Darkness Fades

Chapter 14

It’s a long journey and exhausting, but only because Aiden makes it that way by being happy one minute and rude the next. His mood swings are tiring. Finally, though, we’re walking across the park where Sylas, Aiden and I once played when we were smaller. The place where Sylas gave me a flower on my birthday... one of my rare, good memories, well, at least the beginning of it anyway.

“Is something amusing?” Aiden asks, watching me intently.

I realize I’m smiling and quickly erase it as I focus on the building across from the park where the papers were left behind. He practically burns a hole in my head, trying to decipher what I’m really thinking about, but I ignore him and speed up, leaving him a ways behind me.

As we reach the building, I veer to the right and head towards the doorway that’s covered with torn plastic, which I cut open the last time I was here. I carefully push the plastic aside and peek into the building. It looks vacant, so I cautiously duck through the hole, glancing around at the empty space, the plastic above. Nothing else seems to be around.

I motion for Aiden to follow me and he ducks through the plastic, looking around the empty room curiously. “So where are the papers that we need?” he asks, turning in a circle, looking at the walls and the ceiling.

I nod, holding my finger up to my lips. “Shhh… We don’t want to get caught and be locked up,” I hiss.

He shrugs my comments off and begins to wander around the room, like he doesn’t care if we get caught. I dash through the room and make my way down the hall in the direction of where I dropped the papers; where I last kissed Sylas. I cautiously peer around the corner and then step into the room carefully. I see the doorway that leads to the cells and I rush over to it. As soon as I get to it, I see the papers still scattered over the floor with droplets of dried blood on them.

I bend down quickly to collect them as they flap in the gentle breeze blowing from somewhere. I have a few in my hand when I hear a noise through the doorway that leads into the cell area I was locked in. The door is still missing from where I ripped it from its frame. I slide my knife out of my pocket, setting the papers down on the ground before I make my way towards the noise. I’m on guard as I walk down the hallway between the glass cages, peering in each of them, secretly hoping that Sylas will be inside one of them and that’s who made the noise

“You know that he is gone, right?” Aiden’s voice rises up behind me. I whirl around in surprise, ready to fight. He’s standing in the doorway at the end of the hall, staring at me with a guarded look. “But here you’re still hoping that somehow he’ll be inside one of these cages.”

“I thought I heard a noise.” I give him a dirty look then.

Choosing to ignore him, I check the rest of the cages, but of course they’re all empty. When I turn back around, Aiden’s no longer standing in the doorway and I quicken my pace until I reach the end of the cells. I stop when I get to the papers, then glance at the spot on the floor where Sylas and I kissed, memories hitting my mind like pinpricks. I tear my gaze away before it becomes too much then bend over to scoop the papers up from the floor. I stack them in my arms and head towards the door when Aiden steps in front of me, putting his arms on the doorway like a barricade.

“You’re really going to do it, aren’t you? Can’t you see that you’re wrong? We need to change the world. Make the rest of the world like us…” He pauses and I see a threatening glint in his eyes that puts me on high alert. “Well, at least the people in the world that we feel are worthy to be like us.”

“Move out of my way, Aiden,” I say in a calm, yet firm voice. “This isn’t the place or time to fight about this.” I shove him, but he doesn’t budge.

“I can’t let you do it. I won’t let you.” His fangs slide out and he bares them at me.

Tucking the papers under my arm, I aim the knife at him. “Now get out of my way, or I’ll make you get out of my way.

He laughs, however the amusement quickly leaves his face as a misshapen form emerges from the room to the side of us. My body tenses as I hear the growl. I slowly turn, pointing my knife at it, bending my knees, ready to plunge into the monster. Another one appears just behind Aiden, snarling as it creeps towards us on all fours.

I set the papers down, moving slowly, eyes fixed on the monster to my side. I take a deep breath and then without warning, I dash over to it. It nips at me as I reach its front and I skitter to the side, going around. Blood drips out of its mouth as it turns with me, following my movements as I shuffle towards the wall.

Its crooked legs bring it closer to me as I back towards the wall, searching for a way out. When it’s within reach, I bring my foot up and slam the tip of my toe into its mouth. Blood splatters on the ground as it lets out a shrill howl then barrels at me. I swing my knife down right as it’s about to take a bite of my leg. The blade enters its spongy body and it cries out as I plunge the knife deeper. Blood gushes out as I wrench the knife out and flip back as the monster lurches towards me. I spin and sink the knife inside of its chest, slashing open the skin. It howls again, so loudly I want to cover my ears, then it flops down on its side, blood pooling around it.

It continues to snap its teeth at me for a moment until its head falls to its side as its body goes limp. For a second I just stare at it, wondering if it could have been Sylas, which only hurts to think about.

Panting, I spin around just in time to see Aiden finish off the other beast, slamming his knife deep into the monster’s chest. Blood spurts out of the wound as he removes the knife and backs up. The monster lets out a furious cry and then drops to the floor like a bag of bricks. I wipe the blade of my knife over my jeans, pick the papers up, then without saying anything to Aiden, I hurry to the plastic and duck outside.

I can hear Aiden’s footsteps as he rapidly catches up with me and grabs my arm. I shrug him off and continue walking.

“Kayla, we need to talk,” he demands, striding alongside of me.

I turn the corner and stride towards the park, hugging the papers tightly to my chest. When he grabs my shoulder again, I whirl around and push him back, ready to get out of here, save the world and forget. Forget about everything. The choices I’ve made, the things…

I stop walking as I reach the spot where the land opens up. There are dozens of abominations standing in front of us, down on all fours, drooling on the ground as they look at us with hunger in their eyes.

“Let’s take them,” Aiden says, stepping forward with a pleased look on his face.

I grab his arm and pull him back. “No way. There’s too many of them.”

He looks torn, glancing back and forth between them and me. He surprises me, though, when he nods and we spin around together to start running back in the direction we came from.

I think that Aiden is following me until I throw a glance over my shoulder and realize he’s run in a different direction towards a few dead trees. As he yells at the beasts and makes a lot of noise, I wonder what he’s doing, but then I realize he’s trying to get them away from me. I’m not sure how I feel about this since I’ve pretty much made up my mind that Aiden was no good anymore.

His plan almost works and most of the monsters chase after him, tearing up the ground with their claws, but a few of them look at me with their hungry eyes and run after me. I pump my legs faster, barreling back towards the building, knowing I’ve outrun them before and I can do it again.

All but one of them starts to fall behind and I begin to relax until one seems to be gaining on me. It’s nipping at my heels, making loud growls, ripping up pieces of the ground with his force. I feel myself reaching maximum speed and I don’t know what to do because it seems to be getting closer. There is a pile of rusty cars just in front of me. Not knowing what else to do, I quickly dive to the side of them and squeeze in between a metal gap. I barely get my legs in as it tries to take a bite, barely missing my skin. As I shimmy farther into the pile of cars, I draw out my knife. It puts its eyes up to the gap and watches me, letting out a low growl. I keep going until I reach the end of the gap and, when I turn around, the monster is gone.

I tentatively stick my head out of the hole and glance around. It’s silent, but it makes me uneasy. I lie there for a little bit longer, clutching onto the papers and my knife.

Finally, after it’s been quiet for a while, I duck my head out and fall to the ground, rolling out. I get my feet back under me and stand up, brushing the dirt off my pants. I let out a breath of relief before I hear a deep growl from behind me, making my hairs stand on end.

I turn around slowly and meet the eyes of a beast much larger than the rest of them, the flesh rotting off and falling to the ground. I start to bring my knife around, but it dips its head towards the ground. Teeth pierce through my pant leg and my flesh, sinking deep into my muscles.

My knife falls to the ground as my legs give out on me and I fall. The last thing I see is the monster watching me.

I know that soon I’ll become one of them.