Escaping Shadowlyn

Our world is an ever changing mysterious entity. It is tight fisted with its secrets, revealing them to only a few. A person might get a glimpse, a taste, of something outside what we would consider the realm of possibility but just enough that no one else will ever believe what they saw. This was never clearer to me than when I fell down the rabbit hole. However, unlike Alice's rabbit whole mine wasn't full of grinning cats and tea parties, mine was full of monsters.

   The day began like every other normal Monday. My alarm started blaring at an unmentionable hour. I slapped at it until it ceased its persistent screeching. Just as I started to fall back to sleep I felt my bed start to quake as a miniature person squirmed into the covers next to me. The warmth from an extra body was not helping me wake up. I drifted in and out of sleep for a few minutes before a tiny hand started patting my face, “Sadie, I’m hungry.” I groaned and put an arm over my face. “Sadie.” A tiny finger poked under my arm and opened my eyelid, “Mommy’s in the shower, and I’m hungry.”

“Okay, Christy gimme a minute.” I grumbled

“Yay! Only one minute. You gotta get up any way.” Christy bounced her way off the bed.

“Go get dressed you little scamp I’ll have breakfast done by then” I shouted after her.

I threw off the covers and groaned when the cold air hit my skin. I padded out to the kitchen to check out the breakfast prospects. I played with the ends of my hair behind my back as I stared into the empty refrigerator. Hmm out of eggs, out of bacon, out of milk, slim pickings today; I opened the freezer and stood there staring at the limited options. A box of waffles near the back caught my eye. Only one left, looked like I was getting dry cereal for breakfast. I heard bare feet padding towards the kitchen, I turned to see my mom in her bathrobe liberally applying a towel to her damp hair. 

    She was beautiful her red hair and porcelain complexion made her look like she was always glowing, a trait that Christy had inherited. I on the other hand looked like a grunge goth girl wanna be with my dad's black hair and my mom's super white skin, or maybe more like a hobbit being five foot with zero inches at all. Mom had always said I was devastatingly beautiful like Audrey Hepburn, which made me feel a bit better. Mom smiled sleepily when she saw me standing in the kitchen and plopped her towel on the bar stool.

“Morning honey, what’s on deck for today?” She came over to give me a peck on the cheek and then started putting grounds and water into the coffee pot.

I closed the fridge and looked at the calendar. “I have classes till noon, and it looks like Christy has fun in the park after she gets out of school. What time do you go to work?”

“Hmm this could be tricky, I have a continuing education seminar at 1:30 and then I work from 2 till ten. Why don’t you take the car to campus, I’ll ride the bus to work.  If I get Christy a ride to the park with one of her friends can you pick her up?” She asked as she got out two mugs and put cream and sugar in both.

“Yeah that’ll work; also we really need some groceries I could go to the store after I pick up Christy if you want.” The waffle popped up in the toaster I shouted for Christy as I finished getting it ready for her.

“Sadie, not so loud please. Other people in the complex are still sleeping.” Mom scolded.

“Yeah, lucky them” Mom swatted me.

“Sassy pants, go get a shower. I’ll give you my ATM card before you go, just get essentials I don’t get payed till next week.” I headed towards the shower just as Christy came bounding down the hall from the room her and mom shared. “Breakfast’s on the counter munchkin.” I said ruffling her ginger locks.

 I climbed into a hot shower and let my thoughts wander as I went through the motions. The last five years had been a whirl wind of mom and I juggling schedules. It felt like I had grown up all at once in the few minutes it had taken for mom to tell me that dad was leaving us. I was thirteen then and the only thing on the horizon for me had been the prospect of a new little sibling, I remember being excited. However, at forty dad had been decidedly not excited to start back at the beginning of parenthood. So he went off to have a midlife crisis and I became a part time parent at fourteen. The water turning cold jolted me out of my thoughts. I finished showering and checked the clock as I got out, shoot running late, I threw on clothes and grabbed my school bag stopping long enough to kiss mom and Christy before running out the door.

                                    ☆☆☆☆

Typical, I rush to get to campus on time made even trickier by having to find a parking spot and class starts late. I sat with my books in front of me trying to stay awake; Mr. Brewer was notorious for pranking students that fell asleep in his class. Everyone rustled and whispered as we waited, Mr. Brewer checked his watch for the third time in fifteen minutes. He cleared his throat, “alright ladies and gents it looks like Mr. Wilde will not be gracing us with his presence today. Since his presentation is the only thing we had planned you are free to go. Don’t forget to copy down the homework from the board before you leave.”

                I gathered my things and slid my back pack on. I wondered why Nick would have skipped his presentation. We’d worked together on a lot of it and he had been really proud of his results. I got out my phone to call him as I walked out of the building towards the library. I got his voice mail, “hey buddy, where are you? Today was you’re big day. Call me.” The phone beeped loudly in my ear, huh lost reception that’s weird. I took a few steps in another direction to find a good spot and suddenly felt the sensation of floating. I looked down and noticed that my feet weren’t actually touching the ground. Funny how the brain processes things in the moment, feet not touching the ground okay that’s weird. No wait, not weird terrifying, suddenly the world around me snapped out of existence as if someone had flipped off a switch. Everything was black; I floated in the darkness for a moment then screamed and clawed at the air as I felt myself begin to fall.         

                                    ☆☆☆☆

              The pounding in my head jolted me from unconsciousness, ugh what had just happened. I blearily rolled onto my side eyes still closed. I could hear someone breathing near me. “Mom is that you?” I mumbled. “I just had the weirdest dream.” I opened my eyes and tried to pull into focus what I was seeing. I felt a shock of adrenaline as I realized what it was. Teeth. Long, pointy, way too many for one mouth; the face they belonged to was massive and an unnatural oily black color, all those painful looking fangs caused a severe under bite. After staring for a split second I did the only sensible thing I could think of. I sat up in the pile of dirty blankets I'd been laying on and screamed. Just then the door opened and before I could see the next big nasty thing in this nightmare I jumped up and shoved my way out. I ran through the forest, branches and vines lashed at my face. Bushes and rocks caught at my feet and caused me to stumble. I looked over my shoulder for a split second and ran into a wall; A warm, fleshy, breathing wall.  "Hello pink thing" it rasped through it's mouthful of teeth. "Where you go now?"