Crux

The nights’ air was just crisp enough for a mind to wander into the depths of the subconscious without reservation. A girl, whose reality had turned upside down, was looking for a peaceful escape, a space between spaces.  When her eyes closed she would imagine walking backwards underwater without moving a step, slipping into a world only she knew. She drew in a robin’s egg blue breath, feeling the world around her unfolding to its fullest potential, every euphoric thought was felt and every emotion was beautifully displayed in a mask of color before her eyes.  Every night, for as long as she could remember, she would drift backwards with this blissful ease into the pristine world.

A clear scent of freshness filled the air; she took long, deep breaths which made the experience even stronger, she could almost cry from the sensory overload.

There were hydrangeas and chrysanthemum’s leading the way up to 5 monuments standing in the center of a marble garden. The smooth, polished marble stone clicked under her feet with every step. The challenge from dissecting the complexities of the statue's design always sparked her curiosity, every time she looked at it something new would present itself. She loved to admire this one particularly fantastic bronze statue on the far right of the garden. Perched atop a Victorian style, marble pedestal stood a strong, tall, figure; the only writing was on a plaque at the bottom of the pedestal which read:

“Novem 29, 3474”

As she stared with a pink mixture of adoration and happiness, the beautiful face of the woman on top of the pedestal floated between an elegant beauty and a terrifying blurriness in a matter of seconds.

That glorious statue began visibly moving, not as a result of its’ weight; something was affecting it internally. She walked around the fixture, one careful step at a time, reading its’ condition over with midnight-purple perplexity on her face.

A sheer, orange wave of curiosity blew over her, she fought to keep her eyes open, but electric yellow terror made her eyes squeezed shut. Only for a moment.  

The creases from the ever crippling position of the monument caused the bronze to flake off in sheets. It was collapsing on itself, becoming more like a deflated beach ball every second. A blinding white haze of fear fell on her. It became hard for her to watch the statue crumble in a painful heap atop the pedestal.

The creature dripped loose, slimy, rotten skin on the immaculate marble as it crawled down on all fours off the Victorian pedestal. Its arms- as thin as rails- snapped from the bones being so brittle. It struggled to drag its weak, boney body across the smooth marble floor. ‘Why is it coming closer? Can it see me?’ Her brain was squirming to figure out the creatures next move, but all she could focus on was its’ shrunken jaw and her red-tinted reflection in its malicious black eyes. Its stared at her as if a twine rope were connecting their souls; injecting a direct line of intimidation into her. She took 2 gliding steps backward, gently placing her heels on the white stone. She was still trying to figure out what had just become of the once Olympian monument she so adored. Its’ shrunken jaw, covered in shadow from the rapidly darkening atmosphere lagged behind the gasps of air it was struggled to attain with every movement it made. Straining to breathe, its black eyes burned with agony, beaming a message of silvery wrath toward anyone in range. Panting and choking, the beast was making its’ way. The marble stone skinned the flesh off its bones, same way the bronze that once covered it, crumbled and flaked. One misstep caused the deathly frightened girl to fall back, she was vulnerable and this drew the hellion’s attention.   Her hands now moved in the same rhythm as the creatures but in the opposite direction, she scurried backward, kicking her legs higher than necessary in case the monster got too close. “Cruuux” “Cruuux!” 

‘The little devil talks,’ she repeated in her head until the brown, gravelly voice spoke again. A peach colored terror engulfed her body, making it harder and harder to maintain the physical work required to escape the bee-line of the ravenous, crippled demon. She fought the internal paralyzing fear for as long as she could.  

Crawling backward aimlessly brought her to the dreary side of the marble garden, which wasn’t by any means a garden at all. There were patches of rough, broken concrete 100 feet away.  She had never actually been near them but they were noticeable from a distance. The choppy rocks started to cut her hands turning bloody hand prints into dark streaks of maroon like railroad tracks for the ghoul to follow.

She began to reminisce inside a tangerine light in her mind; she thought about the years when it was so pleasant to be in this eternally secluded world.  She was protected by the puffy emerald-green haze of comfort when in the garden with the statues. Nothing could have ever prepared her for this fate, being that she never imagined it was possible for a statue to crumble in the way this one did.

Every muscle in her body was exhausted and glowing bright red. A gurgle from the beast, “cruuux!” ignited her fear once again.  That thing would have its way with the girl who had done nothing to offend it in the first place. 

Her arms finally gave out; the back of her head hit the ground with a scrapping pound. A straining murmur “cruuux!!!” escaped with every foot the frail body gained by rolling and dragging itself toward the girl.  After the 112 foot pursuit, Crux’s bloody outstretched nub of a hand finally touched her ankle, with more force than expected. Crux lay flat against the ground, heaving itself closer to the girl, intimidating her with gargled moans and grunts, “cruuux.”

Just as Crux’s grip began to tighten around her ankle, the absence of earth under her hand rang out with a red steak across her eyes. She became very aware of a warm, tan heat covering her chest and back, as if water had just saturated her already sweat stained t-shirt. She couldn’t feel her limbs, the peach colored tingling sensation in her chest made up her entire being in that moment. Her “shirt” was being lifted off like two clasped hands slipping past one another, the contact was fleeting without any sign of stopping; she felt terribly unnerved. She weightlessly fell backwards through mid-air, the unknown fear of what was to come returned, but after what she just experienced, it didn’t disturb her much.

That must have been the fall; the ominous cliff that everyone has lurking one step behind them. It engulfed these two tragically innocent beings without warning. Now, any new thought she had about the predator were just a dwindling, flashing pin holes in her memory.

 

 

Part II

Suddenly, air was unnaturally forced out of her lungs; she sat straight up, draining a bright yellow shriek out of her body. The equinox of pleasure over terror made her feel somewhat sane, being in the middle was always better than being on one of the two extremes; she was finally out of the space between spaces.  With every smooth breath, she took scrupulous notice of her surroundings.

A white bed sheet, a buzzing television mounted on the wall, a large window to the right.  She moved her toes about trying to get a feel for the reality of her body, it felt like she hadn’t moved a muscle in days.

The limitless being she had recently experienced was only a memory now, and attempting to tell anyone about it would leave for an unsatisfied conversation. Presently, she knew roughly where she was, but she couldn’t figure out why. The change in scenery was puzzling her; “could it have been a car accident?” she asked in a plum colored tone, “I don’t even remember getting into a car.”  

There was a knock on the door and two nurses entered. The short brunettes name tag read Barbara, and the taller blondes read Nancy. Nancy stared at the chart clipped to the bottom of her bed while Barbara injected her with a clear liquid.

“Does that stuff make for night terrors?” she asked with a half smile, waiting for the nurse to smile back.

“No, I don’t believe so. Feeling a little anxious?” she returned the smile.

“I guess so, I had a terrible dream; it can still frighten me now if I let it” she said, looking for pity comfort for her trauma.

 “She’s probably still groggy, she went through a lot” Nancy interjected.

“What do you mean?” She inquired while a small red fear grew in the darkness of her confusion.

“You were left at the ER last night, no purse, nothing." Nancy said.

"You're lucky, most people don’t survive falls from that distance” Barbara explained.

“A fall? From where? What happened?!” Slightly more agitated than before

Nancy turned on the television that was mounted on the wall directly in front of her after she closed the chart.

“A witness said he saw a girl running down his street screaming bloody murder and without warning jumped straight into a landfill that was easily 100 feet deep.” Barbara said recoiling to check if she had upset the girl.

 “Me?! What? No. Wait… WHAT?” she sputtered out nonsensical words from the shock of hearing the nurses’ explanation.

“Your mother is here, if you need anyth…” Nancy’s words became lost in the confusion of the situation.

“I’m insane, that’s all there is to it; I’m clinical.” 

Her mother rushed over with furrowed brow of concern.

“Honey, there was nothing I could do, you just started running, I didn’t know what, I…” Tears started to flow as the lavender heat in the room intensified.

“Mom, I don’t know what happened, I would never do something like that”

“Honey, there’s something I need to tell you, or show you at least.”

Her mother gently grabbed a loose end of the sheet covering her legs and pulled it back to expose her ankle.

“The nurses said you were admitted with this on your leg.” Her mother said in a cloudy tone.

A white, gauze bandage was over her right ankle, about 6 inches across in length; she sat up violently from the sight of it. 

 

The bandages came off in a fast tear revealing a magnolia pedal size gash on her outer leg and four long skinny red pedals on the inside.

“Look, you’re not crazy, in fact, far from it. There is no reason for us to hide this from you, but it would go against ethics, so I’m telling you this all in confidence, understand?!” said the brunette nurse who let herself into the room and my curiosity, closing the door behind her.

“I understand, please, go on?”

“There have been reports of people in this area who experience episodes similar to ‘night terrors’ and ‘sleepwalking’. They are usually struggling with some major issue in their waking life. It’s incredible dangerous, you could have jumped out of a 30 story apartment building like one man did. All the victims were reporting blackouts and physical trauma as well as the emotional trauma from the…"ahem"…episodes. There was a girl who was experiencing a particularly terrible episode one night and she was able to tell us what she was seeing as it was happening”

“It was you. You told us. You said there was a portal that you came upon after being chased by some sort of demon. “"The fall" caused you to come back to reality as it had done the nights before but…” her mother teetered off, questioning her place.

“We think that since you have that gash on your leg from the last episode, a part of you is still on the other side with that…thing.” Nancy concluded, but she wasn’t proud of herself.

The nights when the air was just crisp enough to allow her mind to wander with ease, the deformed, gaunt face of Crux appeared just as vile and horrifying as ever. The girl had been in the ICU for 5 days with no signs of improvement her injuries become more and more severe until one night, November 29^th the beast struck at the most vital place, her heart. The girl passed away from unknown trauma and a tremendous loss of blood.

Nancy and Barbara moved to new floors in order to escape any association with the ‘Crux Case.’