The A-Game (new version)

Chapter 9.

My greatest horror then jumped out from the towering walls of storage containers and forgotten paraphernalia. The monster I was awaiting to face was far different then the one that actually stood before me in all of its furry, four-legged wonder. I dropped the knife with a clatter to the floor in relief.

A rat. My untimely demise had been met by a rat. The filth encrusted rodent sniffed at the floor innocently, it's feet and tail scraping against the floor in mimicry of the noise that had so terrified me only moments before. I sighed a gallon's worth of air, releasing with it all of the pent up fear that had instilled its way within my lungs. Silently, my fingers felt for the hilt of the knife. I worked my way up from the cramping crouch that my body had slunk into. I felt my joints ache in protest as they straightened from their bent position. With no further word or whimper escaping my dry throat, I retrieved the rest of the knives that I have dropped in my panic. The rat scampered back where it had come from as I walked in its direction. A residual wrongness settled itself in my chest, reminding me of the asphyxiating fear that had impregnated my senses the night before. The words jumped out at me: "There is no God anymore," as I watched the rat disappear behind a wall of boxes. For a moment, I stood there trying to figure what made me feel was wrong inside. Though no tangible evidence proved it so, I couldn't shake the welling-inside-me dread that something was wrong. It built up in my chest like the dirt clogging up a filter. After a moment of fearful pondering, standing in the spot where the rat had been only moments before, it hit me. Left behind in the rat's wake, were it's miniature footprints clearly set into the concrete floor with the unmistakable tint of blood.

I gripped the knife and stumbled toward the basement door, away from the footprints, away from the inevitable possibility that the rat, though it had proven false to my earlier panic, could also prove the existence of some other possibility. I wasn't taking my chances. It was a miracle that the carrying cases stayed hooked on my arms, and that the fixed knives stayed clenched in my hands as I blindly tore up the stairs two at a time. Finally reaching the top, I stumbled into Leo; who, holding me with his hands around my elbows, I had nearly jabbed with the tapered, leather ends of the knives' sheaths. Leo eyed me with a different kind of panic than mine. It was one of concern and surprise.

"Misty, what is your problem?" he asked me, his fixed-in, worried expression betraying the note of annoyance in his words.

"B-blood," I stammered with pain. "Blood d-down stairs. There was a- a rat..." Leo sighed, the annoyance from his words creeping into his bodily expression. My breathing became ragged as pain raked its way up my ankle. I should've been more careful coming up. I had completely forgotten my injury.

"Misty, you had me worried. A rat? Seriously?"

"N-no, Leo, you don't understand. Blood. On the rat."

"It's a rat, Misty. I thought you were braver than that." I scowled and walked over to the counter, placing the knives on top. I tried to ignore the stench of decay. Silently, I folded my arms over my chest and stared at Leo coldly. He had known me for two years. Leo knew that as far as rodents went, I wasn't the most fond of them, but I wasn't afraid. My spectrum of fear extended to horror movies, things that go bump in the night, the supernatural, the things I couldn't control. In terms of rodents and insects, they were as far from my fears as the GN-z11 galaxy is from the Milky Way: an estimated 32 billion light-years away. Leo blinked and, with an alienated expression on his face, stared at me back with a bored and amused expression. "What?" he chuckled lightly, somewhat uncomfortable.

"What's going on?" Janice asked as she entered the room with Paul.

"Misty's acting weird. She saw a rat downstairs and had me worried. Now she's glaring at me because I apprehended her for it," Leo replied. I sighed exasperatedly, still somewhat shaken.