Marked

by Jasmine Derriman

I shut my eyes as I lied down in my bed and for a moment all I could see was the symbols, but I squeezed my eyes tighter as I tried to push them out of my head and I replaced the imagine I saw before me. Now as I fell asleep I only saw my parent’s faces as they watched over me. If they were here, maybe I would be different, maybe none of this would be happening to me, maybe I would actually be normal, but I’m not normal.

  Chapter Four

  Today should’ve been like a fresh start for me. I wasn’t sure what fresh start that was exactly, maybe a fresh start to my senior year, but either way, today wasn’t going to be like yesterday. I managed to wake up on time this morning, which meant I wasn’t going to be late for school, and with the extra time of not having anything, like a small stupid piece of paper to distract me, I was bound to make it on time.

  I couldn’t say that I felt better today though. Although I had thrown away everything that provoked yesterday’s breakdown it was still in the back of my mind no matter how hard I tried to forget it. I figured the only way that I was really going to be able to forget anything was to distract myself instead. I would have to distract myself with anything I could, and the only thing I could think of right now, was school.

  I had always liked walking to school, and the only reason I did like it so much was because it always gave me time to think. I would walk with my headphones in and listen to some music and ignore the world for a minute and look at everything else around me instead, but today, I couldn’t even manage that. I didn’t have my music today because I forgot to charge the player, so that meant I couldn’t even block out the sound of the traffic and people like I would normally do. So I decided to take a different route to school and avoid the busy roads, walking through some alleys, and it would allow me to get to school faster in the end.

  I was probably only a few blocks away from school when I started to feel like something was off. I couldn’t explain it, I couldn’t explain what I suddenly felt, but it was like the hairs on the back of my neck were suddenly standing up. Somehow though, I didn’t think I should be worrying. I had been so crazy lately that I was now practically paranoid anyway, so I just keep walking.

  I just wanted to get to school and do work, distract my ever working brain and my now paranoid senses. The moment though I heard a sound come from somewhere, vaguely behind me, I realised it couldn’t be all my paranoid senses. I was in an alley though, it could be a cat, or it could be my imagination, but something told me that I needed to check, just to be safe.

  I found myself turning around slowly, rather than quickly, and scanning the alleyway in front of me. I literally saw nothing, not even the small tin trash cans that tended to line these alleyways. Great, now I was hearing things too.

  I immediately had a bad feeling, I felt sick to my stomach and my instincts told me to turn and run out of there as fast as I could, but the moment I thought about it, something else stopped me. I caught something in the corner of my eye, and at first I thought it was nothing, but I saw it grow larger and found myself completely frozen in place.

  Whatever I was seeing, couldn’t be real, it just couldn’t be real. I could see…smoke, but it was dark thick smoke, almost like a cloud, and it moved in the most unnatural way. I felt myself back up immediately as the smoke rose and changed shape. I blinked about a million times as I tried to convince myself that I was seeing things, but no matter how many times I blinked I realised that it wasn’t going away and that the longer I stood there the more the figure started to look like…well something that was alive.

  It was now that the thing started to move towards me; well it floated towards me actually. I could feel the urge to run but I thought I was in such a state of shock that I was not even sure if running would help, but as this thing started to get closer to me my feet finally moved. I turned on the spot and started to sprint to make it to the end of the alley and just try to get away.

  I felt something on the back of my head before I could even make it more than ten steps. I felt something suddenly grab my hair, but the touch was so light I barely thought it was there, but it was because even though the touch was light, the pull was strong. It grabbed onto my hair and because I hadn’t stopped running it immediately pulled me back. The pain against the back of my head killed, but it was gone very quickly because in the next second it pulled me down and my whole body slammed into the solid concrete floor.

  The back of my head was the first part of me to hit the pavement and the impact kind of blurred my vision for a second and made the rest of me felt numb. I didn’t feel the pain on my head that I knew should be there, I didn’t’ feel anything to be exact and it was rather frightening. I tried to blink and I thought about moving but before I could even attempt it, I froze into place.

  My vision had become very clear all of a sudden and the only thing I saw was that thing. The smoke thing now hovered above me as I lied flat on my back. It was looking down on me and I realised that it kind of had…a face or something like that. Where the eyes should be it was dark, but curved in like eye sockets and it was the same with the mouth, just a type of curve, but I could feel it looking at me. I was terrified and I wanted to scream but my throat felt like it had suddenly clamed up. I had no idea what to do.

  “Where is the dagger?”

  Its voice wasn’t even like a voice. Its mouth slightly moved, or at least I thought so. The words kind of echoed around me. Its voice however, reminded me of the devil. It was a low and rough sound that I could hear, and I felt like I could only hear the voice in my head, like it was not actually there. I squeezed my eyes shut at this point and I realise and I felt a small droplet roll down the side of my cheek and towards my ear. I knew I must’ve been crying and I wasn’t surprised. I had no idea what was going on and I didn’t know what to do.

  “Where is the dagger?!”

  My eyes snapped back open to see that the head of thing was closer to me. The thing was dark, and that made it seem like there wasn’t light around us, it made it seem like there was no hope. I didn’t respond to it; I just wanted it to be over. I wanted to wake up from this nightmare and realised that this wasn’t real.

  “Tell me now, where is the dagger?”

  I just shook my head and let myself just continue to cry. I was going to die. For some reason that feeling in me was so strong that I was convinced it was true. Whether this was real or not, it didn’t feel like my life was going to go on much longer.

  What happened next though, only confused me. One minute I was staring into the eyes of what I believed to be death and the next the thing I knew, the thing was thrown to the side, like a piece of meat. I jumped and abled myself to sit up slightly. My eyes immediately scan for the attacker and I found myself even more frozen than before.

  It was the boy. It was the boy from the party and from the restaurant. Now he stood in the same clothes that I had seen him in both times, with the leather jacket and the hood, but for once the hood was down. I also noticed a new feature to his outfit, one I hadn’t seen before. He stood face to face with the thing and a sword like weapon in the boy’s hand, his new feature. I had never seen anything like it. The sword didn’t even seem like the right word to describe the weapon the boy had. It was not made of metal; it didn’t exactly have a handle either. The weapon was a light yellow colour, something that was almost see-through. The only thing about it was it made it seem like the sword was the shape of it, and the curve that seemed to be a sharp edge of the blade.

  The thing was not impressed with boy and I heard a low growl before the thing threw itself back at the boy. The boy was more than ready for it though and took a swipe with his sword before it could even get close. Although, I had no idea how a sword was going to kill a cloud of smoke, but the boy seemed confident with every move. His sword sliced through the arm of the smoke thing and the smoke thing become distracted, but only for a moment. Before I could even blink the arm disappeared for only a second, into a thin cloud of smoke and like magic, the smoke swirled in the air and re-j
oined back to the thing and formed its arm once more. I swear I head the thing laugh, but I saw the boy smile.

  The boy jumped very quickly back away from the smoke thing as it tried to grab him. The boy ran back to wall behind him and the smoke thing advanced towards to boy. It was a split second but the smoke thing managed to grab hold of the boy’s arm but it did not seem to hinder the boy in anyway. The boy used the wall and almost walked up it so he could then flip himself around. The smoke thing lost its grip and it became very confused. The boy took his chance and I watched him as he plunged the blade directly into the things chest.

  At first nothing really happened. The boy stepped back and left the blade in the thing’s chest and waited. It was very sudden then. The body of the creature started to crack, and streams of yellow light started to flood out at every angle. The light then becomes so blinding the whole alley disappeared in front of me and I instead only saw the yellow light.

  I felt myself turn my head away and shield my eyes from the explosion. I didn’t want to turn back. I didn’t want to look back at all. I kept my eyes shut and my head towards the group. I heard footsteps though and I kind of hoped that the boy would just walk away and leave me there. Maybe if he was gone I could pretend all of this never happened. Maybe even admit myself into hospital and spend the rest of my life as crazy person.

  “Are you alright?”

  I turned my head back slowly to see that the boy was now standing above me. His height reminded me of Rhys. I’d never been so close to him before, and I’d never been able to notice how blue his eyes were and that his hair had kind of highlights in it, yet still remained this dark sort of chestnut brown. His hair was such a mess though that it left a type of shadow above the top as he stood directly into the sunlight. He kind of felt like a dream in some ways. I had never been near him before. Before I could just have imagined he didn’t exist, but now, I couldn’t run from this.

  “You’re bleeding,” he said as he leant down towards me.

  I felt myself frown and I knew where I should be bleeding. I lifted my hand to head and touched where I knew I had hit the ground. I looked down at my hand and I saw blood on my hands and I looked back up at the boy. I realised now my vision was blurring and my head was spinning. I was pretty sure I was about to pass out and as my eyes lids started to fall I think he realised what was happening, and I was pretty sure at that point, I passed out.

  My theory on passing out was soon confirmed when I felt myself starting to come to, I knew was I walked up, but I quickly realised couldn’t really open my eyes, and I couldn’t really move either. I could feel someone’s arms around me though and I realised I was being carried. At this point I felt like I was being carried up a flight of stairs or something because I felt myself kind of bobbing around. I heard the sound of what I suspected to be a door opening when I stopped bobbing, which was soon followed by a voice.

  “What the hell?!”

  The voice belonged to a girl, a girl I quickly managed to be blonde and curvy and beautiful just from the way she sounded, even if she was shocked when she spoke.

  “She was attacked.”

  It was the boy. The boy was carrying me and I felt myself being placed down on something soft and his arms disappeared from me.

  “Attacked by a what?” the girl’s voice became slightly louder.

  “It was a smoke demon. It’s been following her for the past three days,” the boy answered, he sounded slightly frustrated by the girl’s questions. “It attacked her today and I had to step in.”

  “You killed it?” the girl sighed slightly.

  “There wasn’t anything else I could do,” the boy said to her. “It was going to kill her. Can you just get Felix for me? She’s bleeding and she keeps slipping in and out of conscience.”

  I heard more footsteps and everything was completely silent for a minute, and I wondered if I had passed out again. I didn’t know what to think. It had been a crazy few days as it was, and now I didn’t even know what was going on.

  “I thought we agreed that we weren’t bringing girls around,” the voice belonged to a different boy, it was kind of deeper than the firsts and I didn’t really get a visual picture in my head from his voice.

  “She’s bleeding, I need you to heal her,” the first boy groaned slightly.

  “Who is she anyway?” it was the girl’s voice again. “And why the hell would a demon attack her? And why were you following her?”

  “Oh, holy crap, she’s the girl from the party, isn’t she?” the second boy spoke and his voice was suddenly so close to me, and I wondered if he was leaning over the top of me, and that was confirmed when I felt him touch my head.

  “Yes, she is,” the first boy said strongly. “I followed her because she was looking into the marks. She saw everything that was in that room at the party.”

  “I thought you guys just went to the party to investigate if the owner was possessed or not?” the girl asked.

  “We did, and we found a whole room of research,” the second boy said. “She found it too obviously.”

  “I saw the smoke demon following her and I decided to keep my eye on her, okay?” the first boy said again.

  “And I take it the demon did this?” the second boy said.

  “I didn’t see what happened, I only saw it standing over her, and that’s when I stepped in,” the first said softly. “I don’t even know her name.”

  “Hmmm…her name is Lily Clarke,” the girl spoke slowly.

  “How the hell do you know that?” the first boy asked quickly.

  “Her ID was in her bag,” the girl said sweetly.

  “Hadley!” the first boy said sharply.

  “What?” she said softly. “You wanted to know her name.”

  “I didn’t want you going through her bag.”

  “Oh, lighten up, Isaac.”

  “Are you seriously telling me to lighten up, you-.”

  “Would you two quit with the arguing?” it was the second boy you jumped in right now. “She’s healed now and she’s probably waking up and I don’t doubt she’ll be able to hear us soon. And she’s probably scared right now; anyone would be after their first demon attack.”

  “Such a healer, aren’t you, Felix?”

  I realised that the boy was right. He didn’t realise that I was already awake, but now I was starting to have control of my body again. I was able to move my hand and my legs and I was able to open my eyes. I realised my head didn’t hurt and when I opened my eyes I realised I was definitely not longer in the alleyway anymore.

  I had been placed down on a sofa in what appeared to be a not every lived in apartment. I found myself looking around and next to me I saw a boy, but not the boy from the alley. He didn’t look anything like the other boy actually, although the hair colour was similar, his was well-kept and his face was kind of slimmer, and his smile was kind of warming. He had icy blue eyes though and looked into me with a worried expression on his face all at the same, while he continued to smile.

  The girl was standing near the end of the couch, leaning against the front of the counter that led into the kitchen. She wasn’t what I pictured from the voice, but she was slim and tall and I may have been wrong about the blonde hair, but her hair was just a little longer than her shoulders and it was a dirty blonde colour, kind of brunette in a way, it was hard to explain, but it kind of lightened at the bottom. She was beautiful though but she kind of held herself like that didn’t matter, like she was strong.

  When I looked over at the boy, the only one of them I had seen before and I saw he was looking directly at me and scanning my head. I jumped slightly and moved my hand to touch the spot on the right side of my head where before I had been bleeding, but now it felt like nothing even happened.

  “What the hell did you do?”

  I was now looking directly at the boy, even though I was aware it was the one next to me that had probably done something. I didn’t feel comfortable talking to that boy that, I hadn’
t seen him before.

  “Me?” the boy asked, standing up from the coffee table he had been sitting. “I saved your life, and he heal your head.”

  “Healed my head?” I inquired. “You can’t just heal my head.”

  “We should’ve thought this through more,” the girl muttered from the corner.

  “Yeah, thanks for that, Hadley,” he responded angrily.

  “Well, what did you expect?” the girl- Hadley- said quickly. “She would just wake up and praise you. You’re not as much of a chick magnet as you think.”

  “Guys!” it was the other boy who spoke now, the one close to me. He shut the other two up and then looked at me. “I’m terribly sorry about them. My name is Felix, and I know this is very confusing-.”

  “Confusing?” I interrupted him. “Confusing doesn’t even start to explain what’s going on here… or what that thing was.”

  “It was a smoke demon,” the boy said suddenly before Felix could jump in. “It’s been following you because you seem to be of some interest to it.”

  “Demons don’t exist,” I said bluntly.

  Hadley let out a little laugh.

  “Then what did you see in that alley? What did you see me kill?”

  He looked directly at me and I didn’t want to answer him. This couldn’t be happening. This wasn’t happening right now. I was in shock. That’s it. I fell to the ground and hit my head and passed out. There was no smoke beast, no boy that I had been seeing…but that wasn’t it. I knew I was awake and I knew this was real, but there was nothing that made me want to believe it.