Two hollow circles beam down at me in a faint red glow. Irises like two maraschino cherries beating down from the sockets.
'Derek? How!'
It sure looks like him but he's unimaginably more nightmarish, as if that's even possible.
It's so dark but his eyes glimmer clearly as if back lit, absorbing all light and bouncing it out of the depths. I feel the color drain from my face as I shrivel before them. My structured reality is crumbling to pieces.
His lips stretch back, exposing a dazzling row of beastly teeth. A cross between human and animal– the front two look pretty average but each that follows is progressively sharper. If the pattern keeps up the back ones must be like daggers.
Breath is stuck in my lungs, frozen in time, like I've been thrown into the oxygen sucking vacuum of space.
Resentment intensifies in the glowing eyes, but I can't bring myself to move other than violently quiver in place.
"That holy water was real cute," he says, the melted side of his face moving all wrong, "Allow me to return the favor."
With a crunch I'm flying backwards, whizzing past the barrage of trunks until finally smashing into one.
I crash down, nauseated, resisting the urge to throw up. The forest view sways as if loose in a raging tide. I come to, wincing with every shaky breath. I'm hardly able to locate where the pain is coming from, it's like I was kicked by two horses simultaneously from both sides.
A sharp puff of breath has blood spattering out, bitter and metallic. It's hard to breathe and may be more severe than broken ribs. I blink rapidly, trying to find a focal point as I take those short excruciating pants. Each intake has fire ricocheting from my center.
Then my vision goes haywire and those menacing red eyes are everywhere, dotting my sight like a strobe. He's got me. I can't do anything, I'm doomed. The ground disappears beneath as cold hands squeeze my throat and lift me high. My legs twitch and seize from air deprivation. My arms autopilot, trying to pull myself up. I can feel myself passing out as the dark circles close in.
The pounding agony in my head and a rough gasp of air force my return to confused consciousness. Muffled blood sloshes in my ears, overtaking all other sound. Ragged breaths slither through my pipes as I comprehend my rag-doll sprawl on a weedy floor.
It takes another moment to notice the red eyed demon knelt over me, holding up my bloody wrist. He's completely mesmerized by it. Glass shards jut out of my palm in pinkish crystals. Sparkling quartz in the thin moonlight submerged in gushing crimson, sticky and miserable. He squeezes my wrist until it throbs and blood overflows.
I watch helplessly, red trickles over, rolling down my arm. He bends his face to it, terrible eyes closing as the mouth parts. A tongue lolls out, licking the trail from elbow to palm with fluid grace.
'The nightmare is real.'
His eyes drink me in as I fade in and out. I watch him lift away, head tilted as if to take in the taste. Even licking his lips as if my blood is something to be savored. Then the moment is gone with a red stained hiss and those imminent teeth strike down. I hardly have time to squeal, his fangs slice open my arm like a razor.
My breath quickens with every pulse. The pace accelerating with each pull from his mouth. He's dragging me from inside out, sucking me in. My inhales are irregular, short like a hyperventilation but the out breaths are too feeble.
He wrenches himself off my wrist and sighs with visible intoxication. His motions are a blur. All a fuzz of blending shapes. My vision is focusing and unfocusing like putting on and taking off prescription eyeglasses over and over.
My arm thumps to the ground, eyelids fluttering to stay present. Derek has vanished. Where'd he go now, was he ever really here? My head is spinning.
Struggling to get proper air, I muster a deep breath. I hear a crackle as my lungs expand, a pang of stark agony ripples through. I'm starting to feel cold, I can barely feel my arm. It might fall off and die.
If I weren't so mangled I would have leapt out of my skin noticing Derek occupying my opposite side. He hovers low, face too close to mine. I'm lost in his hellish crimson orbs sucking me in like a vortex. I inhale a drawn out wheeze for far too long before my ribs stunt the action.
His attention fixed on my neck, fingers coaxing my head to the side with a push. I tremble, feeling tears escape, rolling down my dirty face.
Those teeth plunge in.
My scream is a gurgle as the awful jaws clamp down on my throat. I feel myself start to drown in the labored breathing, lungs filling slowly. Panicked but too exhausted to fight back. Bubbly, wet, I'm sinking into dread. My head melting as if it's becoming a part of the ground, my soul is being torn from my neck.
'I'm going to die...' My thoughts are a cloud thickening over my brain.
"No," I say but my lips barely move and no words come out, only choked gurgles.
The blues and blacks of the wilderness enclose me. I stare hopelessly into the fuzzy pitched wood. My cheek flattens against the dirt.
And in the dark, a peculiar shape emerges. I take a horrible heave as I make out a hooded figure among the distant pines. A cape flowing in the gentle wind.
'A Reaper? Is the Grim Reaper coming for me? Am I dead?' My aching fingers dig into the soil.
'NO! I can't die! Not here, not-' I can't speak, it's all jumbled shrieking in my dizzy brain.
I feel the pressure from my neck release. Derek seems to be shouting though it's impossible to make it out. It's like I'm submerged under water.
My head is a rock as I struggle to turn it, eyeing my attacker. Ears starting to clear as I move my head.
"You're no Reaper... get out of here! She's mine!" he barks at my hallucination. He's staring straight at it, can Derek see that thing too?
The Grim Reaper doesn't leave and I begin to despair. It's looming, anticipating. An omen of my demise.
Derek settles back into killing me again. I say a prayer of gibberish as the words aren't really making sense right now, jerking myself back awake every time unconsciousness threatens to overtake. The only thing really making sense right now is the fear. It's waiting for me to fall asleep and I'll never wake up. Death itself has come to reap me.
I gag as that Grim Reaper goes from stone to rocketing toward us. The speed is unreal, his feet don't appear to touch the ground. He glides like a horrifying apparition of the night.
A feral growl from my side lifts the hair on the back of my neck. Derek is on his feet, defensively crouched.
The Reaper leaps over my body like a steed and dives at Derek. Knocking him, slaming his chest. Sneakers skid over the friction of stones. Derek slides yards away yet remains upright, retaining balance.
Why would it go after him and not me? My mind is a fog, hindering my ability to really understand. They seem to be moving too fast, it's blurry as paint in water.
Derek recovers and swats as Death advances. Fingers like claws as they rip into the cloaked arm. Alien swift, almost teleportation, that dark figure invades Derek's flank. The reaper seizes his aggressing arm.
A guttural howl surges through the night. Bones crunching. The accompanying scream. I hear the muffled stretch of muscle tearing apart. A limb flies off in shower of red. Filthy rain pattering the earth. Derek's severed arm slaps the ground and rolls to a stop with a few bouncy thuds.
Enraged, the howl turns into a roar. Derek swipes at the Reaper's gut. Claws passing with a wet tear of fabric.
A hiss slithers out of the hood. Only a creature that crawled out of hell could make such a sound. A cobra-quick hand snaps up Derek's remaining arm. Limb popping, snapping, unnaturally bent. I'd flinch away if I had the strength.
Death sweeps him like a dance partner. Flipping him, sending his body skipping through the weeds. Shoulder blades plowing the gasping dirt in a dry puff. The monster's hollow snarl fills the woods. Circling to finish.
Derek twists back on his feet. Crouching low. Solo hand to the ground. Shuffling backward to keep the Reaper face front. Ruby eyes beam as clear as daylight, warning Death back.
The cloak ripples in pursuit, no escape. The phantom drift ramps to a charge.
Derek comes to a splintering halt as if backed into a corner. Rearing for an attack. Lunging forward. Mouth wide, a fanged display aiming for the throat.
Taloned hands whip out, the Reaper catches him midair. Head fastened in a magnetic vice. Derek's fangs snap at the cape clasp.
The thing screams, a haunting cry like no earthy animal. I watch the glint of it's wicked jaws. They slash forward. Sinking into Derek's throat. Crushing, ghoulish slurping. A nauseating noise like a rotten watermelon smashing against the floor for that beast to gobble down.
The hood takes a vicious yank, ripping sinew free. Derek's face is a perfect nightmare as the light fades from his burning eyes. The head flops. Barely attached as his body clings to a paling existence.
The hood spits a chunk of flesh then leans back in to greedily lap at the mutilated neck. The sight makes me want to shriek.
Then I almost do. Without warning Death stops gorging to stare straight at me. I can see clearly into the hood, skeleton faced with blade like teeth, black sockets plunging into mine.
Frozen in horror I can only blink, but I must be losing it. The Reaper is back to ingesting Derek's remains, the face entirely concealed by the hefty cloak. But that image of that bleach bone face sears with permanence. I don't know if what I saw was real but jolts me back to cognizance. I'm more scared than ever to die.
This is all too hellish to be real. Am I already dead– is this hell? I don't think I did anything deserving of hell.
The hood pulls up, gasping for air. It's hand cocks back before plunging into the corpse like a sword. It sounds absolutely revolting like a fist being shoved into a jar full to the brim with jam, sucking on the way out as it retrieves a hunk of meat… Derek's heart. I don't want that to be the last thing I hear, but it may be. I'm only prolonging the inevitable.
'My last moments next to his butchered corpse.'
Like a heathen ritual, the cloaked monster holds the heart above its head. He crushes it, letting the blackened blood sprinkle down, lowering the heart into his hood. To his mouth, the sickening slurps give it away.
It's so cold now. I can feel my lungs drowning with each breath. I'm barely clinging to life, it's agonizing. I should stop fighting but I'm afraid to let myself go. It wasn't supposed to end here.
I lose sight of the Reaper, but he has to be close by. Derek's ravaged carcass is flung unceremoniously on the ground.
A lung full of blood throws me into an unbearable coughing fit. My body has had it, it's begging me to give up. I stiffen as my lungs cry for air while my ribs cry for morphine. I somehow manage to pull in enough oxygen to prevent blacking out.
A rippling cloak catches my wavering attention. Death is standing over me, peering down, oversized hood still obscuring his features. I can't see anything except two icy ethereal rings. Two glowing eyes fixed on my face.
My time's up. He's come to reap me.
Impulsively, I beg to be spared but only sticky unintelligible gunk spews out. I grab hold of the edge of the cloak in desperation and it's solid, not a spirits' cape. The eerie blue circles shift inside the dark hood to examine my anemic grip then back to my face.
There's a long pause and then an impassive angel voice actually answers my incomprehensible plea. An unexpectedly feminine voice.
"You've sustained excessive wounds, lost too much blood," she says, "It is in your air passage. You cannot be saved."
'This is it then?' I feel a wash of true despair as my vitals begin to shut down. 'I can hang on just a little longer. What will I.. I.. what?'
I can hardly form a cognitive thought. I grip the robes even tighter, straining to think, to say anything. I peer into those frosty eyes, it's the only thing I can do.
"but," I swallow down the blood and rasp, "I crossed over..."
The Reaper doesn't respond or react, just stares. I wonder if I even said anything at all.
'But I followed my hunch, damn it! My hunch wouldn't lead me to my death, would it? Would it!'
"The barrier," I moan, "I crossed it…"
The hood tilts slightly.
Suddenly, a calm creeps in. It all melts away and I no longer feel the fear.
'So be it.'
Maybe the Grim Reaper will take me away, but I'm going to live the rest of my life, even if it's only for a few more seconds.
I hold that haunting gaze for what feels like harrowing hours. The Reaper like a gravestone statue before me, only the cape twirling loose in the breeze and my stiff fingers never release the edge.
I hold on as long as I can, never blinking once, until death stakes its claim.