Little Hidden Darknesses

Midnight came and gone, and I still couldn’t sleep. I kept rolling around, my eyes snapping open every time I started to doze off. The past two days whirled around in my head, everything and anything I couldn’t understand. My mum’s letter. The awful thing she supposedly did. The Vinsants, and how they had lied about ever knowing her. Fernando. The fog.

The fog?

My eyes snapped open once again, only this time I sat up. I rubbed my hands across my face. My damp, sticky face. Sweat trickled down the curve of my back, gluing my shirt to my skin. Not because I was hot, but because I wanted something. It. I wanted the fog.

Without intending to, I slid out of bed and approached the window. I reeled up the blinds and gazed out at the parking lot, scanning it for any Vinsants who might be lurking around.

When I failed to spot any, I unclipped the window and grabbed the bottom two corners. I didn’t push it open right away, but took a moment to breathe. To consider the consequences.

Oh, to hell with being cautious.

I yanked open the window, all the way to the top, and the fog billowed inside, stroking my skin. The moment I felt it enter my lungs, my chest opened and my sweat dried up.

A spark travelled to my eyes, to every part of my body.

Bits of gold reflected in the window, brightening with every breath. I turned and strolled to the mirror, less afraid this time. A golden-eyed, golden-veined girl stared back at me, a freak in any sense possible. But she wasn’t a freak. She was me. And I still felt like myself.

Well, mostly.

“What are you?” I asked, though I knew my reflection couldn’t answer.

The question echoed in my mind, even as I touched the bottom of my eyes, widening them a little. The gold in my irises resembled flames. Sputtering and withering. In some way, I considered it beautiful. In another way, it revolted me to the pit of my core.

This couldn’t possibly be normal. Humans didn’t glow, monsters did. Creatures of the night.

I stepped forward, out of the fog, and the glow began to fade. It only brightened again when I stepped back, allowing the billows to coil around my feet and run in between my toes.

So, that’s it. The fog.

While it didn’t kill me, it still affected me. Whether or not in a good way, I couldn’t tell just yet.

Probably good, since the moment my body lit up, I knew I wasn’t alone. I felt her, even without seeing her: Branka. I sensed the pulse of her heartbeat, the warmth of her breath in the evening briskness. When I looked around, the room deemed empty, save for myself.

But I wasn’t alone. And neither was she. Another heartbeat accompanied hers, somewhat slower. I felt his masculinity, the testosterone in his veins. Aillard. I was sure of it.

And I was sure they felt me too. Especially when I reached for my jumper and they scattered.

This only spurred me on, though.

I slipped on my jumper and left the motel room. The door clicked shut behind me, the only sound other than my heels transitioning from the deck onto the parking lot concrete. I walked slowly with my ears tuned, my senses heightened. But I needn’t sense them, as I saw them clear as day. Two glowing figures, by the trees straight ahead of me.

The moment they took note of me, they set off into the trees, into the densest part of the fog.

“Wait, come back!” I called after them, then sped up into a jog which shortly turned into a sprint.

My feet carried me in between the trees, a void of the darkest darkness. I couldn’t see a thing. Nothing. No one. But I needn’t see to know where everything was. Every stray branch.

Every wobbly stone.

Every thorny shrub.

Anything with so much as a trace of life filled my head, almost as if broadcasting its location.

I sensed Branka a little way ahead of me, and Aillard to my right. They were headed in the same direction, about to meet up. A jolt of energy filled my legs and I launched through the trees, my feet barely touching the ground and my lungs requiring barely any air. Within seconds, I caught up to them. Two beacons of light in an ocean without a horizon.

Two Vinsants on the run from the truth.

“Stop hiding! I know you’re there!” I cried out into nothingness. “Why are you stalking me?”

Branka giggled, then stopped in her tracks. “You hear that, Aillard? She wants to know why.”

I parted a branch to stare in the direction of her voice, but spun when Aillard’s came from the opposite side. I sensed him surrounding me, pacing as a hungry leopard, ready to pounce.

“We know what you’re up to, Eira,” he sneered, each word carefully rolling off his tongue.

“What are you talking about?” I got distracted for a moment, and suddenly something – someone – rammed into me from behind. He flicked through the trees even faster than I did, a mere flash of golden lightning. Aillard knocked me twice more, then stopped.

“We know why you’re in town,” he hissed, stopping in between the nearest set of trees. Moonlight filtered through the fog onto his face, and I could just about make out his jaw.

Another set of golden eyes materialised behind him. Branka. “We won’t let you get away with it.”

Then, they lunged at me. I tried to block, but they were too strong and I fell on my back, hitting my head. A yelp escaped my throat, along with all of my breath. My mouth parted to call out after them, to ask them what they meant, but I couldn’t manage a word.

Only exaggerated huffs.

“I’d leave town if I were you,” was the last thing Branka said before her giggles trailed off.

“Wh – What –” I couldn’t finish. My head throbbed and a dizziness washed over me. Even though I couldn’t see the forest, it spun before my eyes. Around and around and around.

I touched my head where I had hit the rock, then gasped. I had a rock-shaped gash, drenched in blood. “No, no, no,” I heard myself saying, though it didn’t feel like I was the one talking. Warm blood trickled down my neck, all the way into my shirt. The thought of it revolted me, frightened me to death. I struggled to my feet, both hands clutching my head now.

Stay awake, I told myself. Damn it, Eira, don’t pass out.

“Help!” I cried out, alas to no response. But I shouldn’t have expected anything less. Everyone in town ought to be asleep, and no one came out this way. Certainly not into the fog. Maybe if Alejandro heard me from the motel ... “Somebody, please! I need help!”

No answer.

I kept calling out as I struggled through the forest, no longer certain in which direction. With each step, each shuffle, my legs became heavier and my thoughts started to slur.

“H – Help,” I muttered a final time, my voice drifting off into nowhere.

I almost passed out, when I tripped over a root and fell with both hands in a patch of wet soil.

The fog parted around me, inch by inch, until the Vinsants’ mansion materialised in front of me. My fingers crawled forward onto their lawn, lush and green and lined with trimmed hedges. I wiped my eyes, just in case the blood loss had made me hallucinate.

But the mansion didn’t fade. I faced the back of it, the drawing room in which I first met them.

A breeze brushed past me from behind, rattling the every shutter of every window across the mansion. While they were all wide open, only one expelled light: the centre window on the topmost floor of what resembled a spiralling tower. I saw a woman’s silhouette against the light, staring down at me. Her hair whipped in the breeze, exposing her face, her glowing eyes.

Without the fog around me, I couldn’t feel her. And she couldn’t feel me. We both saw each other, though, and that proved enough to constrict my chest and wring my stomach.

Lilith.

The moment her name passed my thoughts, a flurry of footsteps came up from behind me, followed by gust of heated wind. Two figures ran past me, both kicking me in the side. I collapsed forward and groaned, watching as the fog tumbled back into the clearing. When I looked up, the mansion seemed but a dark, hazy skeleton in front of me.

“You better run, Eira,” came Aillard’s husky threat. “Mother isn’t happy. Not happy at all.”

“If you know what’s good for you, you’ll get out of here,” Branka added, her voice unusually pitched. Her nails scratched across my skin, sharp as claws. “Run back to your little mutt.”

“Stop it!” I shouted, alas to no use.

“We told you to go, Eira.” Branka raised her voice now. “And stay out of the fucking fog!”

My entire body throbbed with pain – my head, neck, ribs and knees – but I scrambled to my feet and used the trees to launch myself forward. I expected Branka and Aillard pursue me, to make sure I obeyed their orders, yet I no longer felt them around me.

All I felt was pain.

Pain and fear and confusion.

Whatever this was, whatever twisted game they thought they were playing, it certainly wasn’t normal. The Vinsants all glowed, and so did I. They accused me, threatened me, then attacked me. Attacked? Bile rushed up my throat. They were mad, the whole lot of them. And they’ve done something to me, like they’ve done with everyone else in town.

No wonder my mum ran away.

I latched my arms around a tree in an attempt to catch my breath. Whether or not my vision was blurred, I couldn’t tell. The mansion lay behind me, the spirally tower peeking out above the treetops. I felt Lilith watching me, even though she likely couldn’t see me.

I felt her pushing me away. Far, far away.

They were lying, and their behaviour proved it. They wanted to get rid of me, keep me from finding out the truth. Why, I was yet to find out. And about what, I feared I didn’t want to know.