Drowning(Hiatus)

Chapter 10

Deciding now was the right time to leave, I scrambled away from the door and stumbled, falling back on my butt.

God dang it, why now! I hastily thought to myself. Where is lady Luck when you need her.

I looked up and saw him looking at me with that same condescending smile on his face. But his attitude didn't bother me as much as his teeth did. God, they were sharp. I stole a quick glance at the dead lump of meat nestled at his feet and thought that they were certainly sharp enough to kill a great white shark.

I tried to get back on my feet but I couldn't move. It was like all the strength had left my legs and I just sat there, staring stupidly at this crazy merman with blood all around him. As my focus returned to his face I realized how menacing he looked. His eyes, though, they frightened me the most. They were so unperturbed, looking down at me as he slowly rose from his crouched position that a chill ran through my entire body. He looked like he had me all figured out and I was just the fool that played right into his hands.

What was he? How could he make me feel this way just from looking at him once?

I wanted to humour that thought a bit and determine whether knowing the answer to these questions would be worth expending my life. It didn't take me more than a millisecond to come to a conclusion.

Right now, all I knew was that I had to get up, I had to run and I had to get away.

I escaped a crazy lunatic once. But would I be lucky enough to do that twice? I swallowed the bile rising in my throat. But this wasn't just a crazy lunatic, was it. This was a monster.

I pinched the side of my thigh hard enough that it almost drew blood. The pain outweighed the fear that was paralyzing my body and that seemed to have restored enough strength in my legs to help me shuffle off of the floor and flee in the opposite direction. I felt the adrenaline rushing through my veins as I did but I wasn't even half a step away from the door until I realized the blondie had already grabbed me by the elbow.

He yanked me inside the room harshly and shut the door behind me, caging me between the door and himself. Suddenly, this wasn't looking too good for me. My whole body shook with unused adrenaline and as it deflated down to nothing, I felt my legs giving out from beneath me once again.

"What do we have here?" He said in a cockney accent, much like Oeric's, that mocking smile still playing on his face. "Are you lost, little miss guest-of-honor? Or did you want to join in on some of the fun with me?"

Trapped with his unusually tall frame towering before me, I tried to control the rabid beating of my frightened little heart. I looked up into his eyes that were slowly changing colors and quickly looked away, second guessing the credibility of what my eyes had shown me in disbelief. "I- I just got lost. I didn't mean to"- I swallowed nervously as my eyes unconsciously followed the trail of blood to the dead shark behind him-"Interrupt anything."

"Is that so?" He smiled, as he looked me over from top to bottom, his eyes particularly roaming around my legs and I felt absurdly self-conscious. "How coincidental. Is that why you stood there while I heartlessly killed and fed on that poor fish? You just couldn't resist my devilishly savage charms now, could you?" he grinned, clearly enjoying himself.

I blinked, not quite able to look up from the rotten wooden floor beneath my feet. I was in a somewhat precarious situation, however, I decided I should at least refute his absurd implications of me falling for his so-called devilishly savage charms.

"That's a bit," I began as I looked up at him to disagree but then forgot what I had to say when I noticed how much different he looked now.

His teeth had retracted to form straight whites and the red in his eyes was replaced with a clear watery blue. He looked completely normal apart from that muck stuck somewhere between his teeth. He had a feminine face, a sharp jaw line and a straight nose. He was nearly just as perfect as Oeric when I had first seen him. I had a hard time believing my eyes but I was sure what I had seen of his appearance before was just as real as the one I was seeing right now.