CHAPTER - 3
Within a second Prerna was flat on the ground and the back of her head slammed into the pavement. She lay in the middle of the road with, what she had previously thought to be, a frail being on top of her.
She swung and landed a hit with the fist interlocked with her keys. The key pierced through his cheek causing her to pull away in disgust. Blood dripped
onto her own cheeks as it dribbled down his chin.
Anger radiated from his body as he pinned her arms to the ground. Stronger than she'd anticipated, he held her down with ease. Holding her wrists with one hand, he used his other to pull the pepper spray from her limp hand and toss it into the street. He yanked the keys from her fingers so hard she feared he might've
broken a few.
"This," he said, rubbing his cheek against the cloak. "It doesn't matter, child. I will heal, but you."
He reached into his flowing cloak and Prerna thrashed beneath him in an attempt to free herself. Her efforts failed as he stayed atop her and revealed an old curved dagger. Prerna's vision blurred as she struggled beneath the beast. Undeterred by her efforts, he raised his hand into the air and plunged the dagger toward
her chest.
Before the dagger hit its mark, she thrust the right side of her body enough to throw the monster off balance.
While he attempted to regain his balance, she kicked until one of her legs, allowing herself the space to kick him off entirely. His body twisted in the air and he landed on the ground, face first, with a loud crunch.
Prerna scrambled to her feet, found the pepper spray, backed up a few yards and resumed her fighting stance, ready to kick his ass. Until he stood. During the assault, the cloak fell away, revealing the monster's entirely inhuman face. As if the terrifying pale flesh and needle teeth weren't bad enough, blood now 00zed from his teeth and chin onto the ground before him. Prerna shuddered as she stared into the two glacial blue spheres behind eyelids. What the hell was this thing?
The monster gathered himself within seconds and ran towards Prerna again, dagger raised.
Prerna squeezed the trigger of the pepper spray, aiming for his eyes. Undeterred by the liquid running down his face, he continued towards her as the spray dripped into his blood-soaked mouth. As he was no more than two feet away from her, a sharp, whizzing sound passed by Prerna's ear.
In the next instant, the creature fell to the ground with an arrow through his chest. The monster decayed before her; bits of flesh turning to ash and flaking off.
Within seconds the horrible attacker became mere
dust; ashes floating on the cool wind, glistening in the
street.
Prerna fell to the ground, covering her head with both arms protectively. Eyes wide, she shifted to peek through her arms at where the flying arrow originated. A figure rushed across the rooftops but disappeared before she could make out any identifying features.
She raised herself a little more, staring at the remains of her terrifying assailant. Her heart pounded in her ears as question after question began to formulate.
Was this mysterious archer her savior? Or something
else she should fear? What in the hell was it? And
What had this thing been before her?
The ashes lay outlined by the cloak mysteriously left behind. Her fingers trembled as she touched the shimmering remnants. She rubbed the glittery substance between her thumb and forefinger. Grainy and coarse as sand, a strong scent of strawberries
wafted to her nose.
She couldn't fathom what the thing was or why he'd attacked her. Why her life? How did she affect him, or his community- as he'd called it, at all?
Throughout her life she'd narrowly escaped death many times. But never, as far as she knew, by something inhuman. The events came in various forms but always appeared to be random accidents caused by her clumsiness or bad timing. Because of them, Prerna came to appreciate her life even more and didn't take many chances. Dying on the street in this insignificant North Carolina town seemed so unlikely: it was her main reason for moving to this place.
Compared to the city she'd grown up in, the crime rate here was practically nonexistent.
Prerna's fingers remained in the debris, mindlessly wandering until they touched a hard substance. She flinched, then pulled it out. In her hands rested the arrow that dropped the foul beast. She knew little about weapons and yet she felt this one was quite peculiar. The arroW wasn't wood or plastic but coated in a silvery-gray metal. The hilt of the strange dagger was visible in the remains and she grabbed it, too.
Prerna surveyed her surroundings again; there was nothing and no one in sight. Whoever helped her moments ago was long gone.
Wanting the hell out of there, Prerna rose with the dagger, arrow, and cloak in her hands, and found her stowed-away purse under the nearby car. She wrapped the weapons in the cloak and placed them inside the enormous purse. Jenn would want to study them later. He'd be able to shed light on these strange weapons. He researched everything from mythological creatures to ancient weapons and languages. His peculiar interests might finally be of
Use.
From inside her purse, she retrieved her work shirt and scooped up two handfuls of the being's dusty remains into the middle of her shirt. Using the hair tie on her wrist to baggie the contents in her shirt, she set the ballooned fabric atop the weapons in her purse.
She looked both ways once more then grabbed her keys from the ground and ran like a sprint-runner the rest of the way home.
He gulped for air but there wasn't enough. Sweat drenched his face and chest. He ran through the woods, an animal chasing him; something enormous and hairy like Bigfoot.