Shade of Human

Two - SoH

Two:

Deep darkness fluttered around me, and it felt as if I was suffocating. My lungs burned and oxygen starvation caused my head to spin. I lashed out blindly. I slammed into a seemingly fragile form. I felt the crunching sensation of bones against my fist as my right hand kept moving. I barely realized I had woken up and that my fight was not a nightmare, but another real-world experience.

I looked down as I saw the dissolving darkness. Silver light bled from the shadowy creature, and it steadily evaporated into the floor. Shock set in as I watched the thing that appeared to be like the darkness, I had witnessed overtaking Ariel, die before my eyes.

The energy felt different, and it was not as cold, but it was the same species. My heart thudded in my chest as it dissolved. The silvery light glowed like an echo of the beast for a moment.

Something has just tried to kill me. Of that I was sure. Something that, coincidentally, was very much like the shadow beast that had killed my girlfriend. I was no cop, but even I did not believe in such turns of fate like this. This was a homecoming for me. It had wasted no time coming for me here.

Say what I would about juvie, I am getting the feeling it might have been the only thing separating the monsters from their prey. If that is the case, what of Clarke?

I fumbled free of my covers. I quickly dressed in a snug pair of jeans and a gray tank top. I rushed off but was careful not to raise suspicions of the rents. They need not know my comings and goings after-all.

My mind was still reeling from the assault. I was racing through the possibility that I had, in fact, killed something that I should not be able to even touch. This leads me down a labyrinth of seemingly endless possibilities. Nothing I had researched prepared me for this evening's encounter. I had used my time in juvie to do a lot of reading. Besides finishing nearly, the entire school year in three months, I also read many of the more sensible paranormal research records over the years. I kept my readings confined to historic tales and records of factual encounters. Granted, said encounters were with ghosts and shadow things. None of these had shown that humans could touch the spectral figures.

Clarke had come at me with both barrels blasting the second I was home from jail. I expected this in him. He was Ariel's best male friend, as he was mine. He had known her a long time. They were as thick as thieves. I just did not wish this insanity on anyone, much less my only surviving friend. Now, I was sure that whatever haunted me was likely haunting him. Call it intuition or a hunch, or even feminine mystical gifting. I just knew on an intuitional level that his life was now in danger because of me.

Had we freed something from that house when we barged in? What had it done to Ariel? Also, why had it not come for him while I was gone?

To say I had questions would be a severe understatement of the truth! My pondering was endless, and the answers seemed to be extremely limited. The best part of my town being a little over two miles in its total length, I could run anywhere in ten minutes at my top speed. I have been a member of several sports that relied heavily on endurance and running speed. I had devoted my entire sixteen years of life to training my body.

Even if I had missed most of the season in soccer. I was keeping in shape between my trips to the juvie library every day. Reading and exercise are about all a girl can do to keep from going crazy. The occasional fistfight, which is more exciting than one might assume. Add to that the mixture of teen angst, young rejects, and you have a recipe for disaster waiting to happen.

The wind whipped through me and the chill of the early hours of the morning infused itself deeply into my bones. My muscles tightened from the mixture of exertion and cold. My heart thudded loudly in my ears like a bass drum. Clarke was forever letting me crash at his place, so I had a key. I opened the door as soundlessly as possible and rushed to his room.

It was terrifying, yet not unexpected to see the grim form turn to face me, as I came into the room. I didn't think about the logistics or even the ramifications of my action. I just leaped onto the massive dark shadow, and I wrapped my arms around it as if I were a wrestler applying a chokehold.

The thing bucked at me like a horse or a bull. I dug my fingers in deeper and felt a surge pulse through my body. Silver flashed through the room as if I had set off a flashbang. Clarke hoped out of his bed and yipped in stunned shock as his sleepy mind came around to the waking reality that was the grizzly nightmare of his room.

Silver veins of flame burst from the thing and it seemed to desiccate to ash. I tumbled to the floor with a loud thud. Clarke's eyes connected with mine and he studied me for an exceedingly long moment before he finally broke the silence.

"What the hell was that thing?! Did you kill it?! What the actual f**k is going on in here? I was dreaming about Miley and suddenly a brotha is getting attacked!"

Clarke ranted madly. I stood and moved over and muted him with my palm.

"Will you shut the f**k up! Jesus, are you trying to get us both caught!? Inside voices, remember!"

Clarke nodded vigorously. He inhaled a deep breath as if it could infuse him with the strength he needed. His eyes kept returning to the spot where his shadow beastie had flamed out. He seemed to be drawn as if by some magnetic connection to the location. He had just had confirmation that his insanity was real. I knew there was no normal for Clarke, not after a second exposure to this unexplained paranormal incursion.

"Jesus, what the hell was that thing?! Did you just kill it with a chokehold?! What exactly did they feed you girls up in that joint?"

Clarke leaped from topic-to-topic at lightning speed. I merely rolled my eyes in annoyance at my best friend's line of obnoxious questioning.

"Sure, sleeper hold kills the undead."

I said dryly. He flushed noticeably even in this dark room. I could see the edge of adrenaline as he shifted and twitched, overly eager to move and act. There was no un-ringing this bell for him. Clarke was deeply exposed to the paranormal underbelly now. I'd put a profound level of thought and planning into how I would distance Clarke from my world. It had merely taken a single evening once released to explode those profoundly well-laid plans. As that cheesy dad-speak of a saying spell out, no plan amounts to much. I am sure there is some higher power laughing on the edge of their seat at me right now.

"So, that was not a ghost, right?"

Clarke inquired, leaning into my personal bubble. I pop him lightly on the shoulder and he yelps in pain.

"Back it up a bit, pal!"

I said, He shot me a hurt expression. I was not always so particular about space, but I have been paranoid as of late. There was no such thing as a safe contact in jail. Everyone wanted to take something from you or use you. That heightened alert does not vanish the moment you exit your sentence. You are still jumpy and expecting someone to kick the crap out of you at every turn.

Clarke looked put-off by my mood swing. I felt a little guilty about this exchange, but I could hardly apologize for all that happened lately. There was enough blame to take a full lap around all of us.

"Aight, sorry girl."

Clarke said. I gave him a shallow smile that didn't even remotely hide the trepidation I was experiencing.

"Look, I know that f****d up s**t is happening, but try to focus on my classes until I have a major lead to chase down. Until that happens, stay awfully close to me. I am not sure why it took this long for the shadow things to target you, but it is obviously connected to my return to town. Hell, I don't even know what the hell to call these things, or how they died exactly. All I know is you are in danger and I don't know enough to keep you safe, Clarke."

I told him with the blunt edge of sincerity in my voice. Clarke seemed to be unable to argue my words or my reasoning. He knew that everything I said was the truth. It also scared the piss out of him, I did not know how or what was happening.

This was all like some horror movie come to life.

"What I'd like to know, is how more people do not know about this. How has this shiz not gone viral by now? It's not like we are totes analog anymore."

I muttered absently, almost directing the inquiry to myself and not Clarke. He grunted and seemed to still while he thought about it for a moment.

"Maybe you're not the only one who thought about it. While you were locked up, someone came into town claiming to be following up on the original police reports. She was extremely well dressed to be a regular detective. And I did not think much of it but she led me to freely talk about the supernatural, although it seemed ambiguous."

I stared at him and I felt my jaw slack with stupefaction.

"You could have led with that! You got milked and you are only telling me now, as an afterthought?! Jeeze, did you get a brain along with that p***s? Better yet, don't answer that question!"

Clarke gave me a hurt look. I shrugged it off.

"Is she still in town? Your mysterious well-dressed female detective?"

Clarke nodded in confirmation.

"She's staying at the old inn across from the old tavern."

Our town is built on a crossroads point. A guy in the late seventeen-hundreds decided this was the most lucrative spot to build a tavern. Then later an inn popped up, then slowly a hamlet grew into a township. Drink, sleep, reproduce, at its most basic display as a town.

"Yeah, she made a real fuss about getting to stay at the Inn, and not in the local hotel. Which is way nicer if you ask me.”?

I frowned and nodded.

"Well, I think I should pay this detective a little visit and suss her out tomorrow. Until then, you're on the floor and I have the bed."

Clarke gave me a perplexed look.

"You are crazy, kicking me out of my damn bed in my damn house!"

I nodded and said, "Yep, and crazy is f*****g terrifying for all you normal plebs."

I said, Clarke just rolled his eyes and shot his gaze skyward as if some higher power were meant to provide him with the temperance to deal with his overly sassy best friend.