Beyblade Burst Adventures

The Dark Outside Candlelight

In which Shu Kurenai simply wishes to be left alone, but he finds that's harder to get than he thought when an old enemy of his appears, tailed by something much worse than him in every aspect... (Continuation of The Monster Under the Bed. This is something I've had written for a while, so hopefully it will tide you over until I can get my groove back...)

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It had been a few days since Shu's encounter with the strange, umber-eyed monster that had been sent to scare him in Nightmare's stead. He had gone away with no trouble, and it seemed that he had done as Shu asked and passed on the message that he didn't want to be scared anymore.

He wasn't absolutely certain, though, and he still had trouble sleeping because of that. He just wished he could know for sure that everyone was going to leave him alone- especially since he hated letting his guard down...

But nothing could really be done about that. He just had to wait and hope that when he reached the four and a half week mark, no one would be sent as Nightmare's replacement. Or a replacement for the blue-scaled monster.

Maybe if mother and father were home more often, these monsters wouldn't feel the need to target me so much... Shu sighed heavily- and he didn't know it, but that sigh actually concealed the sound of something dropping into his living room.

He just flipped onto his other side, deciding that he should get some sleep before he worried his head off...

But before he got nestled in he opened his eyes to glance at the bat he left by the window, seeing that something was just outside.

The sight of it made his blood freeze.

There was no moonlight outside to illuminate it fully, which was a small miracle, considering that what the red-eyed human could see of its silhouette was horrifying enough.
It looked like a giant centipede with gnarled hands coming out of its sides rather than insect legs, and its skull was shaped almost like a helmet or a mask with huge fangs protruding from the bottom. Glowing ebony eyes stared into the room, meeting the gaze of wide red eyes and locking on.

Shu stared back at the monster in terror, almost not breathing even though his heart was storming in his rib cage like thunder, trying to break free and run away with every beat. He wanted to run with every fiber of his being, but he was frozen in place...

The monster seemed to grin, reaching out and scraping along the glass with its claws. The red-eyed human flinched and yelped softly, clutching onto his blankets with a death grip when he heard its low, rasping chuckle

Luckily, it finally decided it had enough of scaring and pulled away, skittering along until Shu couldn't see it out of the window anymore...

His blood thawed almost instantly and he grabbed his flashlight from the nightstand, bolting out of the room and into the windowless hall. Shu threw himself into a corner and flicked the flashlight on, breathing hard and shivering like he had just been dipped into a bath of ice.

His thoughts were racing but almost unintelligable, even to him. They overlapped and clamored like a huge crowd of people talking all at once, and the only one question he could make out was what frightened him most. Is that thing here for me?

Then, as if things couldn't get any worse... Shu heard claws scraping on the hardwood floor down the hall. He jumped to his feet, pressing his back into the wall and shining his light into the darkness. Gasping softly, he moving the light back down the hall as he spotted tracks of ash, coming all the way from the living room.

Shu knew that Santa Clause was wishful thinking, but despite the claw-shaped tracks and drips of waxy, bluish-silver blood, he still held onto the hope that it was jolly ol' Kris Kringle. At least then he'd be able to get on the sleigh and ride away...

Still, he inched back into his room, ducking under the window to grab his back and retreating quickly. He then began to follow the trail of ash down the hallway, gripping both flashlight and bat tightly in his hands and he came closer and closer to the hall's dead end- to the closet filled with nothing but a few spare blankets and pillows.

As he drew closer, the red-eyed human could see a robin-blue glow coming from underneath the door and his heart began to hammer far more furiously than before.

He sucked in a deep breath, carefully setting down the flashlight before he began to slowly reach for the closet doorknob...

He gripped it in one hand and slowly turned it...

Then he threw it open and then gripped the bat in both hands, glaring fiercely at the dragon monster hiding in his closet.

The dragon stared back a bit apprehensively, his purple irises flickering between Shu's red ones and the bat raised threateningly by the human's head.

"Nightmare..." Shu growled lowly, his fingers tightening around the bat. "That thing outside... Did you bring that here?!"

Nightmare pressed into the wall, and Shu's expression softened when he saw that the dragon monster was shivering just as much as he was, then he lowered the bat to his side.

That seemed to comfort the monster, and he finally answered in a murmur. "I didn't mean to bring him here..."

The red-eyed human frowned, slowly lowering himself to his knees and whispering. "Who was that, then?"

"The biggest headcase in the monster realm..."

"Ashtem."