Steal My Heart

Monsters in the Dark

Running had always been a thing that I enjoyed, a way to clear my head of all thoughts. Most often on the nights when I felt like I was losing my mind. Having been prone to seeing things that no one else did since I was a child, well it was better, I found just not to think about some things.

One of those things, right at this very moment, was the crazy feeling of being followed. But no matter how many times I looked behind myself, there was no one there. Even when there was it was never the same person. Though I would swear to you that their eyes felt the same. Now you may think, it's almost midnight in New York, your probably just nervous because of the late hour. And on any other night, I may have agreed with you.

Sighing as I realized that tonight may be one of those nights where I couldn't quiet my overwhelmed mind, I turned down an old, but familiar brick ally so that I could make my way back to my home. Of course most would never think to go down a semi-lit ally in the dead of night, even more so when they felt followed. But when everyone thinks you're crazy, well you start to learn not to follow the instinct that often keep you alive.

The cool air brushed softly on my sweaty skin as I slowed my pace just under the light from the business back door. Just as I entered the relative safety the circle of light provided, a person peeled themselves from the shadows. It was almost as if he had been apart of them until that moment.

"Hello, little Mundie..." I could see a hint of a smirk on his partly lit up face.

His lips and that smirk was all I could see of the man's face, his height allowing the rest to be just out of the light. My eyes flicked from his face for a moment to take in the rest of him. Other than being tall and a bit creepy he didn't seem like much of a threat. He had no weapon that I could see.

"I don't have any money." I breathed upset by the fearful tremor in my voice as well as it's lack of volume.

"Too bad for you, Mundie, we don't want money." His eyes flashinging blue.

"You're not real!" My heart sped up to the point that I could hear it, tears welling in my eyes.

This isn't real, it can't be real. Like all the other things I had ever seen it had to be all in my mind. Monsters. Are. Not. Real. I kept repeating the words in my head over and over like a montra. Hoping it would somehow slow my racing heart or make the vision disappear.

Hands, that seemed to come from nowhere, seized the back of my arms lifting me slightly from the ground. For a moment it grounded me to feel something real. But then I made the mistake of turning my head. The moment I did I wished I hadn't, as now I was face to teeth with a thing that looked like it had climbed off of the set of Alien. It's mouth stretched open as if it meant to swallow me whole.

A scream ripped its way from my lips as my eyes widened in shock and horror. Wiping my head to look at what was once the man I was speaking to, only to be presented with the same creature that held me. My second scream though had little to do with the thing before me, rather it was a cry of agony as teeth embedded themselves into my shoulder. I could feel the blood that oozed from my once unmaked skin spilling over like a cup that had been overfilled. As I felt the very thing keeping me alive leaving my body I also felt the beginnings of a burning enter in my shoulder and arm. Almost as if I had been set on fire from within.

Then, as if by some miracle the door swung open harshly. The handle striking my ribs with the kind of force that took the air out of me, while at the same time the door itself hit the mouth monster, dislodging me from its grip.

Landing with a painful thud on my knees, and scrambling painfully into the back door past the bewildered man who had opened it. Running through an empty restaurant and back out onto the street. Grasping throbbing ribs with an arm across my stomach, I ran without direction and without truly seeing what was in front of me. Until without warning my vision became laser focused on a street sign. Deighton, the single word brought with it a memory and a small flicker of hope.

"If you ever need me you'll find me at the church on Deighton..."

"Now, now little Mundie, running away is not very nice." The man's voice calls playfully behind me, in the darkness.

The extract jolt of fear all but wiping away the pain and making me run faster.

The tall white church coming into my field of vision like some kind of a shining beacon in the dark. Stumbling somewhat just before the stairs, I looked back and my heart stop beating. There he was less than ten feet from me was one of those two things. Where the other was I had no idea but I wasn't about to find out.

Arriving at the massive wood and glass doors, I yanked at them thinking that they would open like those of any other church, but I was proven wrong. Glancing back out of the corning of my eye as I continued to fruitlessly pull on the door. Before giving up on the idea of opening them myself and beginning to bang frantically, crying Alec's name.

Suddenly, I found myself falling forward into a pair of female arms, dark hair filling my beginning to blur vision. My knees giving out no longer able to hold me up, left us both settling to the ground, just inside the door as commotion went on around us.

"It's ok. I've got you, your safe now." I sobbed at the women's words as she ran her hands through my now messy hair.

Hands began to slowly and carefully pull me away from the safety of my savior. Which at first I clung to unwilling to be parted from the feeling of comfort that her arms gave. But she seemed to agree with the hands and pulled away some from me, until I was looking up into a pair of blue eyes I remembered well.

"Alec." I breathed before the searing pain returned worse than I remembered it to be, making my world darken and then go black.