This place.
I’ve been here before.
More than I can count.
As soon as my head hits the pillow I wake up to this endless loop. Like a demented dream that I can’t drag myself away from. And it’s starting to unnerve me to the point where I’m afraid to even close my eyes for a second. But the moment my head hits the pillow I know there was no escaping it. The pull that draws me back each time like gravity. With each fall down that darkened road I shift through the fragments hoping to find my way out. Like so many grains of sand it exists. Impossible to make vanish just by the sheer numbers that trail after. I search for air smothered beneath the hold it has over me only to have myself buried beneath even more, overwhelmed by what follows. One after another. Filling in the hole with each hopeless attempt I make to dig myself free. The only thing I can do at this point is gaze from eyes that haven’t stared back at me in a long. Long. Time. I’m aware that I should be going somewhere, but to where I haven’t the faintest idea. It’s so cold. My breath comes out in short, hazy bursts. I shiver within the confines of my jacket. Everything is so quiet like the entire world is holding its breath. Waiting for what I don’t know, but I feel like somewhere deep inside I do. Everywhere I look the ground is covered in a thick layer of snow. The moonlight pools in soft mirrors of light on the earth, making the snow morph into distended shadows that bend and waver with the branches that sway above. The world looms with its giant fingers of Oaks towering over me, there branches weighed down by ice, supporting the infinite canopy of stars above. A twig snaps behind me. My eyes follow, alerted by the break in the silence. Silhouetted by a particularly ancient giant towering above the rest, a man is standing there. He tilts his head to the side closing his eyes. His chest expands with a slow deep breath. The only movement I can find in his otherwise motionless frame. A slow smile spreads across his face. I can see his teeth gleam in the light. He almost seems pleased at something. Do I know him? I can’t remember. After a moment of pause his eyelids fly open revealing a pair of stunning eyes. Their Glowing gold. He looks at me almost lovingly. But I know what he is and it is this knowledge that leads me to understand one thing and one thing only. That I must not let him come near me.
“It never ceases to amaze me each time I come across a human how sweet a sound their beating heart can make.”
I try to run. I am shocked to find that my legs refuse to move, petrified by his gaze. I try to scream but my lungs have no air. I’m frightened. I don’t know what to do. I can’t think. Everything begins to blur. The man’s eyes turn from their golden hue into an inhuman shade of red. It’s a nasty red. He begins to slink forward. It’s like watching a cat when it’s spotted something to pounce on.
“Simply delicious.” He purrs softly more to himself then to me.
My eyes widen as two elongated canines emerge from the corners of his mouth gleaming in the light cast by the moons glow. I watch in horror, unable to tear myself away from his gaze, as he steps up to me and tilts my head back with one slender pale hand. I shiver under his icy touch. Observing me as a butcher might observe his work. In that moment everything changes. I squeeze my eyes shut. I can already feel his breath hot against my neck, the sharp acrid stench of decay wafting in my face. I know what he’s about to do. I can already feel twin pricks begin to form in the hollow of my neck. My body is trembling uncontrollably. My breath is all but chocked out of me as I wait for what is about to occur, unable to stop this man… this thing from stealing the very breath from my body. I didn’t have to wait long, but it wasn’t what I thought would occur. The air in front of me shrieks as something fly’s past me. What follows is registered by the me observing and the me that is existing in this moment. The sound of something being smashed against the ground reaches my ears. Then a low hissing sound like a deflating balloon before my ears are once again deadened by the silence.
“Disgraceful.” A voice mutters somewhat disdainfully to itself.
I brace myself. Arms wrapped tightly over my head. Knees scrunched against my chest. I was so scared. I started to realize that I was crying. A single path etched its way over my frozen cheek. I cringe as a hand gently grasps my shoulder.
“Your safe now. “The voice murmurs soothingly.
I open my eyes and find myself captivated by a pair of warm hazel mirrors reflected back in my own tear stained ones.
In front of me is a young man.
He is crouched down, a smile illuminating his features.
At that moment every single apprehension that I had melts away until only he and I remain, drifting in a sea that enclosed the suddenly small world of two. I caught sight of something in the corner of my eye and saw the man from before lying still surrounded by a forming pool of the red his eyes had been glazed over with. Only then did I notice the young man’s clothes were covered in a light spray of the same shade. Blood. That’s what it was called. He follows my gaze and, noticing the man lying there, quickly shifts, blocking my view.
“Don’t worry he won’t bother you again.” He swiftly stands up, dusting off his pants as he does so. “I’ll make sure that no one will ever hurt you again, I swear this to you that you have my word.” I cautiously sit up and nod my head, Unsure of what to do. Sitting there in the snow looking up with wondering eyes I can see a black smudge where the brown eyed man is standing and realization hits me of how little I am next to him. He holds his hand out to me. It’s a question hanging in the air. He’s asking for my trust.
“You’re an awfully quiet one.” He remarks. “Don’t you have a name?” I watch a dim shadow flit across his face. When I see this something inside of me stirs. It says to smile. So that he will smile to. I want to know if his smile is like the bad man’s but I already know that it will be warm. A shining light as bright as the suns feathery caress on a lazy afternoon. I don’t know why, but I feel like I need to see him smile. I have to make him smile. I rub my eyes and reach shyly for his outstretched hand. He grasps mine. The shadow dissipating like the eye of a storm the moment the sun breaks through. As soon as he does I feel like I am loved and I know, deep inside that he would never hurt me. I look up at him, feeling for the first time that everything is going to be okay now. That I’m safe from all the evil things that run through the night.
Now that I’m with him.
“Alice” I reply so softly that it might as well have been the sighing wind, but for now it was enough by the way he smiles warmly down on me. He takes off his jacket and gently wraps it carefully around my shoulders before lifting me up and wrapping his arms around me. There as familiar to me as my own.
“What a beautiful name you have.”
“What’s yours?” my eyelids droop the sudden urge to sleep overcoming me. A yawn escapes my equally small pink lips. He sighs ever so softly before laying his head atop of mine.
“if you promise to keep it close to you always ma raison d’être. My name is…”