The Dangerous World

Chris never knew that anything in his life was strange until he met Rachel Thomas. After that, everything in his life began to make sense.

The reporters were everywhere, and I was confused. I didn’t know how to feel. One of the reporters came over to me and put the microphone close to my mouth.

“Tell us,” she said. “When did you suspect that something was wrong in your life? How did you know that something was different?” I looked at her and didn’t respond. I could still feel the tears streaming down my face. They were hot compared to the autumn air.

“I don’t think that’s necessary.” I said, turning away from the cameras.

“Please.” she said. “I just want to know a couple of things. It won’t be long.” I hesitated.

“Okay.” I said quietly.

“Perfect.” she gave the camera man a thumbs-up. He started the camera,  and returned the signal back to her.

“Chris, tell me, have you ever experienced anything like this before? When did you realize that something about your world was different?” I thought for a while. That was a stupid question to ask.

“I’d never noticed anything weird. The only time that something had ever been strange was when my brother tried to bite me. I was six. At the time, I thought that he’d been playing around with me, so I never did anything about it.” she nodded.

“So when did this occur?” she asked, acknowledging the scene around us. “I want to know everything.”

“I don’t know that I can do that.” It was too hard. I knew that the minute that I started over, started to tell anybody about what had happened, I was done.

“Come on, Chris.” I stared at her for a long time.

“Okay.” I said shakily.

~~~

A few weeks earlier I had been taking pictures for class. I was majoring in photography, so anything and everything that I could get my hands on was an opportunity to turn a class into a career. The flash went off, and she came running toward me.

“Don’t do that! Turn it off!” I looked to the direction of the voice. She was shorter than me, on the taller side. Her eyes were soft, and her ears were slightly pointed, and her skin was fair. Her hair was long and dark. It contrasted from the rest of her. I glared at her.

“What? I’m working on something for class. It’s a free country, anyway. You can’t tell me what I can and cannot do.”

“Please! If you continue, something terrible will happen! I know it! Please trust me!” I looked at her. Her eyes were full of worry. I put the camera back in its bag and walked out of the alley. She followed me.

“Thank you. I didn’t mean to be rude. I’ve been in the same scenario once before. It was horrible. I couldn’t let that happen again.” I stopped.

“You couldn’t let what happen again?” I asked. I looked at her, and she averted her eyes.

“I can’t tell you. I’m not sure where you are with the whole situation just yet.” I was confused. Nothing she was telling me had started to make the slightest bit of sense.

“What situation?”

“This is exactly why I can’t tell you. You don’t know anything.”

“What could I possibly not know?” she hesitated before saying anything more.

“I can tell you only a little bit. But I can’t tell you here, and I can’t tell you now. Meet me tomorrow at the old motel. I’ll explain more, but until then, I can’t tell you anything.” She began to walk away.

“Could you tell me at least one thing?” She stopped and looked at me. “Could you tell me your name?” she smiled.

“It’s Rachel.” she said. “Rachel Thomas.” she walked away and didn’t look back at me. I didn’t know if she was planning to meet me, but I could hope, right?

~~~

She lead me into a dark, cramped room. The only things that I could see was the furniture and other miscellaneous items strewn anywhere.

“You’ve brought me here. What do you have to tell me?”

“I don’t know how much you know about my world. Up until a year ago, I didn’t know anything like it-or me- existed.”

“Like what?” she began to talk slowly.

“I was dying; in some healer’s home in Europe, I think. All I knew was that I could’ve died at any moment, but I never knew when. As I took my final breaths, something happened. I didn’t know what at the time, but suddenly, I was in a hospital here. I had a different name; a different face. Somehow I’d kept my memories of my former self.”

“That doesn’t make any sense.” I said. “That doesn’t happen. How-”

“I’m an elf, Chris. One of many mythical creatures living in your realm, and you never knew.”

“An elf?” I asked. “Like Santa’s elves?” I looked at her, confused, angry, and upset.

“Not those kinds of elves.” she said. “I never knew it, because all of my relatives and ancestors had died when I was very young, but I am half elf, half human. Elves possess the power, when in a near-death experience, to change forms. I was nearing death, and naturally, took the form of someone else. There are many complications that take place because I am a half-blood, however. You could say that they’re like mutations in my DNA. Occasionally I shape-shift. I lose control of my thoughts and memories and become a monster; an outsider to the normal world.

~~~

Suddenly my dreams weren’t dreams anymore. My mind was an explosion of creatures I didn’t know existed, and things that Rachel told me that I never could have imagined possible. Every now and then I see Rachel dying and being revived, but it’s only in my head. Every time I’m around her, her features change. Because of what she told me, the people around me aren’t people anymore. All I see is creatures, not humans.

~~~

“Chris, are you okay?” Rachel asked me. I stared blankly at her.

“Yeah.” I said quietly. “I just… can’t concentrate real well.” I stood up and walked to the door of my apartment. “I just need a little bit of fresh air.” I walked out and closed the door behind me. I stared up at the cloudless blue sky. How is any of this real? I thought to myself. I heard the door open and close softly behind me. Rachel walked to where I was standing.

“Are you sure you’re okay?” she asked. I couldn’t look her in the eyes.

“Yeah.” I said. “This is all just so-” I paused. “Unreal.” she looked at me, and we made eye contact for a split second before I looked back to the ground.

“It’s like the more you tell me, the more nightmares I have.” It was true. We’d met up every day since the first day I met her. Some days we’d talk about her realm and the creatures like her. Other days, we’d sit and talk about our aspirations for our lives. She told me that she wanted to live like a normal person, but she didn’t know what normal was. She wanted to become an artist. I admired her for that. We were so young, but she had so much wisdom. She was truly like no other girl that I’d ever met, and it wasn’t because she was an elf.

“Every day, all I see when I look at you is something different. One day, you’re yourself; young, intelligent, and charismatic, and the next, you’re a dragon, or a bear. Most times, you look like yourself, but your heart is stone cold and your eyes are as red as rubies.”

We stood silent in the sun for a long while. Neither of us spoke. I don’t think we had the heart to.

“That day in the alley.” she said. “I stopped you from using your camera because the flash has caused me to shift.” I looked at her.

“How do you know that you’ve shifted?” I asked her.

“Usually, I hear about happenings on the news or from witnesses. I know that I’ve done it, because my memories that take place while I’m shifted are cloudy. Most times, I don’t remember anything at all. It’s like falling asleep and waking up from a dream that was reality.”

~~~

We hadn’t talked for a couple of days after that. It wasn’t because I was upset. After she’d left that day, I was alone at my apartment. I sat with all of the blinds closed and did nothing but stare at the door. I was paranoid. Why shouldn’t I have been? I was living in a world that was foreign to me.

I sat like that for a week, until I got a call from an out-of-town number.

“Hello?” I heard nothing but moaning and gasping on the other line.

“Who is this?” I asked.

“This is David.” the voice said through the gasping.

My brother.

I hung up the phone and drove over to Rachel’s place. She opened the door and was taken aback by my appearance.

“We need to go now.” I said hurriedly. She nodded; she already knew. We quickly exited her house and ran to my car.

“I’ll drive.” she said. I didn’t argue with her. I was too afraid. My hands shook the entire ride there. We were silent. I don’t think that either of us had the courage to say anything.

We arrived at the place where David was: a dark, lonely mansion on a winding road. My jaw dropped when I saw it.

“I sense a great evil here.” Rachel said. “I fear that we might be too late.” We exchanged looks. I saw fear and determination in her eyes. Every day I fell more in love with her. She was my savior, in a way. She showed me the difference between my imagination and reality.

“We need to go.” she said quietly. I came back to my senses and nodded. We exited the car and walked to the door of the mansion. The whole scenario reminded me of an old horror movie, with the lightning hitting the top of the castle.

The walk to the door was long and steep. If I’d have been thirty pounds heavier, I probably would have died from cardiac arrest.

The door was tall and dark. my heart pounded loudly in my chest. I could feel it slowly rise to my throat, and I was more afraid with every step that I took. Rachel looked fearless. She opened the door and stepped inside. I followed cautiously behind. I could hear a man’s screams and moans coming from another room.

“David.” I said quietly. Suddenly the fear escaped from my body, and I was running toward the noise. Rachel followed closely behind me.

“Chris!” she said in between strides. “Stop! You need to listen to me!” I kept running. There was nothing that she could tell me that would have stopped me. My brother was in there. Soon I was only feet away from the room where David was. I stopped running and stood outside the door, listening to what was going on. The only thing that I could hear was moaning. I had to stop this. I looked at Rachel, and she nodded to me.

“Follow me.” I said. “I need your help.” I slowly opened the door and crept inside. She followed behind me. I scanned the room for David. There was no sign of him, but in the corner I saw a creature that was unfamiliar to me. As I crawled closer, something hit the floor. I froze. The creature slowly emerged from the corner. As it came closer to the light, I saw its features: long claws and sharp teeth, fur everywhere.

“That’s a werewolf, Chris.” Rachel whispered behind me. “Do you think that’s David?” I shook my head.

“It can’t be.” I said quietly. “He’s the most normal person in my family.” As I said that, I remembered my sixth birthday party.

“He tried to bite me.” I whispered. Rachel looked at me, confused.

“What?”

“When I was six, he tried to bite me.” I looked back at the creature. “I never knew about any of the creatures living in this realm. I thought he was playing with me. I never knew about anything weird my whole life.”

“So your family is different, too.” Rachel said, bewildered. “But you don’t seem to show any signs of being of magical blood. You’re perfectly normal.”

“But how did he end up like that? If he’s a werewolf, he should turn during the full moon. There’s not a full moon.”

“The only way he could’ve turned tonight is if he was trying to defend himself.” she said. “Someone was trying to kill him before he got here.” I looked to the figure on the floor. It laid there, lifeless, until it started to randomly convulse.

“Someone’s trying to get him back to his human form. The only way to do that is to get him to his most vulnerable state.” I didn’t look at Rachel anymore. I could only sit and watch helplessly as my brother convulsed on the stone floor. He did that for a couple of minutes, and then came to rest. Then, in front of my eyes, he was no longer a creature, but his human form.

“David!” I yelled. He slowly turned his head to me and smiled when he saw me. “We’re coming to help.” I said. Rachel and I no longer crawled. We stood up and ran to him. I lifted his shoulders and put his torso in my lap.  Rachel sat next to me.

“Hey, little brother.” David said quietly. He was very weak.

“How are you feeling?” I asked him. The smile faded from his face. He had trouble speaking.

“It kind-it kind of hurts.” he said.

“What hurts?” He thought for a while.

“I guess- I guess everything hurts.” I looked at him. My whole life, I never suspected that anything was different about him. I only saw him as my brother.

“It’ll be okay.” I said. “We’re gonna get you out of here.” he shook his head.

“He won’t let me go.” The lights came up in the room.

“Your brother has a point.” a voice said. I looked in the direction of the voice, only to find a man in the doorway. He was tall and thin, with pale skin and piercing blue eyes. His long light-colored hair fell far down his back.  His ears were very pointed. I looked to Rachel, whose skin became as pale as his.

“So nice to see you.” he said to her. She shook her head.

“Who are you?” I asked. He pointed to Rachel.

“She never told you?” I shook my head. “How rude of you, Rýneth. I’m her uncle.” The room was silent. Rýneth. Her true name is Rýneth.

“I thought you said that your family was dead.”

“They are. It doesn’t matter who he says he is. He’s not family in my mind.” she glared at him.

“Now, Rýneth. Despite what you think of me, we’re still related by blood. Great minds think alike. Together, we could do so much.”

“I don’t even want to speak to you. Why would I do anything with you?”

“You’ll do it-” he said quietly. “Because if you don’t, I’ll have no choice but to kill your friend. It won’t be that hard. He’s halfway there, anyway.” Rachel turned and looked at me sorrowfully.

“I’m so sorry, Chris. This is the only way. I just want you to be safe.” Then she winked at me. She had a plan. She slowly stood up and walked toward him.

“Forgive me, Celairon, for all that I’ve done.” she said, bowing to him. He nodded his head in approval and patted her gently on the head.

“You are so young, Rýneth. I understand that you do things that you do not yet understand. I know the struggle that you are going through. You have only just become your true form, and yet, you are still human. You have made mistakes, but I am willing to forgive you, as long as you one thing for me.” His cold blue eyes poured into her soft green ones.

“Anything, Celairon.”

“Kill them.” he pointed to David and me. Rachel looked up at him, to me, and back to him. She smiled.

“I will do anything but that.” she said as she pulled the dagger out of her jacket. Celairon attempted to block her arm, but failed. The dagger plunged deep into his chest.

“Only members of the same family can kill an elf.” he gasped. I watched as he fell softly to the floor.

“If I am to die,” he said, pointing at David. “You are to die, too.” He pulled the dagger from his heart and threw it at David’s. Then he fell still and silent. That was the last that we heard from Celairon. Beneath me, David gasped for air. The small blade had plunged through his skin, too.

“No!” I yelled. “No, no, no!” I looked at my brother. His blue eyes were bright.

“I’m gonna miss seeing your face everyday, little brother.” he said with a small smile.

“No, you’re not.” I whispered. “You’re going to get better. I promise.”

“You know that you can’t-” Every word that he said took more air from his failing lungs. “You know that you can’t keep that promise. I’m not dying, Chris. I’m simply moving on to the next adventure that this life has in store for me” He was so wise.

“Then I’m coming with you.” I said. He shook his head.

“No, you’re not. You’re going to stay here and find your own adventure. You have much more luck than I ever did. I believe in you, Chris. Don’t forget that.” I cradled his head.  He was silent for a while, and within minutes, my brother, my hero, was gone. Far away from this realm and onto another, starting his adventures that I would never accompany him on.

~~~

I couldn’t stop myself from crying at his funeral. He lived a short life compared to others his age. As his casket was lowered into the ground, the tears fell down my face, and it seemed as though they would never stop. As everyone left the cemetery, I stood alone, looking at the hole in the ground where David lay and would never escape.

“I don’t know why it had to be you.” I said. “It should’ve been me.”

“And what good would that do?” Rachel said behind me. “If you were to die, he would be where you are right now.”

“I don’t really want to talk about it, Rýneth.” I said quietly.

“Please, my name is Rachel. Rýneth is my true name, but as long as I live, I do not wish to be called by it.”

“I’m sorry, I just- I wasn’t sure what to call you.” I turned around to look at her, and I realized that in that moment, she was the only one that I wanted.

“It’s so hard.” I said. “I know why so many people go through therapy. Once somebody that you were close to is gone, your whole world collapses. The earth shakes beneath you, and you’re unable to keep yourself stable enough to keep moving forward. No matter how hard you try, you keep falling, until you don’t have the energy to attempt recovery anymore.” I fell to the ground. My shoulders shook from trying to keep in my cries. Rachel sat next to me and tried to console me.

“He’s here one minute and gone the next. I’m sick of it!” I yelled. “I’m so sick of everything!” She put her hand on my shoulder and left it there. It seemed as though a burden was lifted off of my shoulders as her calm hands pressed against my skin. I looked back at her. Her eyes were soothing, and some of the pain that I was feeling melted away. I stood up and looked at her. I held out my hand for her. She took it, and I pulled her to her feet.

“There’s something I’ve been meaning to tell you.” I said. “But I never got around to it, given the circumstances.” she looked at me and gave me a half smile. Before I could say anything more, we were engulfed in a downpour. I’d never seen so much rain appear so suddenly before. I grabbed her hand and we ran to the closest shelter. By the time we reached it, we were laughing.

“So, I wanted to tell you something.” I said quietly. “The past couple of weeks have been amazing. I’ve only known you for a short period of time, but I feel like I’ve known you for a lifetime. I want us to be more than what we are.” the smile on her face grew, and I knew that she felt the same way. I leaned in toward her and slowly kissed her lips. She was so pure.

“I can’t do this.” she said, pulling away from me.

“Why not?” I asked. Everything between us was mutual. What we had was real.

“I swore to myself, to my father, that I would never fall in love with a mortal.”

“Why not? I may be a mortal, but what we have is real.” I said. “Doesn’t any of that matter to you?” she looked sad.

“Of course that matters to me.” she said. “I just can’t do that to you. I can’t do that to myself. Do you realize that I will never die? I’m immortal, Chris. Everyone in my family is dead. There’s no possible way that I could die. Do you understand how hard that would be to see you die and have to endure it every day for eternity? I feel the same way that you do, but I can’t bring myself to move forward, because I know that I’ll get too attached.” I looked at her in awe as yet another tear fell down my face. She walked away without another word and I was left alone under the shelter in the cemetery.

~~~

I awoke from my sleep by a hooded figure standing in my bedroom, practically hovering over me.

“I don’t know who or what you are.” I said fearfully. “But then again, I don’t know who anybody is anymore.”

“I am Nix, leader of the Necromancers.” his voice was low and scratchy. “I know more than you think. I can tell you things you ever dreamed possible.”

“Why are you here? I never asked to be visited.
“There are things that you do not know about Rýneth. There is darkness in her past. Darkness that could destroy this realm, and everyone in it, even you.” I stared at him, though I could not see any part of him. I could only see his cloak, which hid his entire body in blackness.

“What does this have to do with me?” I asked.

“You are the only one that she has been in contact with for several weeks. She trusts you. I need you to kill her.”

“What? Kill her?” I asked, shocked. “I can’t do that. Why would I do that? Nobody can kill her, anyway. She’s immortal.” Nix laughed a soft, raspy laugh.

“You truly know nothing of this world.” he said. “There is but one item in this realm that can kill any immortal being.” he reached into the pocket of his cloak and pulled out a small arrow.

“This arrow.” he began. “Is the only object known to man or beast that can kill an immortal being. There is, one setback, however. The person that you are attempting to kill must be in their strongest immortal form, or it will not work. You must get Rýneth to become her strongest elf form. Then the only thing that you have to do is throw this arrow as you would a dart. There is no need to aim. As long as you’re thinking of your victim, it will hit its target.”

“But how do I get her to shift?” I asked.

“Another thing that Rýneth did not tell you is that she can shift when there is a quick change in her emotions. In this case, like most times, she cannot yet control when she changes. Her change will be unpredictable. The world is a dangerous place, Chris. Remember that.” He vanished before I could say anything more. I looked at the small arrow on the bed and let out a breath. I had to do this.

The next day I awoke to the clouds and no sight of the sun. The atmosphere itself was preparing for what was to occur today.

~~~

Destruction. Everywhere I looked, buildings had collapsed and cars had been smashed. She had already begun. Rachel was in her strongest form, and she would never know. I walked down the streets, to see no people. I heard crashes and booms nearby, and I knew that Rachel was near. I ran toward the noise and found Rachel in the middle of the town square. She stood tall on top of the fountain, which had now been smashed into a million pieces. Her skin was more pale than usual and her eyes were no longer a serene, cool green, but a fiery red.

“Rachel!” I yelled up to her. She looked turned and looked at me. Her eyes flared as she tore into my soul.

“You need to stop this!” I said. “Come back to me! Forget what anyone’s done to you! Forget about your past life and become human, like you’ve always wanted!” She only stared at me with disgust as I called to her.

“Go away!” she yelled, her voice strange. “You have no idea what I’m capable of, mortal!” He picked up a car and threw it at me. It came flying at my head, and I ducked to escape the blow.

“You know who you are, and this isn’t it, Rachel!”

“I said, GO AWAY!” She turned away from me. The destruction continued.

This was it. The time to change everything. I held the small arrow in my hand at eye level.

“I’m so sorry.” I whispered. I threw the arrow, and just as Nix had said, it hit its mark. Rachel convulsed as the serum on the tip of the arrow worked its way through her bloodstream. She slowly fell to her knees, and then fell completely to the ground. I ran to her as quickly as I could launch myself over the debris. As I approached her, I noticed that she looked like her normal self. I picked up her shoulders like I did David’s and held her until she took her final breath. Time replayed itself as I remembered the last couple of weeks. I sat there with her limp body and let the tears fall down my face. When I had finished, I put her body down and stood up slowly. As I turned around, I saw the entire town behind me, and I was surrounded by newscasters and reporters. I did something that they loved, and yet, I still ended up hating myself for it in the end.

~~~

“I just have one more question for you.” she said. “If there was one thing that you could tell the children who looked up to you, what would you say?”

“A wise man once told me that the world is a dangerous place, and he was right. I want everyone to know that. To know that I didn’t do this to be recognized by hundreds of thousands of people, but because I wanted to make this world safer for everybody living in it.” the reporter smiled at me and signaled for the camera man to sign off. He took the camera off of his shoulder, and the entire news cast walked away. The reporter patted my shoulder as she walked off. Finally, people understood.

As I started to walk back to my apartment, I heard a voice. Her voice. I turned around to see if what I was hearing was actually real. There she stood. The softness that I had once seen had returned. We ran to each other and met in an embrace.

“But how-”

“By using the arrow, you killed my immortality.” she said. “I’m not immortal anymore. I can live a real life.” she smiled at me and I returned it. My Rachel had come back. For the first time in what seemed like an eternity, I kissed her, and this time, she didn’t run away from me.

EPILOGUE

I swung Aelynthi around in the front yard . She looked so much like Rachel. We decided to giver her an elvish name that meant something along the lines of “rebirth”. Everything that had happened up until this point seemed like a dream that was nearly impossible to wake up from.

Rachel and I got married shortly after she turned mortal. It wasn’t long after that we found out that she was pregnant. She was so worried that our child would turn out like her. We decided to ask Nix what he thought our chances of having a psycho baby were. Because Rachel was mortal, no magical trace would be passed on to our unborn child, therefore, it would be perfectly safe. After she was born, we found no reason to have any more fears.

When we thought our lives were starting to get less chaotic, we had another child, Corym. To this day, Aelynthi is four and Corym is two. They play together and pretend that they’re witches or dragons. Little did they know that those creatures were actually living among them.