The Nocturnals

Chapter seven

I gasp, sucking in air like I've been lacking much of it since I last gone to sleep. Wait...no, I didn't go to sleep, I—I fainted...

My head hurts when a frown comes up my face, so I use my hand to ease the throbbing pain, wincing lowly beneath my hoarse breaths.

I open my eyes, feeling the pain go down a bit and realization dawn on me. It's still night, I'm still in the forest where the machine took me to... everything just races back into my memory. I start to panic, trying to find my way out of the embedding glass that seems to only thud from the effect of my punches. I check for any material in the tool box — which fortunately is still with me — to see if I can break the glass with it, but there's no useful one. The thought of checking the headboard of the cart, where lies the boards for controlling the machine, dwell onto my hazy-thinking brain and when I do, I see a button with a tag "Roof" on it. Without hesitation, I press on it. A buzzing sound comes up, followed by a separation of the glasses as it begins to move to the sides and so does the engine as it begins to die. Once I've climbed out of the inside, all that's beside me and behind me is a burned part of the woods. The machine did this.

I gulp to collect myself and jump down. I see nothing in sight, maybe the beast doesn't stay here after all. Even with the zero-tolerance that I have for this believes, I still can not help but be afraid. Few walks more, and I'm seeing a hut. It's very small in size, even someone with my five feet six inch size will have to bend in order to enter and it looks to only contain two people at maximum.

Walking with caution, afraid of something I hadn't believe in but due to the rushes in my veins I did, I make my way to the hut. Pulling the cloth which acts as the door aside, I access the interior. It's small as I have anticipated, and so littered with torn cloths. On the tables at a side is olden ages of expired house materials.

"Hello!" I call out, bit whisperingly but enough to call an audience.

No one comes out, not do I hear any shuffle or sounds of any kind. It's dead silent. I hear a crackling sound of fire...someone must be making the fire. I enter more to the fireplace but I see no one. There's just the bunch of woods, lit with enough fire to chase coldness away hastily. I move my body near the fire, collect some warmness and wait in hope that I'll see someone. I thought for the fire to be made...still freshly made, then someone must be living here.

"You were freezing." Says a voice from behind me. I startle, turning to my back from the out of the blue masculine voice.

I take few steps back, away from the fire and the man. He looks so frightening.

"Who are you?" Now I'm able to comprehend more of his features as he take few steps forward, his hand in front of him in a calming gesture, meaning he mean no harm. I still can't find it in me to trust him.

His clothes are turn, the shirt shred into pieces on his body. It's as if he's used some kind of sharp tool to pierce his clothing. His trousers carries the same fate, one side of his leg is fully covered, while the other has been torn to reach above his knees. He looks like a maniac. His face is unclear since it's stained with dirt, and his damp hair is flopping low to cover his forehead, reaching his brows.

"I'm..." He hesitate. Although his voice sounds gentle, I can't help but shiver from the sound of another time behind his very own. As if two people are talking at the same time, where one's voice carries the loudest audibility, and the other talks muffled but could still be heard. "Just call me...He."

He?

Now that's strange. Who calls himself a He to a stranger?

"I made the fire for you, seeing you're...you're... having the chills." And his English, the accent, it's brilliant and foreign. He speaks with an accent I've never heard from around here.

"Come into the light." I say hesitantly, scared of seeing the whole of his status.

He actually does with no contrary and walks into the light. I find myself gasping in shock, his back is hunched a little, making him look half-horrible and so eerie, there's an elongated teeth at the sides of his mouth, and... blood? Wait up, is that blood?

Oh...goodness. The beast! The beast exist! It all wasn't a lie. He exist!

"Wait—" I hear him say.

And so with my brain in haywire mode, I make a run for it. I don't know how I find an exit, but I'm running, the chill of the night blowing on my skin is not noticed by any chance not to say that my leg should be feeling hurt. I feel numb in other aspect of my being except at the part of my heart where lies the frantic beatings.

He wants to yell at his other side, the barbaric part of him that's still lingering close on his human skin, making him half of the two beings that's in one body. It was a bad idea that he'd think of letting himself talk with her at night. He could have waited for the morning to come, and by then he'd be fully collected. Fully dressed. Fully human.

He dashes out of the hut as well, a place he comes to stay in whenever he doesn't want to go to his castle. Out in the forest, he feels nothing, no cold, no eyes squinting from the chills that blows around with the breeze. With his inhuman eyes, he searches the forest and in no matter of a second, he's seen her, heard her as she's panicking, trying to get far away from him as she can. She knows what he is.

Swiftly, he's piercing his way past the air, covering many grounds and next, he's hopping onto a tree, watching her run away. He knows not if he should stop her. Perhaps make her faint instead. Or just leave her so she doesn't hate him more. He thought she would be understanding if she sees him tonight, but guess he was wrong. She's human of course. She will panic like any other of those villagers will. At least she's even brave to enter the hut in the first place.

His thoughts didn't go far before it was snapped with the sound of her grunt. She falls down the sloppy ground, rolling and tumbling, and when she gets to the ground, she stops moving. She did not try to get up. His mentality registers that she must have faint so he runs over and picks her up, and take her back to the hut.