Escaped the Night (17 page)

Fairies began
fly
ing
in and
t
heir glow
s
lit up
everything
so we could
see our surroundings. Two tiny waterfalls streamed down the back
side of the cave
and markings
covered
the walls
. Some of the marking
s
looked like they were from ancient times, while others were noticeably more recent.

Suddenly, a wave of terror riveted my body and I could
n’t
ignore it. I darted around.
“We’
re in a cave, s
tuck in a stupid cave. What were we thinkin
g coming
in
here? A cave doesn’t
have a door to close. Now
what? We’
re trapped,
sitting in a dead-en
d while
ou
r hunters stalk nearby
.
”

Jayce
wrapped
his arms around me tight.
“Hold on,” he
whispered.

Large thunderous
booms and thudding crashes
sounded near
the entrance.
My body shook
from
the
rumbling.
Suddenly
,
it felt
like
I was
frozen to the spot
and m
y legs
wouldn’t
move
.

Jayce stepped
forward
and pulled me back
a few feet. “Terran now!” h
e yelled
out
.

The ground rippled as the earth shook. The power
ful
earthquake loosened boulders
,
beginning to seal
us in.

“No!
” I cried out.

We were
going to be trapped.
There
was no way we could get
out. We were going to die in here,
I thought to myself.

Jayce
was
listening to my thoughts. He responded by saying,
‘They’
ll get through the boulders. They know we’re
in
here. Terran is trying to buy us a little more time. The fairies need
all the strength they can get.’

I stared
at him.

“You’
ll see
soon enough,
” Jayce assured,
t
his time
speaking
aloud.

I turned my head
and watched
as
fairies
swarm
ed
the cave with
such amazing gr
ace
. T
hey maneuvered around
the fallen obstacles as if they
didn’t exist
.
There were so many
pouring
in, there
was
barel
y enough room left for us. I
expected the
ir
glow to be brighter
,
but it seemed
like
they
’d
put their dimmers on. Guess th
ey didn’t want to blind us
.

I
felt
a bit
claustrophobic with so many
of us
in the cave.
In an attempt to calm myself
,
I imagined
I was sleeping. S
afe and sound,
at home in my bed
,
and this
was
nothing more than a
nother
bad dream.
I start
ed
backing my way into a corner and Jayce followed
. We
let
the fairies
stay
towards the front
. After all
,
it wasn’t as if the va
mpires were going to be sucking
their blood.

The thunder of
co
lliding rocks continued outside and
I
thought
of
the vision I had earlier
.
Was this how it happened?
No, it
wasn’t
.
Something didn’t feel right
. In the vision we were
both wearing different clothes and the atmosphere
hadn’t been
so cold and wet.

Shadows
cre
pt along
covering
everything
,
i
n
a moment we’
d be
in
complete dark
ness
. The earth rumbled
one
last
time and
Terran’s
earthquake
sealed
us in
.

T
he fairies
gathered tightly along the front of the cave
.
Minutes passed as
w
e
sat motionless in the dark
waiting fo
r the hunters to come. S
ilently and anxiously waiting.
I
t was almost too much to handle, so I
remembered
back
to
when the darkness had
actually brought me comfort.
After a few seconds of deep breathing t
he same
peacefulness
came
back
and
I
found
I
didn’t mind the dark
. E
ven though
I knew
danger was c
lose
, t
his
felt like an escape.

Jayce
’s mind
interrupted my zone.
I tried releasing myself from the mighty grip of my mind,
but had a hard time letting
go of the comfort I
had
just
found
. There
was something
about all this
that seemed
so familiar
,
yet
foreign.
Before things became to
o
incoherent
and I got sucked in
to my mind
further
, I broke free
so I could pay
attention to what Jayce was saying.

‘
E
verything
’s
going to be okay. H
elp will
come
in time
. I can see this now.
It will work out okay.
T
he
fairies
will
help
play a crucial part in
keepin
g us safe
until the others arrive
.
’

It was a b
ad time
to come across as pessimistic
,
but I asked anyway.
‘
How exactly
do you think
cute, tiny, flying people
are
going to help us against blood thirsty
,
life-
sized monsters?’

‘
Have some faith. We’ll be
fine. I p
romise you
,
Shanntal. This is
a precaution because
I don
’t
entirely
know
what they want
. All I
do
know
is I won
’t let them have
you. I need you too much.’

‘
Oh…
I
’ve got an idea
of
what they want to do to me
.
’
I imag
ined every horror scene I’d
ever watched
that had
vampires
in it. Not once
did it end well.

‘
Silly g
irl, it won’t be like that. I
love y
ou and
refuse to ever
live wit
hout you.’

I
sensed his urgency
and ev
en though the situation around us was dangerous, I found myself wrapped up in his words.

As we sat,
Jayce wrapped
one arm around me
.
With his
free hand, he ran his fingers up and down my l
eg. Then
,
he positioned his hand
perfectly
back
in mine.
It felt as if not
hing else in the world mattered
, only
us
being together. I was
n’t afraid when I was with him
,
and
I
knew my life would never, ever be the same without him in
it.

Howls echoed off the rocks outsi
de. They were getting closer
, probably only moments away.
W
e sat
hand in hand
,
anticipating the
upcoming meeting
.

Memories of my father, mother and sisters
came
to me
.
I remembered some of the good times we shared.
Strangely,
the
memories began acting
like
glimpses or predictions. I couldn’t recall having any of
these conversations
before
so
I listened ca
refully
, surprised
to find
that
my family
was speaking
to me
in present tense.

The v
oices
of
my
younger
sisters spoke lovingly
,
as they always had. “Shanntal, you’ve always been the stronge
st and that’s why
you
remain. They
can’t
overthrow you. You’re simply too s
pecial
. You’ll never be alone
because
we are
always
with you.
Standing on either side, through time and distance.
We love you.”

My parents took turns speaking. My mother first
.
“We’
re so
proud of you
,”
she said sweetly.

My father spoke in his authoritative
,
yet calming manner. “We’ve always been impressed at the paths
you’ve chosen in your life. We’
re proud to have been able to call you our daughter. You’re very special and will be until the end of time. You’re truly one of a kind.”

M
y mother spoke again. “You’l
l succeed
at
anything you
do and the world’
s full of many opportunities. You choose your destiny; no one
else can do this for you
.
You’r
e
unique and
it
can be
both very helpful
and at
other
times
, rather
distracting. You
’ll
need to find light when
ever
the
darkness invades.
It
may seem appealing
,
but
please
be careful, it’
s deceiving. The light will always be true and
it’
ll show you a better way.”

I nodded,
acknowledging
that
I
understood
everything she said
.

My father’s wise voice spoke again. “When trouble comes
, do not despair,
y
ou will prevail. Y
our protectors will come
, but b
e
very
aware
,
they
are appealing to both
light and dark. They possess
great strength
,
however
they
are
only
loyal to you. They’ll stand be
side you
as long as needed to keep you
safe. They will be
your family now.”

My family left my thoughts and
I felt re-assured by the d
irections they’d given. Even in death
,
our bond still grew
strong.
It was l
ike
they were here
now, sitting along
side me
.
I
thought back to the words my father
sai
d about the
protectors. I assumed he
was referring to Jayce
and the others
. I did feel safe with
him around and
Terran had clearly tried to help
,
as did the fairies, but I didn’t see
any of
the others
as
my
protec
tors. Jayce was protecting me, I
understood that much.

T
houghts of the
conversation with my mot
her came back to my mind
. She
’d
spoke
n
about light and dark. Light must have meant good and dark
referred to the evil coming.
I didn’t really dwell on the details of our conversations for too long
.
I’
d
n
ever forge
t the feeling of having my family ba
ck with me and
wondered
why Jayce didn’t have any input. He’d usually interrupted
me
by now.

Just then
,
he asked aloud
, “
What do you mean by that?”

“I was remembering my family.
Though some of our conversation, well…
seemed to have
more of a present tense
.”

“
Present tense
?”

There
wasn’t
enough time for a
n
explanation.
A
loud hideous s
narl
echoed
throughout the cave
, letting us know they had arrived
.

Daray’s group
lurked
just
o
n the other side of the rocks.
Jayce sensed
their
group ha
d grown since
the
vision and confirmed
that
t
hey now had three doomahorns with them.
We were
really
outnumbered.

I
wished
with all my might that help would hurry up and get to us before it was too late.

Daray’s sensuous voice spoke through the rocks. ”Shanntal, I’ve been
waiting a long time to find you
. Why don’t you come out here and greet me properly?”

Jayce
stoo
d up, moved
in front of me
,
and
pushed
me back
into the wall
as he barked out, “Back off
,
parasite. You’ll never get her.”

A capti
vating laugh rang back
.
“Keeper, don’t you know
,
you can’t keep everything?”

I felt invisible as the war of words shot back and forth bitterly between them. They
bickered over
which one o
f
them was going to keep me
.
Like I was nothing more than a pawn.

“Daray,
Jayce, enough
already!
” They went silent and I took a deep breath before speaking. “
Daray,
I’m not
meeting
you face to face
.”

“Oh? I think otherwise.”

“No,
you’re wrong
.
First off,
I’m
fighting mad with you over the
deaths of my family.” Suddenly, a
s
trange feeling came over me. For a brief moment
I found
myself
intrigued, almost
wanting to know him better. I realized my thoughts and
shook them away quickly
. My tone came out sharp
as I spoke
. “It’s
best
we never meet.
Now go
away
!
”

“Alas, you’
ll meet me soon en
ough
,
my sweets.
This courtship
is your destiny
.”

His words sent
chills through me. My destiny
?

“
It hurts me to hear of your loss.
Your family
always meant a lot to me
.
Come out here,
you will understand
.
“
He sounded so sure of himself
.

What
did he mean
my family had always meant a lot to him? How did he know
them
? I was about to retort back
,
but as I opened my mouth to speak
,
the hooves and howls overpowered me
.
The
rock wall
Terran
built
shook as
powerful hooves and claws
struck it
. Large boulders
shifted
at
the top
and
dim
moon
light
crept into the
cave.

I cou
ld
n’t feel Jayce pressing on me
.
I looked around and found him
on the opposite side of the cave.
I could just barely see
him
through all the dust.

“Jayce,” I called out
, but
he
didn’t acknowledge me as
he
stayed facing forward
,
watching
the rock
s
shift.
I
looked
around hoping that by som
e
form of miracle
,
another way out would’
ve
miraculously appear
ed
.
The nightwalkers were
coming into
the cave and t
here wasn’t any way of
stop
ping
them. That
was clear
,
as the
rock wall
continued
to tumble
.

The
doomahorns
’
strong hooves
bore
such
great strength
that
with each kick
the boulders turned into
sheer dust.
T
he cave
soon
filled with dusty smoke
that burned
my lungs and eyes. I blinked
trying to cle
ar
my eyes
,
but
it wasn’t working.
Jayce and I started coughing at the same time
,
finding it
hard to breathe
.
Soon the tiny fairies were all coughing too.

“Makan
… help,
” Jayce choked out.

A dominant
wind
whistled as it
howled
fiercely
outside
. The dust diminished as Makan
’s airstream powerfully sucked it
away.
My lungs still burned
and I was covered from head to toe with dust,
but quite
th
ankful for the fresh air
.

With most of the dust
gone
,
I saw
the
y’d
almost cleared the
entrance.
Only a small wall remained between us. I watched
as
shadows
belonging to
the
doomahorns
pace
d
back
and forth while
they guarded
the entrance
,
allowing us
no escape.
Another giant kick stirred up more dust
,
and
as the
residual
cloud
began
settling
,
they
started
to make
their
way in
.
However, the
moment the werewolves and vampires beg
an advancing
, Jayce yelled o
ut, “Aiden. You’re up
.”