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The problem with sleeping was it left me vulnerable to the creatures that would prey on me at night. In this place, a very distant and dark reality, I could not fight, scream, or control the environment. All I could do was run. The world and experience were completely controlled by the entity which was imposed on me. All I could do was my best at escaping its clutches and not fall for the numerous ways that they would come to me. Was I terrified? Extremely, because every time was the matter of life and death. Was I strong enough?
Sometimes I dreamt normally, like any other human. Little did anyone know that before I was turned into a Guardian I already had run-ins with these creatures of the night. Those attacks started when I was a teenager and entirely human. No one knew, not even Haymen, and I would keep that information hidden. The attacks increased when I reached adulthood but I was able to better identify it, prepare myself for the lethargic effect it would play on my body. It increased and it got worse. But I was able to handle it somehow until Haymen turned me and forced the contract upon me. Death would have been my better option. Now being a Guardian, I was the very host that those entities savagely struck and now I had to find a new way to handle it and disperse their interest in me.
Just like now, I was dreaming, rather standard and easy sleeping. But then there was a shift, like my dream had connected into a different channel on an old tv antenna. The dream went slightly distorted, or should I say, it felt like I went distorted. Sometimes instead of a new attack, I would relive memories of the old ones.
I was already running along the dark road which surrounded me with dim houses, the light posts flickered off as I ran past each of them. The man or creature behind me was laughing as he chased me with a slight limp that did nothing to affect his speed. I was no longer the sixteen-year-old girl who had first lived this but tears still welled in my eyes as I panicked. I could not fight them. I knew I couldn’t. I could not change into my demon forms and I knew that to linger, to try and oppose the entity of whomever it was, would only allow it to get closer to me.
I ran faster; my lungs heaving and shards spreading up from the chill in the air. My breath began to lock from exhaustion as I felt him getting closer and the odd niggle on my back, a brush with coldness that I feared was him catching up and his fingers reaching for me. I could not let him touch me! He would possess and take hold of my body. He would kill me from the inside and I feared not to face death but the uncertainty of what kind of afterlife or darkness it would spiral me into. These creatures were unholy and the touch of demonic spirit that not even I wanted to confront in the light of day.
I noticed an old warehouse which splayed lights on and ran for it. I knew I shouldn’t have. But it seemed like every other option around me had disappeared. He was leading me into there.
The bright lights of the warehouse which catered for a retail store speckled my sight for a second. I panted for only a moment before dashing between the shelving, forklifts, and jumping over crates. I looked behind me but couldn’t see him. My shoulder smashed into the corner of one of the crates throwing me off balance. I caught myself and instinctually clutched for my shoulder heaving. The hair on my arms rose as I circled around in the small shelving I was at. My breath was heavy and I willed it to stop. Please. He will hear me. A tear slid down my face. This was my sixteen-year-old self reliving the moment. Ready to wake and cry to my mother about a force against me that I could not explain. I knew what was to come but I still tried to change the fate of it. It didn’t make it any less terrifying.
I turned to run into the other direction when a splash of cold water hit me. It felt like shards over my already too cold body and I screamed from the pain. The chuckle from the chucky doll ran up my leg and across my shoulder with an open wire. I didn’t have time to react but only to scream. As soon as the wire touched my entire body I convulsed and hit the floor with the current of electricity that my body could never handle...
My body was convulsing as I woke despite the sleep paralysis I woke up with every time I had one of ‘those’ dreams. Tears slid down my eyes as I felt like I was that sixteen-year-old girl once again. I knew what would happen. It was the same as last time. Eventually, the convulsing stopped and I could move. Slowly but surely, I sat up to sit in my King-sized bed, the silky light blanket dropping to the floor with my movement. I wiped away the drool from my mouth and wrapped my arms around my legs. I sat in the dark unable to identify anything in my room. Luke had left hours before and I made certain of that. I never slept with another in the room. It was a vulnerability and a risk I wasn’t willing to take. No one else could know about the night terrors that haunted us.
I sighed heavily trying to balance my breathing. So much has changed since I first had that dream at sixteen. Now twenty-four, I no longer had my mother to cry to. She died when I was seventeen. She didn’t understand, didn’t want to. Saying that it was just a nightmare. But at least I had that companionship and someone to talk to instead of others who would say I was going crazy. In a twisted way I wondered if it was the reason why I was handpicked by Haymen to become a Guardian. Not that he ever said anything from that day and I couldn’t remember how I was turned. I just remember that it was against my will. I never dared ask the others if they had the same experiences in their human life too.
I touched the large silken marble on my bedside table that summoned Doc. I had to report this to the Shadow Mind Journals. The only thing I would keep to secrecy was that I was reliving the nightmare, I had to tell Doc that it was all anew. The Shadow Mind Journals was the recording and deciphering of those who reached out to us in our dreams. It was in hope that we could identify the entity and it could be tracked so then we could hunt them during the day. There were many secrets of the Guardians but no outsiders knew that this was our true purpose. To find those who Haymen considered his greatest threat, or so I presumed. I couldn’t imagine anyone going to all this trouble to find one species of demon unless threatened by it in some way.
I walked up the hallway from my bedroom and placed my hand on the marble panel of the door. It instantly slid open. The white room was bright in comparison to the darkness of the hall I had just walked through. It was the sector within our home that Doctor Tellith would appear at as soon as we summoned her. She was a witch that worked for Haymen and kept track of our stability and the physical toll that the dreams were taking on us. Not out of concern but as to whether we were close to being compromised. We were simply property in Haymen’s eyes and that thought was extended to those who worked for him. The attacks drained us physically more than any of us would admit and that was because while we were running and fighting for survival the entities were sucking the life out of us, hoping to drain us completely so they could take our bodies upon the next attack. It was still questionable as to whether the soul was sucked out and eaten or if the person remained and screamed beside their laughing possessor. It wasn’t something I was ready to find out.
“Those leaves fall into your hair, Doc?” I asked her as I looked at the colored feathers threaded through her black tangible hair. She arched an eyebrow not raising those wooden brown eyes from her task at hand. The room was surrounded by few white benches and she ushered me to sit back into the white leather chair.
“Were your poor manners a result of being dropped as an infant?” She asked as she pressed the needle into the vein of my arm. I smiled at her and her own were filled with the same lack of delight. My dark mahogany, almost black blood threaded through the tube, reminding me that I was far from human.
“I don’t know why we have to do blood tests each time,” I said in agitation. Despite my warrior like attitude, from human life to now, I still did not like needles.
“I told you last time. I will take a sample out each time to see if there’s any variance and besides, I need more from you than the others. We still haven’t identified the heritage of four of the demons who you’re contracted with,” she said.
“I didn’t contract them,” I said laying my head back and looking up to the bright light. “They came to me and for whatever reason that might’ve been they just have no appetite to appear in front of me yet.”
“But unlike the others you seem to be hazy on those who accepted and contracted with?” She said now taking the needle out. It was true. After the initial contract with Haymen, I was faced with demons who encouraged my growth and would aid me in my task as a Guardian. They were demons who had already died in their lifetime and were willing to resurface when I needed their strength. And yet unlike the others, I completely blacked out and awoke in this very house with tattoo markings that stretched out further than most.
“Oh, come on. It’s kind of like a surprise every time I turn, what’s in the box?!” I joked with her. She shook her head and as usual did not find it funny.
“You’re lucky so far that in most situations you have the descendant of a demon who can challenge the ones you are hunting. But I fear without this data one day you might be caught off guard and you might be seriously injured.” She labelled the clear bag which held my thick substance of blood and scribbled down in her diary a language which I couldn’t identify. Witch scribblings. The black ink shortly went invisible and I imagined only eligible for her eyes.
“I don’t fear fighting in the real world, Doc,” I said with much purpose. “It’s the demons when I sleep that will end me.” She looked up from her notepad with a grim expression and that was fact. That’s how more than seventy percent of our kind had died to date. And Tellith had been around for many years opposed to what her naturally youthful skin looked like.
“It’s necessary so we can find them. These entities are what truly challenge the treaty. On top of that, they are an immediate threat to Haymen and his empire. That is why you are contracted.” I knew not to argue with her or tell her how I truly felt about that statement. It wasn’t disclosed to us why they were such a threat to Haymen, but what I couldn’t voice to people was that contract to him wasn’t signed willingly by myself. All those that worked for Haymen would never speak ill of him. To do so would be death.
She brushed away my hair and I presented the back of my neck all too used to the process now. “I heard you had a pretty little angel at your hip last night,” she mused as if trying to distract me. How things circulated quickly around here. Then again, the entire house was monitored.
“And most of the morning,” I added. “Four hours to be exact until I kicked him out because I heard Destiny coming back. To say the least I think she is burning the couch.”
She smiled with little humor and raised the small metallic chip which had four sharp prongs on it. She pressed my head down and injected it into the back of my neck.
“Shadow Mind Journal activated,” the room sounded in a woman’s robotic like tone. I closed my eyes not wanting to relive the experience of my dream. But that would be to feign ignorance and weakness. I looked up to the ceiling again where now the room had dimmed and my nightmare was displayed on a projector. Tellith was the first inspector as she watched and studied it, as she always had done. As she did, she monitored the small screen beside her which read information about my body’s reaction during that time. I watched on as I ran through streets, the experience threatening to make me want to coil up again. But to do so would be to show weakness. Especially in front of a witch employed to Haymen.
And so, we watched on until the last moment of my convulsing and then the image distorted and sharply cut out.
“This one seemed different. You didn’t look back or try to confront the attacker. You lacked in trying to identify them or the location,” Tellith said scribbling in her book with ink that would soon disappear. “Your brain waves are also overlapping like a few of your previous collections. I will ask you again, Vi, is this a memory, have you dreamt this before?”
“Not that I know of,” I said and held her gaze. Tellith had her suspicions of that I was certain. She eyed me and ripped the reader out without warning. I rubbed my hand against the back of my neck, trying to remove the itch that remained. She pressed a small cloth there to wipe away the blood that would’ve already begun to clot and heal. “I’m sorry, I figured it was too dark to see him, which is why I was looking for better lighting in the warehouse.” I lied.
Her face was expressionless as she continued writing. Doc was the first to examine it. I wasn’t sure what happened to the journals afterwards and if there was another program or team on it afterwards. I suspected there was more to the story of the Shadow Mind Journals and our purpose but I learned long ago to not press for answers. There were always consequences. Especially when that demon I had in mind was Haymen.
“If you recall anything else or would like to enter new data please let me know. Until then, you are dismissed Vi,” she said widening her hand out towards the door.
“Hey Doc, we haven’t seen Alexa for a while,” I said thinking of the fourth in our team. The fifth was killed weeks ago and a new member would be deployed to us in coming weeks.
“She is with me for the time being,” Tellith said. “It shouldn’t be too long before she comes back.” Doreen, the prior Guardian that we hadn’t seen for weeks had spent one of her final weeks with Tellith. She didn’t disclose much to us but told us she had a close call. Tellith made her physically stable and healthy but we knew Doreen hadn’t been the same since. One week later she went missing. No body to remain, only the knowledge that she had been possessed and a message painted in her own blood on the walls in a language far older than any of my ancestral demons could read. Only Haymen who immediately ported in seemed to know what it read. He simply told us to clean it off the walls and repaint over it for the next Guardian who came.
Knowing that our discussion was over I nodded goodbye and left the room. I took a moment to catch my breath on the other side of the door. I rolled my shoulders and cracked my neck. I embraced the demon blood within me, taking a deep breath and feeling comforted by the power that radiated within me and of the knowledge those demons brought me. This was now the real world and day. I could protect myself and kill as I pleased.
