UNLOCKED

THE STORM

Isaac POV

I decided to chill for a few more minutes at the party. Even got myself a shot of bourbon, at least something stronger than beer.

The party wasn’t all that bad but sadly, I didn’t speak to most of the people I saw around. I knew them by face as I took lectures together with most of them, but I had never had conversations outside lectures with any of them.

It became a bit awkward just hanging around the bar by myself, so I decided to step outside.

Man, was I glad I did. It was like stepping out from a heated room into a walk-in refrigerator. It was amazing how much body heat was being generated by all the people in there.

More reason to be thankful that I had stepped out was the fact that the rain was already threatening to pour. Lightning flashed across the sky, followed by loud bangs of thunder.

“Crap!”. I yelled.

The wind was picking up speed. I quickly reached for my phone to book a ride. None seemed to be close by. The nearest one would take about fifteen minutes to get to me. I made the booking anyway and decided to walk for a bit.

“Lily definitely owes me big for this,”. I mumbled under my breath.

I was currently distracted as I fumbled with my phone. I didn’t even realise how far I had gone from the party venue.

The first drop of rain touched me. It was cold on my neck. It started to drizzle more, making me shiver.

“f**k! I should have carried a jacket along,”. I cursed.

I checked my phone one last time to see where the driver was at.

“Still ten minutes away and looked like he wasn’t even moving,”. I said.

I hissed and pocketed my phone. It was best to look for a shade.... or probably I would just head back to the party.

That was a better option so I turned around, planning to jog back over.

I stopped mid jog. There was something in front of me. It was hunched over, large and cast a very domineering shadow over the walk way.

I couldn’t calculate properly. It felt like a few dozen meters away from me. If not for the constant lightning flashes, I would have unconsciously jogged right into it.

It growled- a deep animalistic sound that caused me to shiver more than the drizzling cold rain did.

I instinctively took a step back and to my horror, it took a step forward, then from nowhere, another one dropped right beside it.

Both creatures, which I knew were definitely not like any of the many species of animals I know on earth, gave hot chase.

I turned around and bolted. Not even bothering to look behind. The steady heavy running thumps and growls behind me, told me all I needed to know about how close they were.

There was no way I could outrun these things in a straight line. I quickly cut into an alley way.

I glanced over my shoulders to see one of those things glide past the entrance as it was trying to stop itself, but the other one crashed into it then used that as a leverage to get into the alley way also.

It charges furiously while the other one, recovered, followed suit.

My legs screamed for me to take a break. My heart thumped like crazy. My ears were ringing from the rush of adrenaline laced blood pumping through my veins. My throat had already gone dry a long time ago and burned like crazy now.

I couldn’t stop. No matter how much my body begged me to. I knew if I stopped for a second, from the way these things were relentless in chasing me, it would be the end of me.

Then again, I couldn’t cheat nature on this one- or at least, I thought I couldn’t. I was still thinking rationally.

My legs began to slow down. No matter how much I willed it to go faster, I couldn’t get it to obey. My lungs were burning.

“f**k!”. I cursed. Then felt a sharp pain go through my side.

The initial impact- four long sharp claws dug into my sides, causing my eyes to roll back into my head, then came the actual impact. The fling that sent me tumbling down the dark alley way.

I slammed into the wall then unto the concrete pavement, skidding down a few meters before coming to a painful stop. I coughed up a mouthful of blood as my vision blurred.

“No!”. I screamed in my head as I begged my body to move.

It wouldn’t listen.

Lily’s POV

I and the team ran as fast as we could towards a given location. We finally got confirmation that the two we had been chasing had finally come to a stop.

“Not just one but two Khodumodumo!! That is insane!!”. Ivan exclaimed as we kept running and jumping where necessary.

“We just need to make sure they don’t cause any damage before we take them down,”. Eric replied.

“At least we should hope they are not adults. That would be a real drag if they were,”. I chipped in.

I was yet to break a sweat even though we had been running for a long time. The rain now drizzling a bit more further added to the feeling of dread I had in my chest.

“I just hope we are not too late,”. I added.