Jayhawk+ by Nick Venom (short novels in english txt) 📕

Holly drifted off to sleep after trying to stay up for a few hours. By 2 am, her eyelids were failing on her. She couldn’t force herself up awake long enough to survive the night, however, she now realized that the nightmares extended into the day. She could no longer sleep during the day to avoid the nightmares. The nightmares found her during the day. 

Holly ended up giving up, praying for a nightmare-less sleep. Unfortunately for her, this wouldn’t happen. Instead, she was thrown into a violent nightmare. 

She awoke into the nightmare by appearing in an endless void, devoid of life and color. A zone filled to the brim with black. No lights could be seen anywhere nor were there anything else aside from Holly and the void.

“Where am I?” She asked, unfamiliar with this setting. All previous nightmares had taken place in long stretches of forest. She had always been chased by a lanky being shrouded in darkness. She never could see the face of the being, if it even had one. She could never know. She always ran in the opposite direction of the being, but it had constantly caught up to her. For some reason, it never killed her, only toyed with her, never showing her its appearance. 

Instead of dying, she was given small cuts on her arms and hands, but never anything fatal.

Holly decided to walk in a straight line, seeing if she could find anything. After ten minutes of walking, she felt something vibrating in her pocket. She reached in and pulled out her phone. She forgot that she had it in her pockets, unlocking the phone and noticing that she was being called. To her dismay, it turned out to be a spam caller. 

“I even get spam callers in my nightmares?” She asked herself, pressing the decline button. She was then directed to her home screen where she opened up her settings, going to the flashlight option. However, before she could activate it, the being that chased her, appeared. The being was following Holly the entire time, stalking her from afar. It now reared its faceless head at her. With her first look at the monster she had encountered for as long as she could remember, she was completely petrified. The monster, itself, was towering over her and resembled an extremely tall human adult. But the monster was covered in black goo that moved on its own and lacked a part of a normal healthy human---a face. It lacked a face, replaced by the black goo it was made of. The black goo made a human head but never created a face to fit it, leaving it blank. 

“Wh-What a-a-a-are yo-you?” She stammered, freezing on the spot. Her body locked up, keeping her in place as the monster neared her. The monster observed her for a moment before approaching her. That’s when Holly’s thumb, which was hovering over the flashlight button on her phone, suddenly dropped her thumb onto it. Her thumb pressed the flashlight on, shining the light on the monster’s legs. 

The monster screeched in pain as the light made contact with its legs. The light was corrosive to the monster, burning the goo that was under the light. The monster then ran off but remained close to her. Holly switched the flashlight to full brightness, but the monster stayed right out of its beam. It hid behind boxes of darkness, peeking at her. 

“What do you want?” She shouted, filled with confidence at finding the monster’s weakness.

The monster didn’t respond, silently observing her. It never spoke a word and only focused on her. That was until a familiar voice rang out. It was the voice of Holly’s aunt, Mary Brooks. Mary lived in the town but on the other side with her family. Unlike Kieran and Alyah, Mary was born into the town and remained friendly with the locals.

The monster turned towards the voice. Holly instantly realized what the monster was going to do. As she feared, the monster silently walked towards the voice, ignoring her.

“Hey! Don’t do that!” She shouted, trying to attract the monster’s attention, but the monster was dead set on Mary. Holly realized that, trying to chase the monster down to no avail. It disappeared from her sight within a split second, leaving her stuck in the Black Zone, a setting that lacked color. 

Knowing that the monster was going towards her aunt, She raised her phone into the air, bringing it down on her head and waking herself up. Now awoken into reality, she sprung out of bed and dashed towards Azarel’s home, wearing only her pajamas. Her father---who was sleeping peacefully a moment ago---shot out of bed when he heard his daughter rushing outside. He peered out of his bedroom window and noticed her running away.  He then quickly got his clothes on, following her to Azarel’s house. 

Once at Azarel’s house, Holly rattled her knuckles on the door furiously. She then began to shout and scream for Azarel, which ended up bringing him to the front door. He opened the door, revealing himself in a robe to Holly. 

“What’s wrong?” He asked, clearly tired. 

“I think the monster’s going to attack my aunt, Mary! Save her before the monster gets her!” She exclaimed.

“Monster?” Azarel repeated. “What type of monster?”

“I don’t know, but it was a tall humanoid monster, but it had no face. It’s also scared of light,” She pointed at her phone’s flashlight, which was still active. “I stopped it from attacking me and choking me again, but it’s now going for Mary!”

Kieran arrived, opening his mouth to apologize, but Azarel stopped him. “I have a theory, let’s go see if she can prove it true.”

TBC…

Azarel led Kieran and Holly to Mary’s house during the night. Azarel was running on Holly’s comments’, deciding to act without Frazer’s permission. 

At Mary’s house, Azarel rattled his knuckles on the door, waiting for a response. Knowing that almost everybody was sleeping, Azarel knocked harder, shouting out to her. However, he got no response from her. 

“She could be a deep sleeper,” Kieran remarked. 

“Possible, but… I feel like something’s off.” He motioned for Kieran to lean in. Kieran nodded, leaning in as Azarel whispered into his ear. “I’m about to trespass and see if I could find her. There might be a possibility that what she said was right. A monster would have already killed her.” 

Kieran nodded, grabbing Holly’s arm and pulling her away. “No!” She shrieked. “I want to help her!”

Kieran crouched down, turning her face towards him. He wiggled one finger in front of her eyes, taking her attention off Mary and onto himself.

“Listen to me. You’re still a little girl. Mary is a big girl and if there’s a problem, then she can handle it. You’ve already done your best by alerting Azarel, but next time…” His voice trailed off as he broke eye contact. “Next time, make sure you tell me first. I’m still your father, right?”

Holly nodded as tears bubbled in the corner of her eyes. She opened her arms and hugged her father. He hugged her back as she laid her head on his shoulder, silently sobbing. Kieran glanced at Azarel, who shot him a thumbs up. Azarel then revealed keys from his pocket, entering the house. He stepped into the house and searched through it, finding a horrific sight. Mary was dead on top of her bed, her hands still attached to her neck. She strangled herself to death, but Azarel knew it wasn’t a suicide. Both Angelica and Mary died in the same way within the span of a day which wasn’t natural. 

He glanced out of the window towards the nearby treeline of the forest, a figure stood there barely illuminated by the moon overhead. Azarel squinted his eyes, trying to identify the figure, but to no avail. The figure---who was already semi-masked in darkness---disappeared completely. Azarel rushed to the window, trying to make the figure out. However, he lost the figure in the darkness. 

“Something is off. Whoever that person was… whatever that being was, is responsible for these murders.” He remarked. 

The next day, two other bodies were found in the same state as Mary. Their hands were grabbing a hold of their throats tightly, not letting go. Azarel and his deputy, Berry Wright, had to pry their hands off to identify the fingerprints. After a few hours, they concluded that the visible fingerprints belonged to the victims. With this information, Azarel called Holly and Kieran to the Security Hall where he interrogated her. He wanted a full depiction of the monster’s appearance, sending the picture around the town. The information was important as Azarel wanted to compare it to the figure he saw earlier, but he lacked details on the figure. However, he knew that it had to be the same being. 

With the monster’s appearance known, Azarel decided to act on another decision without Frazer’s permission. He wanted to contact the government---who knew of the Whitegarden Explosion---and ask them to send a squad to locate and exterminate the monster. This didn’t sit well with Frazer when he got wind of it. He detested the idea of having the government intervening in Westhill. He had worked hard to keep outside contact to a minimum, but Azarel’s idea crossed the line for him. He wanted to invite outsiders---a government-sponsored team---into Westhill to deal with their problems. Frazer absolutely hated that.

“How dare he do this behind my back.” He muttered to himself, sitting down at a makeshift desk in his two-story house. “My bloodline has never allowed outsiders to enter and I will not be the first one to differentiate from them.” He brandished a rusted musket from a cabinet inside of his desk, pulling it into the open air. Now on the outside, Frazer inspected the musket closely, noticing his last name embedded on the barrel. 

“Time for him to die,” He remarked. “I need to keep my town free from foreigners.” 

Meanwhile, Frazer’s son wasn’t the same. Unlike the previous generations of Eastwells, Leon didn’t share the same feelings towards foreigners that his father had. Instead, he was kind to foreigners, even having a crush on one of the foreigner’s daughters, Holly Brooks. For him, she was a breath of fresh air in the xenophobic town that treated each other with hatred, outcasting anybody with a different origin of birth. However, these different beliefs led to him being abused by his father. 

Even