Shadows of Darkness

~Chapter 12~

Imogen gave me the first bedroom on the left side of the long, narrow hallway. I was dying for a sleep on a warm, comfy bed so after bringing all my stuff up I said good night to Ethan.

"Goodnight Ethan." I say as I blow him a kiss.

"Night Cassandra." He was too preoccupied with watching tv to take much notice of me.

I didn't sleep for long. I woke up at 1:39am and I just couldn't fall back asleep, no matter how hard I tried. I thought of waking up Ethan, but I decided against it. While trying to decide what to do the 'forbidden' door crossed my mind, and I decided to disobey Imogen's one rule and see what lies behind it.

I get out of my bed as quietly as i can and tiptoe down the stairs. No one is in the lounge room but the tv is still turned on, giving me a lesser chance of getting caught.

As I reach the door I start to smell a horrible odour, but I still decide to open it. I slowly turn the brass door knob and walk inside. I find myself in an ordinary kitchen, but as I go to take a step I feel something squishy under my feet and all of a sudden the room is filled with an awful squeal. I had stepped on a large dog.

"WOOF WOOF WOOF." Barked the large pit bull.

"Sssssh!" I try to calm it but it doesn't work.

I turn around to go back through the door but I catch a glance of dozens of broken beer bottles and cigarettes lying on the kitchen counter. I stand there surprised at how filthy these people can be, but then I hear heavy footsteps coming from another room, this one leading out of the kitchen.

"Look what we have here Bill. Some little twat has disobeyed our agreement. She's quite attractive, what should we do with her?" Says a middle aged man standing in the entrance of the kitchen.

"Hmm Frank... She is quite good looking if you get where I'm going." The man name Bill laughs as he appears next to the first guy.

They both make their way over to me. I'm frozen in fear. It feels like my lips are glued together, I can't scream, can't plead for them to leave me alone. All I can do is stand there like a scared little girl, waiting for whatever these awful men are going to do.

As they get closer I realise they smell of beer and smoke. All the beer bottles and cigarettes must be there's... But what's this agreement? I thought to myself. They both stop several centimetres away from me and look at each other and smile a smile so evil it could belong to the devil.

"You thinking what I'm thinking?" Says the bigger of the two.

"You betcha." The other smirks as he reaches out for me and lifts up my shirt.

"HELP! HELP!" I scream as I feel his icy fingertips connect with my skin.

As he hears me scream he grabs me by the hair, turns me around and puts his sweaty palm over my mouth, stopping me from continuing to scream.

"Shut up you stupid little girl. No ones coming for you. Sewer rat." He whispers in my ear.

In an attempt to get away I kick in the shins, and he loosens his grip, but not enough for me to gain enough strength to get away. I try to fight him off, but both of them just laugh at my failed attempts.

After a tortorus period of time spent trying to fight them off I see the door leading into the lounge room open and Ethan is standing there with a baseball bat in hand, looking half asleep. Ethan has come to my rescue.

"Let her go guys, seriously. She's new. Didn't know what she was doing." He pleads with the two men.

"You know our agreement. If anyone of you runaway rats comes in here your all gone. Back out on the street and whoever the unfortunate one was to come in here, gets worse." They both say as they look at each other and laugh.

After a moment of silence and a bit of hesitation Ethan swings the bat at the guy holding me, knocking him out. The other one throws a punch at Ethan but he gets there with the bat first, hitting him square in the jaw, knocking him out. I fall to the ground, curl up into a little ball and start crying.

"Cassie, we told you not to come in here!" He screams.

"I- I know, I couldn't sleep and..." I stutter, unable to catch my breathe.

"Hey hey, it's alright, I'm sorry for yelling. We won't stay here anymore okay? I'll get us out of here just in case they come for us." He says as drops the bat, picks me up off the ground and puts me into his bed.

"Why did they try to hurt me Ethan? Why were they so awful?" I ask as I roll onto my side.

And Ethan said in a broken voice "We're all just shadows of darkness, waiting for something or someone to fill our lives with light."

Whatever that means, I don't know. But finally for the first time in years, I realised I can trust someone. The strange but handsome Ethan Knight was to become my first ever friend.