Dark Sight

Chapter 8

"So, you're the one who doesn't like my music?" She takes a step towards me, her grey eyes not blinking as she holds my gaze.

Now I can see her properly. She's wearing a long, crimson dress with a slit that extends all the way up her thigh. A choker of the same colour hugs her throat. Strands of long, purple hair cling to her wet face. Water trickles down her body. From a distance, it could probably be mistaken as sweat, but this close up it looks like she's just stepped out of the ocean.

"I don't know what you're talking about." I shuffle backwards, intense pain surges up my spine as my back collides with the hand dryer hanging on the wall.

"What are you?" she hisses.

"What do you mean? What about you?"

"How were you not entranced by my song?"

"You call that cat scratch singing?" I say through gritted teeth as I fumble in my pockets for the knife I packed. Pushing the mace can aside, I clench my fist around the handle, glad I have something a bit more lethal than pepper spray.

"All humans are entranced by my songs," she growls in a voice that sends chills rushing down my spine.

I yank the knife out, flicking it open and thrash it in her direction, all in one jerky movement.

She laughs as the steel blade collides with water and passes through her with a splash. Still, I continue to feebly jab the knife in her direction in some pathetic attempt to injure her. Each thrust cuts through her like a blade passing through a waterfall.

"What do you want?" I scream.

"What are you?" she says, drawing out her sentence. She yanks her arm out and grabs me around the neck. Even though it seems as though she's made out of water, her hand feels very firm and very real. "And then I want you dead."

Murky shadows cover my eyes as I struggle to breathe beneath the water drowning me. The vision of my own death consumes me, and I start to panic that this is the moment my own doomed forecast comes true. But hell to that, I'm not going to roll over and give up yet.

The knife falls from my grip and clatters to the ground. Losing my only weapon, I shove my hands back into my pocket and remove two items: mace and lighter.

Thrusting the lighter forward, I flick it repeatedly, hoping for some sign of a spark.

"What do you think you're doing?" She laughs as she leans her watery head close to mine. "Even if that works, you do realise water doesn't burn."

Dark spots dance in my eyes as the world begins to spin around me, but I still don't give up.

On the fifth flick, a flame ignites from the lighter and I press down on the trigger of the mace can. A fireball erupts along the spray, moving toward the singer's head.

The fire hisses and vanishes in a puff of steam as it hits her face. Yeah, water doesn't burn, but my goal's still achieved. The singer stumbles back, losing her grip on me.

I crumple to the ground, gasping for breath.

I don't waste any time lying there. This won't slow her down for long, but I still have to try. I push myself to my feet and, barging past her, dash towards the door. Grabbing the handle, I give it a yank, but it still refuses to budge. No matter how much I pull or heave, the door remains stuck.

"If you want to play, then I'll play." The singer flashes me a pissed off look before her body melts into a puddle of water and slithers across the floor and up the wall to where the basin is, quickly vanishing down the sink.

"You can't escape," her voice reverberates throughout the room. "You're trapped in here. Might as well kill some time before I kill you." My heart jackhammers in my chest as I dart my eyes around the small room.

She's right. I have nowhere to run, but as long as she's somewhere in the pipes, she can't attack me. But, that also means I have no idea where her next attack will come from.

She's playing with me, and she wants me to know that.

Forcing myself to take a deep breath, an idea flashes through my mind. On shaky legs, I stumble into the toilet and unravel the roll of toilet paper hanging on the wall. Taking the rolled up wad, I dash back to the sink and shove the ball as far down as I can. If she wants to play hide-and-seek, I'll make sure she has a hard time getting back out.

A rumble sounds as the basin shakes. The noise echoes around me as if the plumbing wants to explode.

A loud bang reverberates around the small room, coming from inside the two toilet stalls, making me jump.

The toilet seats bang, again and again, followed by a loud shot like a cannon being fired and murky water and mush erupting from both toilets. The pressure from the streams crashes into the roof above, sending fragments of plaster and wood flying in all directions.

I take one step and slip on the sludge pooling at my feet.

Landing in a crumpled heap, I splash around, trying to climb back to my feet as the water level rises.

I force myself not to panic, even though I have no idea how to kill a creature made entirely of water. Serious, I didn't know a creature of water existed before today.

The figure of the girl slowly emerges from the rising water like a swamp creature in a b-grade horror movie.

"Did you think that would stop me? I think I've had enough of this game. I think I'll end it now."

I thrash out with a punch, which splashes into her stomach, followed by a kick, which passes through her legs.

The girl launches as she moves towards me, not caring about my ongoing barrage of hits and kicks.

In a flash, she yanks her hand out and grabs the necklace chain around my neck. The cold metal cuts into my throat as I gag for air, her fingers tightening the noose.

Water fills my lungs as the same vision of my death washes over me. I try to scream, but all I can do is gag on the water that fills my throat.

"You're nothing much," she sneers. "I was expecting more of a fight."

My lungs fill with imaginary water from my vision and my mind races as panic seizes my body. I have to do something before this vision actually causes my death. Doing the only thing I can think of, I bite down on my tongue.

A tangy, copper taste fills my mouth as I keep the scream in, but in that instant my mind becomes calm.

I lean my head closer to the singer before whipping it back with all my strength. The chain bites into my neck as I force my body back.

The chain snaps from the sudden pressure and I stumble backwards, crashing into the rising water. I scramble back to my feet, but the singer pounces on me, slamming my head against the door.

"Just die!" she screams and pushes down on my shoulder.

I struggle against her weight to keep my head above the water, the same vision that's been plaguing me forces water into my lungs before my head even submerges beneath the murky liquid.

This is it, my mind sinks into depression as I claw the hands holding me down. I can't escape from this. That's the only thought racing through my mind as panic washes over me. I swing my fists at the singer in a feeble attempt to get her off me, not wanting to die, especially like this. But the only thing racing through my mind is: Shit, I'm going to drown in shit!

The pressure forcing me down suddenly releases as the singer stumbles backwards, grasping her own throat.

Her eyes turn wide as she stares at me. She opens her mouth as to speak, but ends up choking, spitting out a mouthful of murky water.

"What... are you...?" the girl sputters in between choked coughs, spitting water towards me.

She staggers in my direction, water continuing to pour out of her mouth as she opens it again in a gurgled moan, her hand outstretched towards me.

I push myself against the door, feeling the door handles press into my back, unable to find any way to escape.

Her hand touches my cheek as her entire body becomes liquid, and she collapses, splashing into the water covering the floor.

I remain frozen, staring at the spot where the girl's body should have been -- if she hadn't turned into freaking water -- before I snap back to reality. The foul smell swims around me, making the room swirl and tilt, and I realise that I need to break out of here before I die in the toilets. I give one last glance at the water in front of me as I fumble to find the door handle.

Grasping the cold, metal handle, I spin my body around and pull the door open with all my strength. To my surprise, the door opens with ease, and the water rushes from the room, cascading over the unconscious bodies lying on the ground on the other side.

I look around the beach. The zombie crowd that had me trapped in the toilets lie like fallen marionettes with severed strings. The band is standing, still holding their instruments, looking around as if trying to find a missing band member -- well, good luck to them. I sort of feel sorry that they've lost the lead singer and don't realise why.

I dart my gaze around the area as I step and hop around the unmoving bodies. My sight freezes on the group of teens dressed in black standing in the centre of the beach, and I choke on a breath as I try to keep my legs from collapsing beneath me. The entire group doesn't move. The whole group has its attention fixed in the same direction... on me.

I make a move to leave when I notice a slight movement coming from the centre of the unconscious crowd. JC sits up in a slow and lethargic motion as he shakes his head.

With how the group of teens is still looking at me as though they're the predator and I'm the prey, I think it's best if I just leave, but Asher will kill me if I go back to the hotel without JC.

Waking a deep breath, I keep my gaze on where JC is still sitting with a dazed look, and move at a brisk pace towards him.

"Hey, can we get out of here?" I say in a rushed breath when I reach him.

"What's going..." JC starts, but his words cut off as his sight travels up my body. "What happened to you?"

"Um, I don't think you'll believe me. But I just remembered I need to get back to the hotel, sorry."

"There's nothing to apologise for." A hint of worry flickers in his eyes as his eyebrows narrow. "Yeah, we can go, but are you sure you don't want to tell me what is going on around here? If someone did something to you, I need to know about it."

"No, nothing like that, but can you believe I got into a fight with the singer of the band?" I shrug, afraid that if I told him, he'd think I'm some psycho nut job. Yeah, I might be travelling around with a so-called psychic, but I don't think he believes in all that crap.

"From the looks of you, yeah, that's something I'd believe." He smiles and leans his face closer to me, adding, "Hey, didn't you have brown eyes earlier tonight?"

Crap, my contact must have fallen out. "Come on. I have to go home." I turn away from him.

I give one last glance back at the teenagers who still have their attention fixed on me. Can I say that this is Village of the Damn weird? I really need to leave this town, especially when I don't know if the main problem I'm dealing with is even human.