Two Truths and a Liar

XI • Misfit

Jenna

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I was searching, searching for an answer I'd never find. A foreign state of mind in a familiar place, golden with autumn and afternoon light enighting, stained with the mute sickness of my fear. The gentle throbbing of unsurity.

I was afraid.

I was alone.

And I had no idea what to do.

Bitter wind sent a tingling chill down my spine, swirling fiery leaves into the air around and my hair in floating clouds, a halo of darkness and cold. The sidewalk wore past as I walked, the crackling remnants of leaves shattering underfoot gently scattered at every footfall. Fragile branches, barren but for a few russet survivors clinging on loomed overhead, bending and swaying gently. I burrowed down and shoved ahead briskly.

You did what you had to.

A voicelike thought, gentle and reassuring broke my angry churn of musings, bringing up the spiral from its downward fall into shame. Another answered, soaked in reason and regret.

And what was that? To run, to hide?

What use are you if you're dead? She was more than you were ready for.

More than I was ready for? I grimaced. Had I even tried?

Again the first thought repeated, calm but quavering with a new twinge of doubt.

You did what you had to.

Over the sanctuary of a thick scarf my eyes scanned the path ahead, watching nothing but colorless cement and the wan wreckage of a thousand fallen leaves. The distant roar of car tires slashing the rain-washed streets, the drizzling of tear like droplets from ashen skies, and a whisper of wind mutter the songs of the city's humming. My breath diluted with the choking scent of a nearby cigarette, it's owner a little ways ahead, swimming still in a cloud of grey.

We passed in silence, a nod exchanged. I turned my attention to the pale cloak of a slatelike sky. Raindrops glanced against my head, one stinging my eye.

I blinked.

Just like that I realized, through the web of Theresa's daggerlike words slicing me through and foggy events blurring together into the recent past, something came to light.

They'd been hiding, the masses of them, Lamia laying low ready to stretch their roots further and further, growing their numbers by the day, the chokehold around Deadwood tightening until we can no longer breathe. I'd come across few lately, lingering outside the church, hiding in dark alleys and basements; but the slow decline of killings made me wonder, where had they gone?

If Theresa's words were true, they had never left. They'd gotten better at staying out of sight, learned to cover their scent. Lamia were smart. I'd underestimated them, thinking they'd stay easy targets.

I was wrong.

The sidewalk had snaked its way through the labyrinth of neighborhoods surrounding the highschool, and eventually dizzily found itself headed right back. The path ahead, trees overshadowing and banal, drab suburban houses in neat lines of clone-like repetition looming beside.gave an arch-like window to the road back. The front entrance of the school just a few blocks ahead.

I gazed up, feeling the sudden stillness of rain giving up and petering out into weak sunshine. The wind kept on, whisking through the trees with a somber song, eerie and meak like the small piano collecting dust in the forgotten wings of the church.

I remembered the way it had played, hauntingly, echoing throughout every silent dust-coated room. The way my teachers hands floated over pearl white and polished ebony keys. Softly, almost kindly, bringing luminescence to the shadows and candle-snuffed halls and chambers of darkness, chains, filled with whispers of secrets long forgotten, the tales that would never be told. Brought life to the glowing crowns of kings and saints frozen still in the vivid color of arched windows, the twinkle in God's eyes as he watched the world from the body of a human, hidden in the folds of carved statues and fading artwork left behind in backstage storage bins. It moved the dust. Bent the rays of light that gashed wood frames and plaster walls. Gave us hope.

We stayed hidden, we venatores, back then it being only me and my teacher. His name was Matías Avella, my uncle, and the one who told me true pain was found in the absence of itself. Where the mind is forced to imagine all the things it had been too distracted to ponder. Dark and light. Death and life. Human, and not human.

And the hunger.

I had always had a hunger, for as long as I could remember. He said it was given to me, a gift from God to wipe out the vile ones. Lamia. A hunger all venatores had, amplified in the books we learned from and the skills we were taught. A hunger for glory.

To wipe out the Lamia.

To take the lives of the fallen.

I felt it especially when I neared one, the sudden twinge or hurt. Without it they'd blend right in to the rest of them, humans, seamlessly. The dead lived among us, and only myself and my teacher knew how to tell the difference.

I stopped.

I'd felt the feeling before, recently in Deadwood high. Before coming face to face with the Lamia queen herself.

A strange feeling, maybe not as strong as what I had felt before but... Yes, definitely something.

A non human at school, blending right in.

And I had to find them.

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A.N. Can you guess who? You'll know... but they might not be who you expect. Thanks for reading! Be sure to vote and comment, and remember you are beautiful ❤️