Nightbound

Chapter 1- New Orleans

A monstrous screech made me sprint faster than I really could. Weathered tombs loomed all around me surrounded by a mist of uncertainty. It coiled around everything like a soft parasite making its way through even the dead. Vicious shapes of statues glanced down at me as I ran into the middle of graveyard.

I had no idea which place was this but I knew I just had to get away...just needed to get away from something chasing behind me. I couldn't feel my legs because they burnt like flaming coals. My chest was a trapped grave and I was unable to breath.

Suddenly, that same unearthly scream tore in the air coming too close than it should. I nearly slipped hearing it but managed to regain my footing, my silver coloured hair draping my face before I pushed it back with irritation. I tried to turn back and look what on freaking earth was chasing me but abruptly the world blurred again and out of nowhere a powerful voice echoed across the chilling graveyard.

It said , "Keep running...don't look back."

I clenched my teeth and kept my eyes focussed on the path and began pushing myself to even greater speed than ever expected. I knew I had to keep moving because something bad was following me. I really never wanted to find out what it was.

I dodged between two crumbling mausoleums, I felt a surge of hope rising inside my unfeeling chest as the cemetery's gate came into view across an open expanse of grass. I thanked whatever I could and darted to escape that forsaken place. I was nearly few paces away from escaping the cemetery when that powerful voice was back but this time seemed that it was coming from almost...everywhere.

I was suddenly stopped by a force I couldn't see. The voice said in what could be read as in uncomfortable speech , "You won't make it...turn back...hide."

I screamed in frustration because I was unable to take another step. My body was frozen like a statue. It was so strange and difficult at once to not feel the exhaustion gripping you or the blood running cold because you were being pursued.

And as if gods had heard me, I whipped my head just in time to finally meet face to face with the empty eyes of my pursuer.

I screamed again but this time actually feeling the fear reverting through whole moral compass of my existence as a creature unlike ever, even in my nightmare snarled from the closing distance with its willowy frame gliding in the air facing no resistance. Its bone shrunk and rotted face promised me eternal agony and torture.

It had yet to see me and I bit my lips, not able to feel the pressure as my eyes dart between the cemetery gate and the reasoning of that voice to hide. The creature had its back turned to me but I could see blood dripping from its claws which looked more like oversized talons. A lithe tattered cloth was shrouded over it, moving in the air. The mist seemed to accept it as a part of its own, coiling around it like a strange embrace.

The gate was near but I decided to hide from it. If I couldn't see something in the night then I would not be seen back as well. As if I had made the right decision, my legs were unfrozen and I sprinted towards the graves which were faded in their times and memories. The graves were all contained as I passed through various short paths. I was about to turn when I collided with a low bend statue and its weak form crumbled, not before alerting the whole universe.

The creature snarled and its empty eyeless sockets found my frame running. My breathing nearly gave out as I darted to a short path but my pursuer had seen me and it let out an earth-splitting scream.

Thankfully, a half-crumbled tomb came to my view and I stopped near it. The monster had yet to spot me in the corner I took, and the half-buried yet hidden empty looking tomb was going to be my saviour this day. I covered my ears as I crawled inside the tomb, unable to smell the decay and slammed the heavy tomb door above just in time!