by Tracey Tobin
Half a moment later they passed through the barrier. The rope ladder was right in front Tori’s face, but Strider wasn’t stopping for anything so she had to react fast. She dropped the reins, barely managed to keep herself from topping backward off the horse, and snatched out for the ladder as he galloped past. A scream of pain escaped her as her arm was nearly yanked from her shoulder, but she managed to steady herself with her other arm as the ladder became a pendulum as the result of her momentum.
It only took a few heartbeats for her to recover, but before she could move up by a single rung, a cold, slimy entity wrapped itself around her leg. Tori was screaming even before she looked back to see the Shadow’s tar-like arm sliding its way up her body. That scream only intensified when an arrow appeared in the Shadow’s head, eliciting a nightmarish squeal from the creature as it oozed backward onto the ground. Near the top of the ladder a Maelekanai male was holding a large bow and readying himself for another shot. “Hurry!” he bellowed down to Tori. “Get up here!”
Tori didn’t need anyone to twist her arm anymore than she’d already done herself. Her shoulder shrieked out in protest, but she moved as fast as she could as more Maelekanai archers appeared and arrows went streaking past her head. One shot came so close that she felt the hiss of air go by her ear. She gasped and felt herself getting faint for a moment, but then she heard a Shadow shrieking behind her and she found the healthy dose of fear required to get her up the last few rungs. As she reached the edge of the platform a pair of furry hands snatched her up under the arms and hauled her up to safety. A Maelekanai female face looked her over quickly.
“Are you okay?” the female asked.
Tori ignored the question. “Shadows!” she gasped. “The Shadows are attacking! They followed me here!”
The female looked at her sideways, with something like surprise in her face. “You’re a little late to the party, princess,” she said.
Why aren’t you listening to me?!
Tori opened her mouth to repeat her dire warning, but a scream rang out across the village and the female suddenly sprinted off with a spear in her hands. Once she had left her side, Tori finally took in the scene around her and lifted a hand to her mouth to stifle the cry.
There was a battle raging on in the village. Everywhere she looked there were Shadows sweeping in from the trees and Maelekanai desperately attempting to fight back. Sentries manned the outer platforms with bows and arrows while further adults prowled the village with spears and whatever other weapons they could find, but the inky creatures were coming in from every direction. The female who’d pulled Tori up to the platform was using her spear to wedge herself between two Shadows and a younger-looking male whose bowstring had snapped. Fires were springing up all over the village as several Shadows gleefully tossed torches they’d taken in from outside. With a gag that was mixed with a scream, Tori noticed that there was a large, grisly spatter of blood on the platform right in front of her. Another howl rang out, followed by the wild shrieks of several Shadows.
Tori’s body was shaking uncontrollably. She hadn’t been running for safety at all; she’d run directly into the danger, and she didn’t even have Jacob here to tell her what to do. She cowered on her hands and knees on the platform, a quivering mass, uselessly flicking her eyes in every direction as though expecting the battle around her to magically up and vanish.
I’m going to wake up any moment now, you’ll see. I’m going to wake up in a hospital, with bandages around my head and a doctor standing there with a clipboard to tell me all about the brain surgery he’s just preformed. This is all just a horrible anesthesia dream and I’m going to wake up any moment…
There was a great deal of shouting behind her, prompting her to turn. The male archers were being driven backward as another wave of Shadows pushed their way up and over the edge of the platform. One particularly lithe Shadow leaped forward and wrapped its entire body around an archer’s throat. The shocked male dropped his bow and began clawing at his attacker while his companions struggled to fight off the wave of monsters with their bare hands.
Run! a voice seemed to scream in Tori’s ear. She looked around helplessly before realizing that the voice had actually been in her head, but it hadn’t, in fact, been her shrieking subconscious. For just a moment she saw a vision of Eden in the council room, her arms extended, a chant on her lips. Before Tori could comprehend what was happening, the air around the village seemed to shiver. A thrumming din made the entire village shake once, violently, and then a shimmering barrier seemed to appear just outside the edges of the outer platforms. The Shadows on the outside slammed into it, screaming in anger, unable to pass. Eden’s voice echoed in Tori’s mind again. “I can keep more from getting in, but I won’t be able to keep it up for long. Run, Victoria! Find a place to hide! You, most of all, must survive!”
Somehow Tori was able to push herself to her feet and take in her surroundings. “Where am I supposed to run to?” she cried. Every direction seemed to be more dangerous than the last. In which should she run? Then a sickening crunch came from the Maelekanai archer’s throat and his body collapsed to the platform.
She ran, heart in throat, with no idea where she was going. As she sprinted for the nearest rope bridge a Shadow leaped out in front of her, but a Maelekanai female appeared with a spear and ran it through the creature’s chest. The female pushed Tori out of the way to throw herself at a group of three more Shadows, and only a breath later she was shrieking as she was overtaken. Tori could barely see around the tears in her eyes as she wondered if it had been the female who’d lifted her up from the ladder, but she scrambled toward the bridge again before hesitating. The bridge was on fire.
RUN! Eden’s voice vibrated through the air. A group of Shadows - she couldn’t tell how many - oozed toward Tori as she threw herself across the flaming mass of wood and rope. With each footfall she felt the bridge scream in protest, so she ran faster. She was only a few feet from the next platform when a loud snap echoed in her ears and suddenly there was nothing beneath her. She reached out in a blind panic, a gasp on her breath, and prayed for her momentum to bring her to safety. Her chest slammed into the edge of the platform, knocking the wind out of her lungs. The Shadows that had been chasing her squealed as they fell to the forest floor below in a rain of sparks and splinters. Quite certain that she didn’t want to join them, Tori struggled to gasp in a breath and scrambled for something to grab onto. Her fingers dug uselessly into the scorched wood for several terrifying moments before she finally managed to get them around the bridge post and pulled as hard as she could. She rolled onto the platform with an exhausted wheeze and almost gave up right there. Then a Shadowy arm reached up over the side of the platform and she was off running again.
Everything around her was moving so fast; she couldn’t stop, couldn’t think, couldn’t blink, couldn’t figure out what to do. She found herself standing foolishly next to a house that she didn’t recognize, with screams and shrieks all around her, and all she wanted to do was sink to her knees, throw her hands over her head, and cry. On the side of the house by which she stood was a mural of a family standing beneath a moonlit sky of multi-colored stars, and the fires were casting terrible, flickering shadows against the once-beautiful scene.
It was at that moment that something became horribly, painfully clear. Like she was experiencing them for the first time, Tori stared at the shadows on the wall and recalled the nightmares she’d been having. She could hear the terrible voice that had been following her through those dreams; a shadowy stalker in her subconscious. “Who are you?” it had asked, over and over again, getting angrier every time. “Who are you?” it had asked because she was an unwelcome stranger in its world.
“Iryen…” Tori gasped with tears in her eyes.
He’s known I was here all this time. He knew since the second I arrived here, and he sent these monsters to find me because I wouldn’t give him the answer that he wanted. It’s all my fault.
Her fingers worked their way up through her hair to dig painfully into the sides of her skull. The tears that streamed down her cheeks felt like acid against her skin. Her chest ached as though it was about to crack in two.
They’ve come here for me. It’s all my fault.
It’s all my fault.
It’s all my fault.
Tori sunk to her knees. In her head she could still hear Eden’s voice screaming at her, begging her to get up and keep moving, but her mind was closed off to the woman’s pleas. The only things Tori could focus on were the screams of the Maelekanai, eerily like the screams of the eighteen-wheeler’s tires as it smashed into her parents’ car and destroyed her life.
It’s all my fault.
It’s all my fault.
It’s all my fault.
But then there was a different sound that pulled her away from herself; a voice, familiar, but distorted in a horrible way. A child, she realized, screaming, begging for help.
“Jiki…” a voice whispered, and with a start Tori realized that the voice had been her own. She looked up through blurry eyes and was able to find purpose amongst the madness.
No. I cannot let this happen.
“Jiki? Jiki!” Tori’s eyes swept the battlefield.
No, no, no, not her, not her.
“Jiki! Where are you?!”
The response was distant, terrified, and shrill: “The bathhouse! Help! Please help!”
Tori whirled on her heels, trying to get her bearings. A distant echo of Eden’s voice continued to scream at her, but she pushed it away and listened instead for Jiki’s cries. She took a step one way, then hesitated and turned the other way instead. An arrow whipped past her from behind, causing her heart to leap, but she wouldn’t spare the moment to turn back. She ran in the direction she was sure Jiki’s cries had come from. She ran through black ooze on the platform floors and hurdled over Maelekanai bodies lying still in pools of blood. She switched off the part of her brain that wanted to lie down in a quivering mass of tears, and instead simply pressed on.
Suddenly, there it was - the bathhouse - and it was engulfed in flame.
“Help!” came Jiki’s voice. It was getting weaker and was punctuated by a vicious fit of coughing.
Tori rushed around the little building in a wide circle, searching for a way in, but the only doorway was blocked by raging fire and there were no windows. She ran around it twice more in desperate circles before finally spotting her one chance: a section of the outer wall that had cracked from the heat, leaving a large split in the wood.
“Stand back!” she shouted. There was no reply. She took several long strides backward and, without letting her mind get in the way of action, rushed forward and rammed the wall with her shoulder. She hadn’t expected the wood to give on the first try, but in the next moment she was rolling indelicately through the burning building with several large splinters sticking through her right arm. A gasp of pain hissed through her, but she scrambled to her knees immediately and surveyed the room. “Jiki?” she cried. “Where are you?!”
A feeble cough came from the tub. Tori rushed over and there she was, the little kitten curled up in the dry bath, covered in soot and tears and looking like she could barely breathe. “Come on,” Tori soothed as she lifted the child up into her trembling arms. “Let’s get you out of here.”
No sooner had the words left her mouth than a loud crack rent the air and a huge section of the ceiling came crashing down to block their escape. Tori screamed in frustration, and soon found herself hacking horribly as ash crawled up into her lungs. They had to get out now, she knew, or they were both going to asphyxiate before they even got a chance to burn. However, the only way out was through the wall of flames that blocked the doorway. They would both burn to death, surely? She couldn’t be certain, but she really didn’t think she could leap through that much flame quickly enough to get them to safety.
With a gulp and a prayer on her lips, Tori’s panicked gaze landed on the pot that Jacob had used to boil her bathwater that morning. It had been refilled, and was sitting there like a shining beacon in the dead of night. But would it be enough?
Jiki didn’t seem to be able to stand, so Tori took a knee next to the pot, leaned her shoulder into it, held Jiki close, and tipped the water over top of them. The heat from the fires had warmed the water to an uncomfortable temperature, but it soaked them both, and that was all they needed. Pushing the empty pot aside, Tori hoisted Jiki up over her shoulder and ran for the door as fast as she could before her courage could leave her. The heat from the flames scorched her hair and burned her eyes. The fabric of her shirt seemed to fuse to her back and she felt the rubber soles of her sneakers melting to her feet. But she ran on, and the next moment they were through, toppling out onto the platform beyond.
Jiki hacked and coughed and wept. Tori pushed herself to her feet and scooped the child back up into her arms, ignoring the scalding rubber seeping through her socks. She scanned the village for the clearest path and began to run again, limping, but more determined than she’d ever felt. “Don’t worry,” she whispered through her burnt throat. “Don’t worry, Jiki. I’m going to get you out of here. I promise, I’m going to save you.” There were tears streaking down her cheeks. “If it’s the only thing I ever do again, I swear I am going to save you.”
She never knew what hit her, but the next thing Tori knew her ears were ringing and she was on the ground without having any idea how she’d gotten there. Her ribs were aching and when she tried to call out she found herself gasping for breath through seared lungs. As she forced herself over onto her back and looked up she felt as though every nightmare she’d ever had was coming true at once.
Standing over her was a Shadow. But not just any Shadow. This one had a jewel embedded in its throat; a jewel that was identical to the one Tori wore around her neck. And when this Shadow flicked its wrists, its arms became shiny black blades that glinted in the firelight. It was the same Shadow, she realized - the one that she and Jacob had hidden from in the forest - and somehow, at that moment, Tori knew that it was the Shadow responsible for the attack on the village. She struggled to move herself away from it, but her ribs screamed with pain, and the Shadow pressed the tip of one of its blades to her throat. It appeared ready and willing to kill her then and there, but instead it leaned forward, slowly, intently, and gazed down upon the crystal pendant around her neck. Then a strange thing happened: the Shadow’s face seemed to split, crack open, and with horror freezing her heart, Tori realized that it was smiling at her. Then she had another moment of clarity, though she prayed with all her being that she was wrong. This Shadow knew who she was. There was no doubt in her mind.
The Shadow’s smile opened wide and a spine-tingling sound emerged. Tori thought that it sounded like a vicious predator’s play on a victory cry, and it made her entire body feel frozen to the spot.
“Please,” she found herself begging. “Please, don’t-”
The Shadow, in its elation, raised one of its blades for the killing blow, but then suddenly its head cocked to the side and burst into hot sparks. With an angry squeal it took a few steps back, swiping away at the hot embers on its skin. Vibrating with rage, it whipped around in the direction from which the projectile had come, and it saw Jiki standing twenty feet away, a second chunk of burning wood in her little hands.
“Get away from her!” the sobbing little kitten shouted.
Tori gasped for air. “Jiki, run!” she called, but the pain in her ribs cut the command short. She twisted and struggled to get to her hands and knees before taking another deep breath. “Run!” she cried with all her might.
But the Shadow had already made its move. Jiki dropped her weapon and began to shake throughout her entire body. She took a single step backwards as the Shadow flew toward her and took a swing. A horrible cry rang out over the village as the child’s body went sailing across the platform, leaving a streak of blood behind it.
Tori felt her heart
stop beating. All the color seemed to go out of the world.
The Shadow grinned its horrible grin.
Then Jiki began to stir and the grin disappeared. With a squeal of clear annoyance the Shadow flicked the blood from its arm and stalked toward the child again with both blades raised.
She’d never know how she managed to move at all, with ribs that felt broken and the melted rubber of her shoes ripping the skin from her feet, but suddenly Tori was running. She focused on Jiki - only on Jiki - and in the next moment she had thrown herself in front of the child and was standing face to face with the Shadow with both her arms outreached. Not her! You can’t have her!
It wasn’t until the Shadow’s face had broken back out into that horrifying grin that Tori gasped and the waves of pain began to spike through her body. Wide-eyed and confused, she stumbled, and coughed, and specks of blood flew from her mouth.
The Shadow gleefully pressed its blades deeper into the parts of Tori’s body that they’d become lodged in - one through her left shoulder and the other through the right side of her abdomen - and shrieked with joy as Tori screamed.
Time seemed to have slowed down so that each second was a lifetime, and each of those lifetimes were agony. Tori was broken, she realized all at once. Broken and done. She heard a cry from behind her, but the sound was muffled, strange, unfamiliar. She tried to remember what that sound meant, but the information wouldn’t come. She felt hot blood dripping down her arm and legs.
The Shadow, satisfied with its work, began to pull away. Tori gasped as the blades sawed at the edges of her wounds. Her vision began to blur and shake. But some insane voice in the back of her mind told her not to let the Shadow leave. She groped toward the creature and managed to get her hands around the two blades before the Shadow could remove them from her body. The edges sliced through her palms, but she squeezed her fingers tight and leaned in close to the Shadow’s face. “You’re not going anywhere,” she spat through the blood in her mouth.
