Relying on Darkness [Side Project]

Chapter 1

Chapter 1

I can’t say I’ve always been superstitious, but I can’t really deny certain things when they’re staring at me straight in the face.

The day all of this started,just as I was leaving home for school, something caught my eye.

A small, black moth pressed against one of the screens in the kitchen window. It’s wings were outstretched and it appeared cold and stiff; I thought it looked pretty nasty so I yelled at Anna to take it out and left.

I really didn’t think much of it. It was just a stupid butterfly about the size of my palm that had tried to get in the house through the window, got stuck, and died. Nothing more. But still, I had a queasy feeling in my stomach for the rest of the day.

Anna, my stepmother, well, my father’s wife but not my mother, had always believed in angels and superstitious stuff like that; she even had a purple deck of cards, she would close her eyes and randomly select a card daily and it supposedly would predict how things would go for her the rest of the day. I wonder what card had she drawn that day.

I remember she always told me that black moths represented the beginning of a new life and good fortune. She never told me what it really meant in other countries.

A moth is an omen of sickness, bad luck and death.

I had chosen that precise day to go hang out with my friends after school, but somehow we all lost track of time. Next thing I knew it was already 11:30, one hour past my curfew. I scrambled like crazy and arrived home; silently knowing that Anna would scold at me and probably ground me for being out so late on a school night without telling her anything. Only, she wasn’t waiting for me in the living room on the couch with a mug of hot tea. She wasn’t in her room; she wasn’t in the kitchen, not in the bathroom.

She was in my room, lying on the floor in a pool of her own blood, facing the ceiling. Her body was as stiff as a board; her skin had a sick, purplish color to it. Her eyes were wide open and glassy, as if trying to catch a glimpse of who did this to her. The smell… the smell was the worst thing, a mixture of bile, rotting flesh and feces. My eyes watered instantly, gagging, I barely had time to look away before I was sick. Thrown against the room were different articles of clothing, my clothes. Some were torn and others had bloodstains on them.

I had to get out of there.

I squeezed my eyes shut, my real father had died when I was four years old. Anna had found out that he had an affair and instead of insulting me, or shipping me to some other place like some heathen, she took me in with her daughter, my half sister, Isabelle, who ran away a few years later. For Anna, it was as if I was her own daughter and I had never been more grateful. She was a good person, she didn’t deserve this...

I grabbed the first backpack I could find, stuffed the few clothes that were left untouched and simply left, I didn’t look back. Easy as that.

An inexplicable feeling washed over me then.

Whoever did that to Anna knew I lived there. He knew I would find her. And he probably wanted to find me too, to keep me quiet and make sure nobody ever finds out.

I was in danger. Someone was looking for me and wanted to murder me. I had nobody to go to, my father was dead, Anna was now dead too… Isabelle?  It was out of the question, she hated my guts and I hadn’t known anything about her in more than two years. Nowhere was safe.

The only reasonable idea that came to mind was to run into the woods. They were nearby and hardly anybody went in there in fear of the lamiai, a stupid urban legend to explain the disappearance of a girl less than four years ago. It is said that there lived an advanced kind of cannibalistic human-like species who fed on the flesh of the living to maintain their youth and health. The lamiai were the ones who kidnapped a wealthy surgeon’s daughter, dragged her into the forest and killed her.

Of course it didn’t happen.

They just say that to creep out the little kids. It works.

Turns out the girl fell down a manhole. She died. I flinched, Anna died too…

Still, even though it's just an urban legend, lots of people believe there really is something in the forest. Now that I think about it, it was a pretty stupid idea to go running in there instead of going to the police. But lately, I’ve been making way more stupid decisions than I can count, so yeah, I guess that’s my excuse.

Abandoning my home was one thing, but running deeper and deeper into the woods alone at night without any sense or direction, paranoia and panic taking over; I was becoming weak. On the fourth day, near noon, I collapsed. I don’t know it was in real life, or if my mind was playing tricks on me because of the fatigue, but I started hearing voices. All I could think was the lamiai. Nothing else. They’re real. The lamiai, they’re real, and they’re coming to kill me.

So reasonably, I hid. I sat behind an old tree, hugged my knees to my chest as tightly as possible and squeezed my eyes shut, expecting the cannibals to tear me to shreds and eat my guts. This was it, now it was my turn to die. Until I felt someone nudge me. I opened my eyes to find myself staring at a girl with short brown hair and huge glasses crouching before me. I noticed a girl with copper hair behind her. I immediately screamed as loud as I could before my gaze traveled past them and landed on a familiar face.

Tall, pale and heart shaped. Isabelle… I shut up as soon as I saw her, dumbfounded. She looked just as she had two years ago, while I on the other hand, had changed a lot.

She stared down at me, her expression calm, cool and collected, as if she had somehow been expecting me. She didn't seem the slightest bit surprised to run into her younger sister in the woods out of all places. 

I kept staring at her, thousands of questions plaguing my mind. Hadn't she moved to Boston, or something? Who were these people? What was she doing here in the woods, in the middle of nowhere?

"You should close your mouth, Blake. Moths can get in, pretty nasty if you ask me." she smirked as the other two girls looked at each other, confusion etched all over their faces.

"You know her?" the redhead asked Isabelle in disbelief and a hint of anger.

Isabelle ignored her and stared directly at me, "I would go as far as to say I'm glad to see you, but we both know that's not exactly true." 

I exhaled sharply. This was just the beginning.  It's good to be back...