She was...strange looking, but still somehow familiar. He'd seen her before, he was sure of it. Slowly, it dawned on him. The customer, the one sitting in the store when he'd left Damia at work. She must have been watching him then.

His heart constricted in his chest. He'd left Damia alone with this...creature. Had she...

But he took a deep breath through his nose, some part of him recognizing that she hadn't touched her. She didn't smell like Damia.

Crisis averted, Chase's head began to pound. She'd said three days. Three days for what?

"Who are you?" Chase demanded.

The woman put a hand on her hip, allowing him time to examine his captor. She was nothing like Chase had expected, not the terrifying monster that had ripped at his skin with hardly a hesitation, not the thing that had managed to take him down so easily.