The Nightscape

Guilty Conscience

Lyra was in shock. Ettie and Guy were Hayden's children? It couldn't be true, and yet, she knew that it was. The way the two embraced with such fierce desperation, as though they were frightened of being torn apart again, shared the same affection that Lyra did with her own father. Hayden was crying, clutching his daughter to him as though he thought she was a hallucination that would disappear if he released her. 

"He's your dad? But Guy hates him!" She cried out, drawing Hayden's attention to her. His face twisted with anger. 

"He does, and the feeling is mutual. He ran away from home and took Etalia with him. He's a stupid, foolish boy who doesn't know what he's doing." Lyra tried to argue, but Hayden spoke over her. 

"Take Lyra to her cell, and leave me alone with Lia. We have a lot of catching up to do before tomorrow." Lyra struggled, but there was nothing she could do to stop herself being hauled out of the office and marched across the compound to a low, grey concrete bunker with no windows. The woman unlocked the steel door and hauled her inside, revealing a space lit by a flickering yellow bulb and separated by chain link fences and locked gates. She picked the one closest to the door, shoving Lyra in and locking her in. 

"Put your hands through the gap, I'll take your cuffs off." The woman said to Lyra's shock, but she wasn't about to question it, happy to get the metal off her wrists. She rubbed at the red marks left behind, waiting for her captor to leave before summoning her power to flicker. To her surprise, she could. When they freed her hands, she had expected that they had done something to stop her from flickering, but no. 

She flickered back to the normal world, and realised why they would let her. She was still in a cage, in an abandoned diner with a low ceiling and boarded up windows. Her heart sinking, she flickered through the Dayscape to reach the Nightscape, but unsurprisingly, she was still caged. She lingered in the Nightscape, as she was safe inside the cage, taking some time to take in the dangerous world. It was hauntingly beautiful, and she sat down, breathing in the cool, perfumed air. 

Then she heard the call of the kithigomara, close by. A few moments later, the call came again, sounding further away. Lyra knew she should flicker back to the relative safety of the Dayscape where the only danger was Hayden and his people, but a morbid curiosity coupled with an unshakeable sense of hopelessness made her stay. She stood, purple power swirling around her hands just in case, as she waited for the monster to arrive. 

When it did, she regretted her choice to stay. 

It bashed into the cage with so much force the chain link fence almost folded in two. It was a twisting, writhing creature with cracked scales and patches of greasy fur. It had no legs, just odd bony stumps and four large, leathery wings with thick veins and black claws lining them. It had three large eyes, clouded and weeping yellow pus, yet with horizontal black slits that were trained on the girl hidden behind bars. It's maw was huge, a gaping hole with five rows of twisted yellow fangs, each one oozing a thick, viscous green venom. Now it had it's prey in its sights, it was silent, and somehow that was worse. 

Lyra staggered back, hitting into the other side of the cage as it tried to wriggle through the bars, fangs wrapping around the chain link and making the metal twist. When she stumbled back, the monster followed her over the cage roof, trying to get her. Finally, she snapped out of her terrified daze and flickered back to the Dayscape, sitting down heavily and gasping for air, trembling head to toe. 

"Wondered how long it would take you to try that one. Glad to see that you've gotten close and personal with a Nightscape monster." A voice came from the other side of the row of cells, making her jump and curse at them, looking over angrily. There was a woman sat in her own cage, on top of a foam mattress, a little grubby, with bags under her eyes  and a sneer twisted into her features. Her hair was brown, shorn short as though it had been a pixie cut but had since started to grow out.