My Favorite Nightmare by Abigail Livinghouse (ebook audio reader TXT) 📕

hands firmly on my shoulders and looked me straight in the eyes.

 

“Be safe. When things get too dangerous, I beg you, leave.” She said.

 

I nodded, however I had no intentions of leaving if things got too dangerous. If things got sketchy, then I would only fight harder. She hugged me again, then let go.

 

I crouched down so that I was at eye level with Michaela and Liana. They were both looking at us curiously, not understanding what was going on. I hugged them both, ruffling their hair as I gave them a smile.

 

“You two be good. I’ll be back soon.” I said, then stood and walked to the door. I didn’t look back as I left, feeling that it would only make things worse.

 

      In town, everything was in chaos. People were shrieking about the attack, breaking into shops and grabbing what they could. It seemed that my little rant had caused a spark that had ignited an uncontrollable flame. I had not wanted this, but at least people weren’t sitting around doing nothing like they usually did.

 

Sal’s booth was the only one not being looted, and I headed over there, leaning up against the counter. Mr. Bo was also there, along with Tirana, a girl who had been a hunter but had retired to a housewife. She nodded at me in acknowledgement.

 

“The urchin caused hell to break loose and spread like wildfire in our town.” She commented.

 

I pursed my lips, but nodded in agreement. I wasn’t going to bother to bring up that it was me who had screamed about needing to fight back.

 

Mr. Bo sighed, chewing on a piece of hay that he had probably swiped from one of the feeding quarters where we kept the animals.

 

“Ah, I remember back when the creatures kept to themselves and we were able to coexist fairly peacefully. It was nice, quiet.” He said, drifting off to a different time period that was as solid as vapor to us now in our current state.

 

Sal grunted, disappeared under the counter, and came up with three bottles of cider. We paid him silently. Even though Sal was quiet and often grouchy at times, he did have his soft side.

 

I took a swig of the sweet, thick liquid and stood away from the counter. “I have to go.” I said.

 

Tirana nodded. “Meeting the hunters at the edge of the forest eh?”

 

I shrugged. She gave another nod. “I was informed about it too. Since I had hunted before, they wanted me to come. I told them I couldn’t go. Not with my boy at home and my husband gone hunting with the rest.”

 

She shook her head. “Nah, but enjoy yourself.” She leaned in closer and lowered her voice so that only I could hear.

 

“Take a few of them out for me huh?” She whispered.

 

I nodded and headed off for the forest, away from the screams and shouts of my once calm village.

Chapter Four

Trine, an eighteen year old boy I often hunted beside, with ruffled black hair and focused brown eyes, came over and greeted me.

 

“Glad you could make it Kyla.” He said.

 

“Glad to be here.” I turned to see that there wasn’t a handful of people here to hunt like there usually was, but a crowd.

 

I swallowed as the hair on my arms prickled, so many people, so much competition. Their ages ranged from very old to very young. It seemed that the youngest was about thirteen years old, sharpening a wooden stake with a large knife.

 

Trine touched my arm, and I jumped. I was so absorbed in analyzing the group of hunters, some looking experienced and skillful, others looking awkward and off-balance. I bit my lip to keep from shouting at no one in particular. I should’ve expected this. However a lot of numbers would also mean a lot of causalities. People would be fighting each other more than they would fight the vampires.

 

I looked at Trine, in his intelligent eyes. He was a brutal fighter and could kill an immortal in record time. I liked him, and I would also need him. He seemed to be coming to the same conclusion. He nodded, patting my shoulder.

 

“I’ll watch your back.” He said.

 

“And I’ll watch yours.” I promised in return.

 

      The actual hunting didn’t start for about two and a half hours. No creature dared cross our paths, no wonder. We were making so much noise, not even I would’ve come near us if I would’ve been a vampire. Trine and I sat on large boulders and talked as we waited.

 

Trine’s fiancée Katina was pregnant with their child, if it was a boy they were to name it Tiran, and if it was a girl, they were going to name it Lilia. He told me how soon he would end his hunting days and become a blacksmith. I was sad.

 

I liked Trine and would miss his company while hunting. I told him about how mother was working on her artwork and sewing and how she was definitely improving. He said that he would have to look for some of her work the next time he visited the Square.

 

“I’m worried about Katina.” Trine said, ripping blades of grass out of the earth and tearing them into pieces as he spoke.

 

“I think she’s worrying about our unborn child, as well as I am. What will their future be like? Will they turn into a hunter, or a housewife, or someone who works at the square like Sal or Mr. Bo?” He sighed, looking down at his green fingers absently. “Sometimes, I wish I could move into the Outlands and raise our children there.”

 

I couldn’t help but blanch at his statement. The Outlands were a dangerous place, littered with foreign creatures, not to mention immortals that were out for human blood. I would never even consider moving there, let alone taking my family with me.

 

Trine chuckled at my ridiculous expression. “I know what you’re thinking, and no. I’m not crazy. I just figure that living in the Outlands would be a safer place for my family than the village, where vampire attacks occur regularly and fights break out simultaneously.”

 

“That’s not true”, I had to counter.

 

He was exaggerating. Fights did not break out often, and vampire attacks were a very rare occurrence. Our village was the safest place to live. Going to the Outlands was like committing suicide, where the unknown walks free and vampires roam wild.

 

Trine just shook his head. “It was just something that I was considering.”

 

I pursed my lips, casting a look out at the darkened trees. It was that kind of thinking that could get you killed. Trine opened his mouth to speak again but suddenly stopped, listening intently for a noise he had caught. I had heard it too. The slight rustle of a branch in the tree just a few feet away from us. It was a quiet sound, but it was enough to alert us that we were no longer alone.

 

I looked to Trine, who pressed a finger to his lips, signaling that we should say nothing to the others. A small smile spread across my face. This was a huge advantage, something that we would have to be very sneaky about in order to get a head start on everyone else.

 

We got up and walked over to the edge of the trees, where we had heard the noise. No one paid any mind to us. They probably expected for us to give some kind of signal to alert them if we had seen something, however, we had never agreed to anything. Trine clutched his stake in one hand, a hand crafted knife with a wooden blade in the other. I gripped my bow and arrows tightly, walking as quietly as I could. We crouched down on the ground, just as we had done over at the boulders.

 

Just as we were about to take off, a young boy, the one who had been sharpening his stake, pointed to us and shouted. “They found the vampires!”

 

We didn’t stick around for the abrupt explosion of activity, we just ran. Sprinting through the trees in no particular direction. Any immortal who had been hiding in here was long gone by now, but that didn’t matter. What mattered now was that we got away from the pissed off crowd before they skewered us like they were going to do to the vampires. 

Chapter Five

Branches and thorns scratched at my arms and legs like angry, clawed hands as we bounded through the forest. Trine ran with his arms pumping at his sides, his knife and stake still clutched in his hands. We ran blindly, not sure where we were headed. Footsteps thundered behind us, arrows shot dangerously near our shoulders and knives whistled through the air at our legs and arms. I winced as one arrow sliced through my shirt, cutting the skin on my arm.

 

“We have to split up!” Trine called over to me.

 

I nodded in agreement and cocked my head to the left, signaling that I would go in that direction, him the other. Trine nodded, then without hesitation, we crisscrossed through the trees and headed in opposite directions, away from each other.

 

The crowd wasn’t big enough to split off evenly and still have enough people to hunt any immortals in case they did come along. Of course, the people after us still had the huge advantage of numbers. However Trine and I were very skilled, and these people, while some were experienced, the majority were mediocre at best.

 

I picked up speed, moving deeper and deeper into foreign regions of the forest. I had explored the forest often, but never had I gone this far, and if I was confused, me, who lived in the town just bordering on the edges of Pine Forest, then people who came from villages over to hunt would surely be a bit jumbled here.

 

As I made an abrupt right turn, I could hear the shouts of the remaining crowd behind me begin to die down and fade in the distance until it was just a slight hum. I halted and doubled over, my hands on my knees as I  tried to get some oxygen back into my starved lungs. I just hoped Trine found someplace safe and away from the obnoxiously loud group of people.

 

Suddenly, a twig broke no more than five feet away from me. I straightened up normally, not wanting to alert whoever was skulking in the trees that I knew of their presence. I walked at a steady pace over to a