The Afterlife: Savior

I swiftly ran down the hallway with my shoes in one hand, my heart pumping hard. My hand was almost on the doorknob.

BANG!

The sound came from the front door downstairs hitting the wall. I caught myself from screaming by placing my hand across my mouth. My breathing was panicked. Gabrielle was starting to moan inside the room.

“Oh, Katherine,” his voice sang from downstairs. “You can make a house look real nice.”

I silently turned around to look at the staircase. Footsteps thudded underneath me. I looked at where I put Michael. The door was still shut, but I wasn’t sure how long it would remain that way. I looked at the room beside of me.

The guns were downstairs in the kitchen.

“Katherine!”

 

                My eyes snapped open. The name still screamed in my ears. I felt like I had been hit by a train. The ceiling was made of rocks.  

                “Alex!” I gasped, dizzily trying to get up. I looked around and I was standing in a cave, but I was in water when Alex pulled me out. Alex wasn’t here. Did he go outside?

Ahead of me were the suns’ first rays peaking into the entrance of the shallow cave. I stood up and took everything in. My clothes were still damp from where I had been sleeping on them, but not too bad. I walked forward and into the entrance of the cave. I was on a hill in front of hundreds of trees. I could hear the waterfall just ahead.

                 I wrapped my arms around my torso.

                “I see you’re up,” a voice called. I unfurled my arms and quickly looked around. 

A man came from ahead and was walking towards me up the hill. His face was like Alex’s; sculpted and without flaws. His skin was sun-kissed and radiant. His hair looked like chocolate silk that blew with the cold wind above his shoulders. His eyes were the color of amber, glittering in the shadows casted from the sun.

I knew he was some sort of angel, but it wasn’t his appearance that struck me hard in the chest. It was the fact that he was wearing Matt’s clothes. From the black sweater to the dirty blue jeans. I couldn’t breathe.

 “I am here to send you a message,” the man said, his voice was soft like velvet. He stopped where he was and looked at me, his head cocked a little to the side.

“From who?” I asked, frowning in confusion. “Where is Matt? Why are you wearing his clothes?” I voice cracked from hysterics. “What have you done to him!” I screamed.  The man raised an eyebrow, but continued on.

“I’m sending a message from God,” the man called, pointing up at the sky. He had an invisible glow around him like Alex.

“Is he apologizing for his crazy angels trying to kill us?” I asked. I knew he was probably telling the truth. At that point I was ready to believe in just about anything, but I wasn’t very excited talking to angels after that night. Especially one wearing my friend and rescuer’s clothes.

                The man looked at me, let his hand fall to his side, and frowned. He wasn’t amused with my comment.

                “Do not speak of things you do not understand, Madison,” the man said, looking straight into my eyes. His voice was like crystals hitting wet, rotting wood. He continued walking up to me.

                “Then what message does he send to me?” I asked, trying to hide my nervousness. He killed Matt. That had to be the reason why he wore the clothes. All angles were naked when they fell, right?

                “He wants me to inform you that you are not alone in this battle, as it is a bigger situation than you understand.”

                “And what does that mean, exactly?” I asked. I wasn’t ready for his riddles. The man looked at me sternly as if I was annoying him.

                “It means that I am a friend to you and that I am going to help you find Alexander,” the man said.

                “If you’re a friend to me, why is it that you’re wearing my friend’s clothes? What have you done to him…” I asked frantically. The man stopped walking and stared at me.

                “Madison,” the man started, but rustling came from behind him and he turned to look. On his back were two, freshly-cut gashes on his shoulder blades. Blood was oozing through Matt’s shirt at the shoulder blades. Definitely angel.  

                The man turned to look back at me.

                “Something is coming. We need to leave,” he called up to me. I looked at the man fiercely.

                “I’m not going anywhere with you,” I said, backing up into the cave. More rustling came from ahead. I looked to where the noise was coming from, but the man didn’t really flinch. He just looked annoyed.

                “You must listen to me, Madison,” the man said. I didn’t budge.

                “After what I’ve been through, I have every right to say no to you,” I replied. The man licked his lips in irritation and looked away from me.

                “These feelings that I am having,” the man said, looking back up at me. “They are new to me, as I have never experienced them before. I now know why humans kill each other. It’s practically irresistible!”

                “Yeah because that statement is really going to make me want to go with you now,” I stated. I calculated how far he was from me versus how long it would take me to run away from him and make it.

“Come with me, Madison,” the man growled.  

The sentence repeated in my head. I leaned toward him and squinted my eyes.

                “Make me,” I spat. His eyes almost turned copper, but I didn’t care.

                “Would you listen to me?” The man spat back and I raised my eyebrows at him. The blood began to trickle down to Matt’s jeans. I took a few steps forward until I was at the entrance of the cave, ready to run. I had to find Matt and Alex.

                “Why would I listen to a stranger when every stranger I’ve met these past few weeks has tried to kill me except for two?” I yelled, throwing up two fingers at him. The man stopped glowering and looked at me. I must have said the right thing by his look.

                “Yeah, well-” he started, but I interrupted him.

                “I’m not listening to you anymore,” I said. I took a few more steps forward, but my breath caught.          A sharp pain radiated in between my eyebrows and I gasped, moving my hand to the pain. I cried out, but couldn’t hear it. I tried to grab a breath, but I couldn’t. I couldn’t move, I couldn’t think from the pain, I couldn’t scream loud enough to be heard. My eyes started to roll back into my head, but I tried to make it stop.

                I fell onto the cave ground and tried to make sense of it. It’s what had happened last time when I saw the demons. Just when I thought I was coming out of it, a loud hissing noise erupted from up ahead and leaves rustled in its wake, but it was coming quickly towards me. The sound sounded like the way a snake slithers through leaves, except whatever it was, sounded very large. The scene gradually went into slow motion. I looked up and saw another “me” that was standing next to me like I had been and was screaming and pointing. The sound was in a high pitched tone that rang in my ears. The scream was in slow motion as was the rest of the scene.

                 I sucked in a breath and gently lifted myself up. The man slowly whipped around and a giant creature emerged from the woods. Its body was like a snake except with black, charred scales for skin. It had human arms, but was much longer and looked like scaled skin over bones. The torso was like a skin covered skeleton, its head was a human skull with red pupil eyes and its teeth were sharp pointed like a snakes.

                The creature had its nose scrunched up and it stared at me with its mouth open in a snare. It had to have been eight feet tall at least, crawling with its hands and slithering with its body, coming toward me and the man. I quickly noticed that it didn’t have eyebrows or lips and when it blinked, it blinked sideways.

                “You’re next,” the creature hissed at me from its spot, but it sounded like it was whispering right next to my ear. Shivers ran up my spine and arms. I fell back down on the ground and stared at the creature.

                His head started to crush inwards while he laughed,

                “Madison!” I blinked a few times and realized that the man was crouched next to me, frowning. “What have you seen?” I furrowed my eyebrows at him in confusion. How did he know?

                The rustling noise came from ahead and I noticed that everything in the forest had grown impeccably quiet. I lifted a shaking finger in the direction of the rustling and then looked up at him. The man stood up and looked at where the sound was coming from. He began rolling up his sleeves just as a hissing noise came from ahead.

                 The man started speaking in a strange language that I had never heard before. He began making his way out of the entrance of the cave and down the slope, headed toward the hissing noise, his voice growing more fierce and loud with every step. The hissing grew as loud as the man’s voice and then slithered and crawled its way out of its hiding spot in the forest. The creature stared at me, its eyes dripping with intense hunger. Then it smiled. Cold stroked its fingers along my skin while I stared at it.

                The man grabbed a long, thick stick from the ground, swung it a few times. He brushed his fingertips lightly on the stick and then threw it at the creature, which quickly turned to the man. The stick struck into the creatures’ arm and it screamed loudly. Black ooze bubbled out of the creature’s arm and it growled at the man. The man yelled at the creature and then raised his hands into the air, yelling in, what I was guessing, the same language that he had spoken earlier. The sound of his voice was more demanding. The creature started clawing its way to him, digging up patches of dirt in its wake, but the man didn’t seem fazed. The man slowly drifted his vision down to the creature that was surely going to rip his skin off.  

The creature began to scream. It fell sideways and began to squirm with its tail flying up and down, pounding into the Earth with each strike. Dirt flew up in the air and the man jumped back just in time as the tail went flying back down near him.

I watched, paralyzed, as everything happened. The creature’s head was being crushed in with an unseeing force. It was like seeing someone getting beaten up by an invisible person.

“The f**k?” I asked out loud. I brought my hand to my mouth and stared in shock. The creature’s voice became nothing but bubbles and black slime. The audible crunching of its skull being pushed in made my stomach lurch. And it kept lurching until I finally doubled over and threw up whatever was possibly left in my stomach. It only lasted a few seconds until I was dry-heaving.

A hand touched my shoulder and I flinched away, nearly falling over.

“Don’t touch me,” I threatened. The man backed away, but didn’t look like he was very happy about it. “What is happening?” I asked, rubbing my very hungry stomach.

“A lot,” the man answered. I rolled my eyes and looked away. The creature was still lying on the ground, sizzling.

“My name is Colopatiron, but you can call me Cole for short,” Cole said. I just glared up at him, but didn’t say anything so he continued. “What you saw was a vision, given by one of Paschar’s sons, Jamaerah, who sadly did not choose the right path.” Cole looked over the demon on the ground. I stared at Cole like he was crazy, but I didn’t know why I would find this strange now. I rubbed my hand over my face.

“So what I’ve been seeing is visions… which are gifts.” Cole slowly nodded, looking back to me. “Lucky me,” I grunted.

“What questions do you have?” I stared at Cole with a blank expression. There had to have been a better angel to send down for me.

“Cole, I don’t think I can begin to start with how many questions I have right now,” I answered, getting annoyed. Cole smiled.

“What happened to Matt? I asked.

“They killed him,” Cole replied, showing no emotion.  All of the blood in me drained. Cole must have noticed because he grabbed onto my arm. I jerked my arm out of his reach and shoved a finger at him.

“Don’ you touch me!” I screamed. Cole glowered at me and grabbed me again. I tried to squirm but he was too strong to even do that. Cole brought me inches from his face.

“You will obey me now.” With that Cole pulled me out of the cave. I clawed at any of the skin that came in contact with my fingernails, threw myself at him, pulled in the opposite direction, but everything only seemed to make me tired. I sucked in my breath and kicked. Right before my foot connected with the side of his knee, Cole grabbed my leg, and still holding my arm, he swung me up in the air and placed me around his shoulders.

Cole wrapped his iron arms around my legs and around my head and arms. When he whipped his head around to look at me, his amber eyes were glowing with prominent streaks of gold in them. Then the ground rumbled beneath us and Cole looked up just in time. 

Reviews

[Alex Thomas]

You put an admirable amount of detail in this chapter. The plot twists keep the reader interested with a slight twist of confused. I like the subtle way that you convey emotions. It makes the writing more sophisticated. I have no criticism for you. I await the next chapter.

[snapjack]

I'm going to edit that picture a little bit, but i'm sorry it's taken so long and I know it's knot as long as it typically would have been. School calls. I'm trying my best!