GASP!

  I awoke, startled in the night, breathing in a cold chill of air, as if a dagger had been delivered to my heart while I slept. I gripped my chest, wishing for the unyielding tension to cease, as it strangled me in some unfounded terror. I popped up immediately, entrapped in the contorted sheets of the luxurious king sized bed. It didn’t feel right. Not without Isaac here. Not with anything lately.

  Tossing and turning, I tried to get a grasp on my thoughts and emotions. Huffing, I sat up, tossed on my clothes, and looked back outside through the windows into the darkness. The rain had stopped, but the night had still loomed ominously ever present.

  I crept out into the quiet living space, sneaking past a snoozing Isaac on the couch. I stopped for a minute to listen to his hoarse breathing. It felt weird, an odd sense of comfort near, and enamored with the sense of calm vulnerability in this moment. Something I rarely see from him.

  Regardless, I slipped out and into the elevator, somberly watching Isaac as the doors closed before me. I flew down to the ground floor and out with ease. Security glanced at me with careless reprieve as I exited swiftly.

  Time went by quickly as I found myself down the street from Denaux’s place, The Cat’s Cradle. It shouldn’t feel like it, but it felt like home, that’s for sure.

  As I approached the entryway, something felt wrong. Terribly wrong.

  Stolen content warning: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences.

  The bass was still thumping, but the doors were creaked open and no one was outside. Strips of flashing light emanated through the slit , reflecting off the rain puddles that remained still upon the cracked pavement outside.

  I felt a sense of looming dread as I approached and rounded the bend. Opening the door, I found nightmares become vivid, a slaughter upon my eyes.

  The dance floor was filled with mangled bodies, in all forms of total evisceration, limbs and heads detached with ease, draining blood into a thin layer, like an ocean's tide, across the floor. I splashed forward, gagging, and holding a hand to my mouth, as I passed by the severed head of our resident bouncer planted on a sharpened post. His eyes bulging in abject horror.

  “Oh god,” I muttered, “the stench of iron and feces overwhelming me. “Oh god,” I whispered endlessly, as I trudged through the sea of bodies, stepping lightly, around each cadaver I encountered.

  I searched around, looking for any sign of life or the assailant...though I knew who it must have been immediately.

  Trailing upwards, my eyes found large words scrawled in blood and intestines underneath the sign on the wall, illuminated under the flashing lights. I shuddered at the menacing sign of times to come. ‘War’

  Suddenly, I heard the sound of whimpering coming from behind the bar. I sped up, treading quickly over, approaching from an angle. A tiny body was huddled, holding their legs and trembling.

  “Taniya!” I yelled, rushing over to hold her. I picked her up to her feet, embracing her. “It’s okay,” I repeated, “it’s okay,” knowing full well that none of this could ever be classified as ‘okay.’

  “I—I...” she stuttered, trying to force words out, but unable to do so. Tears shed from her eyes rapidly, shooting down her ducts in an ever flowing matte with her muddled eye shadow. True despair painted across her face, a mask unlike any other.

  “Where is Denaux?” I asked, gripping her shoulders.

  She looked back shakily, wide-eyed, blubbering incessantly, and unable to speak.

  My heart began to race, my voice growing raspy and frenzied. “Where is Denaux!?”