My heart thuds in my chest. Loud.
What am I so unnerved of? I can’t reason it but I can feel it. In the air. Murky. Sticky. Polluted.
An off-balanced thickness that chokes me as it breathes its way down my throat, residing like led in my lungs. A suffocating anger but it doesn’t belong to me.
The world is still. On edge. Tense.
Waiting.
Complete and utter silence.
The ear-piercing scream tears through the beach, ripping the perceived ambience apart at its seams. It is sudden, distorted and full of an all-encompassing terror.
It’s the sort of scream you never hear in movies; no one can fake a sound as chilling. Its pitch thin and sharp enough to pierce through bone, its distortion jagged and frightful enough that you can feel it in the pit of your stomach.
It’s at that moment I turn back. The many spindly legs dance like skeletal black sticks as they flurry forth from her screaming mouth.
They are large.
Large enough to distort her screams as they swarm out like a plague. Large enough to make a dull thud when they fall to the sand.
When the ordeal seems over, the girl dry retches, spitting any hairy remnants that may remain in the dark corners of her mouth. My pale face wouldn’t even compare to the girl’s now deathly exterior. As white as, or even more so, than Bryce’s surfboard that stands frozen in the sand. Frozen so completely, the board inside has cracked apart.
The girl reaches for her glass bottle she had kept buried in the sand, in what I can only assume is an attempt to rinse out her mouth. Throwing the bottle back, she immediately spits out its contaminants.
‘What is that?’ her unhinged voice croaks through quivering lips. A dark slimy organism squirms distressed and flailing on the sand.
Large slugs slide their way out of the freshly opened beverage, dropping like raindrops on to her lap.
Wriggling.
Restless.
Most interestingly, the group around her are stunned. Lost for words in their own version of fear.
‘Tahlia, there’s nothing there,’ one shouts.
Another rolls his eyes, clearly fed up with the young girl’s behaviour. ‘I’ll bet she’s using the hard stuff again.’ Both Tahlia and myself are unable to comprehend the words of her friends. The lack of empathy, the cold dismissal. Instead, she stands in a panic, trying to flick off the slugs that are steadily growing in size.
But she can’t. They’re stuck.
Like leeches.
They ooze mucus, writhing on her limbs. Slowly but surely, they move across her body, climbing until they reach her face. Her eyes well with tears. My feet move before my mind catches up. I don’t know how to help but it doesn’t stop me from trying. As soon as we make eye contact, she knows I can see it too. A strained plea for help claws out. Why is this happening?
With sharp realisation, I turn to my side. Xander watches with pure enjoyment. The boy’s red eyes gleam in the falling darkness, his fangs visible in his wide grin.
‘That’s enough,’ I say, but the words barely whisper from my mouth. ‘Xander,’ I say again, this time with more force. He doesn’t hear me or more likely, he chooses not to. Fear strikes through my veins like lightning. ‘Xander, that’s enough. You’ve proved your point!’
Tahlia turns to her friends, mortified at their lack of assistance. ‘The slugs, the slugs! Why aren’t you – please. T-they’re on my face!’
‘There’s no slugs, Tahlia. There’s nothing there!’ one of the other girls yells. ‘You need to calm down. You’re freaking us out.’
‘They’re all over me, they’re everywhere. I-I can feel them.’ Tahlia sobs, falling to the ground. The poor girl lurches over, vomiting a black tar-like substance onto the sand. I snap back to William, his eyes already on me. I don’t have to say anything; he understands.
‘Xander, Siara has asked you to stop.’
Xander twitches his head but ultimately ignores his master’s wishes. Tahlia vomits again but I can no longer look.
Is she going to die while her friends watch coldly? Is Xander going to kill her? Why is he doing this?
My eyes find themselves glued to the exchange between the ice demon and the small demonic child in front of me. William’s eyes narrow on the disobedient boy, a redness growing within them. The slugs begin to enter her mouth, some hanging off her ears, a guttural scream sounding through the twilight.
‘Will!’ I yell.
There’s a quick glint and a sharp whirl from a projectile. The boy cries out. Xander clutches his wrist, his eyes shooting their own form of daggers at his master.
‘Now I’m asking you to stop.’ William’s eyes glow a violent red. A warning. Xander pulls the large ice shard from his hand with barely a wince.
‘But they were insulting our human,’ he hisses, not even looking at me. ‘Insulting what’s ours.’ Fear grips me in a way I’d forgotten since returning to the mortal realm.
Our human.
William responds with a blank stare. ‘Ours, or yours?’ The ice demon moves closer, putting himself in between Xander and myself. I don’t hesitate to let him. ‘She is not yours, Alexander. You do not own her.’ Will’s voice is low, menacing, not the usual monotone that voids emotions. He’s serious, and angry. Gritting his teeth and giving an irritated snarl, Xander waves a hand at the girl.
The critters disappear from Tahlia, her illusions vanishing into the sand. Even her vomit disappears, leaving no trace of the horrific experience she endured. She kneels over, broken, clutching her face and the sand that was once her horror.
‘Tahlia, there’s no slugs. Did you take something?’ Bryce says, as he peers through the bottle, shaking it a little as if something might fall out at the end. Tahlia clutches at his arm, desperate.
