Echoes of Dark Beauty

Chapter 3

 Her face seemed familiar somehow, but I could not grasp who she actually was. Leery, I stared at this small girl, unsure of what to do, the pain stifled for but a moment. As she walked smoothly towards me, her face showed nothing, not even a hint of surprise or pity. The hatchet she was holding dropped to the ground with a slight CLANG! As she approached my side, she pulled out a spool of black thread and a needle from the pocket of her black dress.

"This will hurt a bit," the girl said in a monotonous tone, unwinding the thread and pulling it through the loop of the needle.

I barked with laughter, but no humor held in my voice as I spoke.

"Trust me," I said, equally as monotone, "I think it'll be nothing compared to what I've just gone through."

She made eye contact with me for a fraction of a second before resuming what she was doing. As she pulled the needle through my skin again and again, the already slowing flow of blood stopped completely. My exhausted mind and body was at its final stand, and my brain was already preparing for sleep.

The small girl in front of me gave a slight smile as she put the needle and thread back into her pocket.

"My name is Arya," she said softly, "Rest now, I will protect you until dawn."

As sleep fell over me, a dream forced its way into the recesses of my mind.

The bullet cut through the flesh of the Daemon, more commonly known as a Derisimehn, as the beast reared back, exposing it's bloodied fangs and matted silver fur. I grinned in triumph as it uttered a high pitched whine, immediately crumpling onto the ground. The majestic and unnerving form had once been intimidating, but now only looked pathetic, its graceful body covered in a mess of black-tinted red. The fight had barely lasted a second, my pistol shooting a bullet straight through the creature's head as I pulled the trigger. An instant kill. With a sense of accomplishment, I took a step back as the scent of the Derisimehn's blood filled the alley, its blood seeping into the cracks of the cobblestones. Dogs howled through the silence of the night, their noses attacked by the unrelenting, appetizing smell of freshly spilled gore. As their cry increased to a frightening volume, I stared at the brightness of the full moon, my gold-green eyes and pale skin giving a reflecting glow as its eery light sliced the darkness. "My job is already finished," I thought, as disappointment rushed it's way into my system, "I suppose I had hoped for something a little more......exciting. A bit more of a fight!" As I stepped away from the corpse, my long black hair and cloak swinging as one, there was a sudden noise in the distance. It pierced the air along the morbid town of gray and black. A name. And not just any name, my name. Suddenly alert, I swiveled towards the direction of the call. "Sahira!" The song-like cry came as a Whisper into the recesses of my mind. Cursing under my breath, I swung towards the sound of my name, running as fast as I could.

Silver. Red. Black.

Multiple colors swept across my vision as I awoke, gasping, from the dreamworld.