GENESIS (GODS CHAIN) (56 page)

Unaware
,
the girl was being attracted by a type of invisible force
—
it was a pull or magnetic attraction within her own mind. She then became aware of a pungent
odour that caught
the tip of her nose
.
Alarm bells sounded in her mind
—a
warning!
Francesca felt quite sick
—
this was all wrong!

No this is not the way to go!!!

Francesca
struggled with herself
.
The malevolent blackness might have been one foot or ten feet
distant,
a
nd its
slick
,
thin protrusions, its
wispy
tentacles
,
became visible to her
as some nearly broke
away from that outlandish opaque surface
.
The substance had changed
its wispy properties and then quickly stretch
ed
out fully
,
like a thin
,
light cloud being blown out
by the wind, its strings
whipp
ed
around
,
trying to catch her with its light tentacles
.

Francesca could not see from where she
stood
that inside
the mist
were tiny capillary
-
like needles with cruel
,
curved barbs in this gruesome mist
.

Beware
, c
hild,
a soft voice within her head spoke
.
I
t was her Grandma’s voice
,
a warning from the grave
...
.

Francesca’s fatal march instantly stopped,
and
she became anchored to the floor with fear, struggling
so hard that
she almost fell forward! The bottom of her neck
had begun to feel
hot again.
She heard Grandma’s voice again in her mind.

It is something evil
,
child
,
great evil is down there!
Francesca’s eyes
were
completely fixed in terror at the
sight
of the undulating darkness directly in front of her
.
The girl’s eyes stared at the wriggling dark mass.
Her
will was strong,
and
her cross burned as she began to slowly walk backwards, a bit at a time, slowly and gradually willing herself away.
She had come without knowing
and
backed out
,
still transfixed, staring into the horror as many thin
,
evil fingers of long tentacles protruded out and up the passage, gradually moving further towards her
...
trying to touch her!

Go back, move, get away, run, do anything
...
MOVE!
Francesca’s
mind told her to run,
but
her body could not
—
she wanted to get away. Terrified
,
Francesca again stopped.
The girl could not move she was
so
frozen with fear!

Each second seemed like an hour as her cross burned
more hotly
.
Her skin seemed to burn near her neck
,
where her cross touched
the skin
.
The cross had been
given to her by her Grandma. Small
,
penetrating coloured rays of light shone out of the various inset precious stones
that
were fixed into the golden metal;
the
rubies blazed red as laser
-
white light shone brightly from the diamonds inset on the left and right of the horizontal.

The
stones
shone
unbelievably
brightly
,
and yet Francesca was unaware of
the miracle
because
of
her numbed mind
and
her terror
.
With a slow half
-
pace
step
backwards
,
she moved again, spur
r
ed on by the heat on her neck.
It was a holy power, divine protection
...
.
S
he took another small step and then another; the outlandish mist was still gaining on her
—
she had not got far enough away
,
and now
it
was only a metre from her!

Inside those tentacles were thin
,
white and dark
-
blue veins! The narrow long tubes were never still, chang
ing
and convoluting all the time, organised
into
something like
s
paghetti in constant motion, wriggling wildly around inside th
e
indefinite and evil composition.

Curving this way
and
that
, the substance was
in view for a moment and then out of
sight the next,
forced along with some evil
,
fluid
ic
substance enclosed within
its
tubules
and
being pump
ed
from nowhere in particular.
The protrusions had small
,
deadly little barbs
on the ends
that seemed to be
evident
not
only on the surface but inside the fluid
,
as well
.
The
monster
with
its
evil hooks wanted to grip and tear at her
...
tear her apart!

Francesca took a
nother half pace
backward
...
and
then a pace or two more
.
Finally, she
was again moving backwards
at a rapid pace,
with her eyes still fixed wide in terror as the blackness continued to follow!

Her stomach felt
filled with
sickly butterflies and
,
near
re
t
ching, she eventually reached the junction.
Unexpectedly
,
an invisible force let her go
and she was suddenly able to run.
The girl ran in great haste away
up
the other subterranean passage.
She had escaped
the creature’s
cruel barbs!
The dark cloud pulled
itself
instantly back down the dark passageway to where it was first seen and waited again.
Prey came seldom, but the creature could wait....

**********

Francesca
’s
clothes were soaked with sweat and terror
,
and she spoke
her
anguish
as she jogged quickly upwards.

‘What is that fucking black stuff?
I have turned into a raving lunatic!
It can’t be anything else
—
it must be a hallucination.’
She
then realised that maybe she had been drugged
, at some point...s
o her nightmare was not over, oh no, it was not over yet
.
.
..

She
ran
along the next dark passageway, for how long
she
did not know
.
T
he catacombs seemed fairly level in this area and
the passage seemed to
go on forever; the light from her
headlamp still
had
strength
enough to
reflect off the walls of the pale stone passage.

The cross that she wore
had,
by this time
,
dimm
ed
to nothing
. H
ad she really imagined it all?
Francesca
couldn’t have
imagine
d
the pain at the base of her throat where the cross lay touching her soft skin
—the area
it was burned and blistered
...
sure to leave a brand.

Francesca
became more aware of her dingy surroundings
as she fingered her cross
and
finally noticed that
there seemed to be something different up ahead, coming into her view
.
It was thin
and
vertical
ly laid,
with
horizontal lines going up the wall
...
the girl slowed
as she
approached.