Save us! The voice cried. Please! Anybody! She turned and tossed in her bed. She awoke with a fright covered in sweat. Hot tears streamed down her face. Was that a dream? She wondered. It was too vivid. Too frightening. Too painful. Too real. In her dream she saw a creature that entered through the window. It was tall. Inhuman. It walked passed whoever was on the bed and walked into the hallway. The watcher heard screams from the other room. It was guttural and followed by a horrendous cry. It's that thing. The watcher had thought and crawled out his bed. He walked towards the door and saw it with a bloodied arm in its mouth. Is that even a mouth? He thought. He cried as the creature faced him. His body stood there, paralyzed and uncooperative as the creature walked towards him slow. It loomed over him and breathed into the boy's face. He was crying. Begging to be spared. Hoping his parents would come save him but they were gone.
He looked into what looked like the mouth where flesh and blood were scattered. Its jaw opened a foot in length to expose small, razor like teeth in multiple rows. Its head was long and ended in a sharp point. It had two bug like eyes on each side. Scales covered its body like armor. It stood on its hind legs like a human and had arms wrapped in a thick shell similar to what covered its back. Its claws were long and sharp and in one hand was his mother's arm, he recognized now. The legs of the creature were shaped like a horse's and the feet were like a velociraptor's. The boy would have found its similarity to a dinosaur's feet interesting was he not in such a position. Its long tail swung behind it almost playfully, the way a lioness would swing her tail as she watches her prey. The tip was bone, the boy noted. Sharp. Deadly. Bloody.
The creature lowered its head to the boy and blew a foul smelling air. The boy cried and whimpered. Calling for help in his head. Before he knew it, the tail had been lunged through him and she awoke. Startled. Unsure of what she saw. She could still feel him in her head. She could still find him. See if he was okay. She got out of her bed in the darkness of her room. It was half passed two and her house was still asleep. She threw on a pair of running shoes and a long dark coat she had worn in a play. She couldn't open her doors or windows without alerting the whole house of her little escapade. Stupid alarm system, she thought. She closed her eyes and visualized the front of her house. She drew her energy and summoned a portal her size and walked into it.
She shook off the uneasiness and focused on following the boy's cry. She could still feel him in the cool night air. He was still alive. Somehow, he was breathing still. His heart still beat and she knew if she could get to him on time, she could save him. She put the cloak's hood over her head and flew. She flew as fast as she could, trying to trace the boy through the life energy that was slowly fading from him. When she found his house, she saw that the front lights were on. She landed in the yard and saw that the back door was left wide open. There was a trail of blood that came from the inside. She felt a shiver down her spine. She levitated her way in, careful not to touch anything. She felt the boy's presence. Faint. Dying. She found him in the hallway on the second floor of the house lying in a pool of his own blood. Somebody came, he thought. A thought he projected into her mind as he smiled.
She could see that his blond hair was stained and sticky from the blood. The side of his mouth had dried blood. She moved closer to find the life had faded from his sweet blue eyes. She cried now. Unable to do anything else for him or his family. She knew now that there was something out there hunting. Killing. She came too late. She could have helped save this family. She didn't want to look in the parents' room. She knew they suffered the same fate as the boy. She felt nothing in the house was alive anymore. It had all faded. She would grieve for them but for now she had to find something of the creature. A scale. A tooth. Anything to help her find it. She found nothing and so decided to sit cross-legged in the air and closed her eyes. She would try to find it by using the energy it left at the house. Like a thief leaves fingerprints, any living creature leaves its own mark made of its life essence. A presence almost. The creature had been too fast to leave much. It barely touched much of the surroundings and left as soon as it came. She came in too late and now the trail grew colder. She flew to the yard where she thought it left through but its trail was gone. She shook her head in disbelief, in frustration, in anger. I've done this before. It's worked before. Why can't I do it again? She berated herself for her short comings.
