Life by Patricia Silva (e books for reading TXT) 📕

Then something shuffled under the bed, scratching against the floorboards.

"I know it's you Blake," I said in an annoyed voice.

It scratched again.

"Blake. It's not funny. Come out."

Then there was an eerie noise that was almost a growl.

"Blake?"

I took a step toward the bed, making the floorboards creek underneath my feet.

It happened so fast that I didn't even realize I had screamed. My head hurt and there was broken glass all around me. I reached for my cheek. It was bleeding.

I looked up, it was only about a foot away from my face. It was a pale, leathery-skinned, human-looking creature with bat-like wings connected to its arms and long skinny fingers with long talon-like claws. I looked at its wrinkly face. It had two holes instead of a nose and its eyes were completely black. It's mouth opened wide to reveal a mouthful of white little daggers on the top and bottom, connected with thick likes of spit. It was about to bite down on my face, and I tried to stop it but it was already pinning me down, it's nails digging into my arms. Its face was now just an inch away from mine.

"Siena?" I heard Blake call from the other room.

I didn't answer because if I did, the monster would surely bite my tongue off. In fact, it was just about to nip at my nose when it tumbled backwards, Blake pinning it to the ground and growling in its face.

It scratched at his chest in defense, then it dug its claws into his sides. Blake growled and ripped his claws into its shoulders, then scratched down its chest. It let out a horrific shriek that made Blake back up and paw at his ears. While he did so, the creature jumped up and pounced at him, pinning him to the wall and shrieking in his face, ready to bite down on his snout.

I wanted to help him. I tried to get up, but as soon as I began to sit up a rush of pain deluged my head. I grunted and slipped down onto the floor again. I blinked and saw that now Blake was on top of the creature and biting at its face and neck. It screamed and pushed Blake off, then he chased it down the hall and down the stairs, barking at it the whole way. I heard one final bark preceding the sound of wings flapping away.

I closed my eyes, wrapped my arms around my legs, and burried my face into my knees. My head was pounding so much that I didn't even hear Blake come back up the stairs.

"Siena! Are you okay?!" he exclaimed, rushing to kneel down next to me.

I felt tears stream down my cheeks, burning down the left side of my face.

"Siena?"

I looked up slowly. I could tell my eyes were glowing bright and I could feel the blood oozing from the scratches on my cheek. Blakes mouth gaped open once he saw my face.

I felt embarrassed that I still didn't know how to fight adequately. If I was good at fighting, or even knew a bit more than just a couple simple moves, I would've been able to fight the creature off myself.

"Siena...Siena I'm so sorry..."

"For what?" I sniffed.

"For this, I ...it was all my fault...I, I'm the one who wanted to come in here... you didn't even want to..." His broken voice was faint.

"It's not your fault," I said in a quiet voice, trying to make the tears stop.

"Here..." he said getting up and helping me up as well.

"Ouch!" I whimpered as my body straightened.

"What?" Blake asked.

"It hurts..."

"What hurts?"

"My head... and my back..."

"Here, I better get you to my mom, she can fix you."

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

"So what I don't understand is why you were leading her into the dark side of the forest anyway," Mrs. Kart said as she rubbed a mushy mixture of herbs onto my cuts.

"Owww!" I exclaimed.

"Sorry sweetie, I told you it would hurt," she said as she washed the medicine off of my arms.

"It wasn't just Blake's fault... we weren't really paying attention to where we were going..." I said.

"Hmmm... well you two better be more careful, next time you might end up worse, or even dead... and we don't want that... do we?"

"No," I repied.

"No, mom," Blake replied.

Mrs. Kart rinsed the herbs off my face and poured a potion on it, then rinsed that off too. After a few seconds Blake and his mom watched as my cuts healed up into scars and the puffiness went down.

"Thank you," I said.

"No problem, sweetheart." Replied Mrs. Kart as she cleaned up the herbs and potions and put them away on shelves and in a cabinet.

Mrs. Kart entered the kitchen while Blake and I went into the hallway. Since Blake was a werewolf, his wounds healed almost completely after almost an hour, no medicine necessary. I looked into the mirror and touched the scars on my face, which were alot bigger than the ones on my arms. At least my sleeves covered the cuts somewhat. I began moving my bangs to cover my face.

Blake chuckled, "What are you doing?"

"Trying to cover the scars", I replied.

"Why?", he asked, stepping closer to me.

" 'Cause, I don't want Tomas to see them."

"Why not?"

"Because... I'll have to tell him how I got them... then, he'll know I went past the line..."

There was a boundary line past the second river in the Mead forest, if you go past that invisible line you're not protected from any evil creatures or evil magic in that part of the forest. Around five-hundred years ago, some of the most powerful good wizards cast spells to protect planet Tyren. However, their magic wasn't abundant enough, so they had to leave some of the more rural areas unprotected, areas like big portions of desert or forest, such as the Mead forest. Since then, evil creatures could only roam this planet on the unprotected areas.

"Oh. Well it's not that bad... you could lie to him, you know," Blake said.

"Well, I don't want to... I should get home before Tomas does," I replied.

"Want me to walk you?"

"If you want to." I shrugged. I wanted him to.

Blake and I went out the door and into the rain. We walked to the end of Blake's neighborhood and entered the forest, walking in silence for a while until we reached the end where Tomas' house was. We hugged for a moment. My head only reached Blakes chest, even though I was standing on my toes. I whispered "Thank you" into his ear. He nudged his head into my hair and whispered "You're welcome... I'm sorry."

I let go and I could tell he didn't want me to.

As soon as I entered the house I ran into the upstairs bathroom and flicked the light on. I looked at myself in the mirror. My tan skin was clean because Mrs. Kart washed away the blood, though my dark hair was matted and tangled in the back. At least the puffy pinkness of my brown eyes had gone down. I looked at my arms and saw rips in my sleeves, surounded by dried blood.

I took my clothes off and got in the shower. The hot water stung my face a little.  After I got out I combed my hair out and dried it with a snap of my fingers. I pulled my bangs forward to conceal half of my face and used a little hairspray to make it stay. I went into my room and shoved my clothes to the bottom of my laundry basket. I slipped on some fresh jeans, a gray v-neck t-shirt and a hoodie. I looked out my window and noticed it was getting dark out.

I also noticed a car pull into the drive-way.

I turned the light on, grabbed a book and jumped in bed. The noise of footsteps ascending the stairs echoed in the silence of the house. Tomas knocked on the open door and I looked up.

"Well, how was your day?" he asked, entering the room.

"Good, I guess."

He sat on the bed. "What'd you do all day?"

I shrugged. "Just hang around," I replied, looking down at my book.

"What're you reading?"

"Warm Bodies," I replied, showing him the cover.

"Hmph, human book."

"Yeah, so? I like it. It's good," I replied.

He smiled and looked at me. I didn't look at him for the rest of the night, even through dinner.

That night I was oblivious to how much my body ached. I stared out my window for what seemed like years. At some point that night, I guess Tomas couldn't sleep either because he came into my room and sat next to me on the bed.

"You really should sleep," he said.

I shrugged, though he couldn't see it in the darkness.

"You aren't tired?"

I shrugged.

"It's been a few days since you slept, you know?"

I shrugged. He sighed.

I was starting to feel alot like 'R', the zombie in my book. He shrugs alot. I shrug alot. He never sleeps. I never sleep. I guess I'm a zombie.

There was a loud "Whooo" from outside. Tomas opened the curtain, letting in an incredible amount of moonlight. We looked out to see a beautiful white owl sitting on a branch near the window.

I smiled. Tomas looked at me.

"Siena?" There was a slightly scared tone to his voice,

"What?"

Then I realized my hair was tucked behind my ears. I quickly threw my hair across my face and diverted my head to the side. Tomas reached for my chin and braught my face closer to his, then pulled my hair back behind my ears. I squeezed my eyes shut, not wanting to see the look on his face.

"Siena, what happened to you?" he whispered.

He put his hand on my arm. I remembered I was wearing a tank top. His hand flinched away from the scars on my arms. My skin was already cold, though I grew goosebumps at his touch.

"Siena? How did all of this happen?"

I opened my eyes, but I didn't dare look into his. I wanted to tell him what happened, but I had no idea where to begin.

"Siena. How did you get scratched up like this?"

I glanced up at his face for a second, then squeezed my eyes closed again.

"Siena, how the hell did this happen to you?!"

"I don't know," I mumbled.

"What?!?"

I looked up at him. His eyes were glowing. His scared face looked scary in the shadows cast from the moonlight. I looked down again.

"We just... we were walking... in the forest... and I guess, I guess we just went a little too far..."

"You went into the forbidden part of the forest!"

"I know, I know, but it wasn't on purpose. We just... I guess we just weren't paying attention and we sort of-"

"Hold on. We?"

I swallowed. "Yeah..." I still didn't look up.

"Who's 'we'?" he questioned.

I paused. I didn't