The Lucid Effect

Chapter Three

        

Kai pushed Alice up against the wall, shielding her with his body as his eyes adjusted to the dark. He was on alert, hoping, praying that they would get an opportunity to run.

"Kai—"

He shushed her, but she kept talking anyway, her voice hardly above a whisper.

"Kai... who is here?"

He tensed up as his eyes locked on something—rather, someone—in the far corner of the store. Alice thought it might be a person at first, but the way its body twitched was entirely unnatural. The smoky tendrils emanating from its disjointed limbs weren't exactly human like, either.

"They're called rems," he managed to choke out, fear making his normally confident voice tremble.

The tall trench coat man had slowly been backing up towards them, keeping his eyes on the thing in the corner.

"Pav." Kai motioned to the shadow.

"I see it." His voice was low, like a growl. It sounded inhuman to Alice's ears. "Take Alice out the back. I'll catch up."

"I would love to, but we've got more company."

Sure enough, there were two more shadow creatures emerging from the back of the store. With the one in the front and the others in the back, Alice knew they were trapped. When another appeared from behind the register, she knew there would be no escaping.

But Kai was not so easily deterred.

"I guess we don't have a choice, then. Pav, you know what to do."

The trench coat man gave a curt nod before whipping off his hat. Alice was surprised to see that his skin wasn't as pale as she had initially thought—it was near transparent. If he wasn't wearing his coat, Alice would lose him in the darkness.

However, she did lose him. Suddenly, the rest of Pav's clothes were in shreds on the floor. The tables and chairs near the two shadows in the back went flying, and a horrendous screeching noise was heard as the demonic figures seemed to crash to the ground of their own accord. Alice heard growling, but it was disembodied. The man named Pav was no where to be seen.

She felt like she was losing her damn mind.

The other two shadow creatures lunged at Kai and Alice, and Kai pushed Alice out of the way just in time. One of the monsters latched onto Kai with its jaws, causing him to let out a scream. Alice could only watch in horror as the other one came after her. She grabbed her mug and threw it at its head—or what she thought was its head, she wasn't sure, it was so grotesquely deformed—but it phased right through. It was as if it really were made of shadow. Untouchable and able to follow.

Alice was going to run, but there was a blast of bright, white light, as the shadow that was after her dissipated. In its place was a vision of Kai, clutching his shoulder with one hand, his other outstretched and glowing.

Yepp. She was crazy.

Kai dropped his hand, breathing heavily. It was then Alice noticed the grisly screams from before were gone, as were the shadow creatures.

"Let's get out of here before they send in reinforcements. Pavlov, where are you?"

"I'm right here," came a rumble from beside Alice. She jumped, letting out a little whimper.

"Sorry, didn't mean to frighten you."

Alice couldn't see anything, no person who the low grumble belonged to. However, she could vaguely, just vaguely see the outline of something huge and monstrous.