Oh, she loved the night. So it is not fear that she finds in her dark, unconscious state. No, it is here she finds comfort. Because for Bly, things of beauty find the lightless places. Just as the stars always find the heavens when the sun sinks into the Earth. Or as the glowbugs illuminate across a summer meadow. The girl was not filled with the common fear most children held for it. She did not tremble when the lights went out. There were no monsters in the shadows of the Gates, but it was not the shadows that worried her. It was the monsters.
Welcome, welcome, welcome. A single word seems to echo on forever, rousing her back to consciousness. The little grullo wearily blinks her heavy eyelids, small slivers of blue peek from beneath. She had been having the most wonderful dream. Floating amongst the stars, drifting through the constellations- something Romilly and Guthrie spoke wistfully of. As if they had once actually done that, and longed to return to it again. She smiles a soft smile before something at her temple stings, and a hot wetness slides down the side of her face. Am I crying? She thinks for a moment, having forgotten how hard she hit her head. Again a sharp pain touches her skull. ”Ow!" she squeals, jerking her dizzy head. What a terrible, terrible idea.
A small but sturdy creature growls at her, something that looks slightly human. A fresh scab remains clenched in its wrinkly, taloned fist. A set of glowing red eyes burn into her, and its face ends in long, coarse, white whiskers. It is the strangest thing Bly has ever laid eyes on, or could even imagine, including the demons that brought her here. It stands on only its stunted back legs, while the body hunches over a blood stained cap. The yearling has hardly a moment to register what is before her, to scream out again, before it is moving. It swiftly retrieves its fallen head cover and launches itself at her, sinking sharp fangs into her head. She wails a truly scared scream while she jerks her body, flailing in attempts to dislodge her tormenter.
It’s not much use. For such a small creature, it is wicked fast, and unusually strong. No sooner does she manage to fling the thing away, than it is blurring back towards her. He, because it is decidedly male, grips tighter with his sharp claws. Each time she throws him, she gains a new set of bleeding marks across her face. Her screams do little to rouse help, her pleas for mercy do nothing to dissuade her opponent. What is even more frightening perhaps is how the vile little man has soaked his hat in her blood. The crimson cloth was dripping from his dirty head, streams of life flowing into his scarlet beard. Not only was he consuming her, he made a mockery of her sacrifice. Her moment of pause, is answered in a rip of flesh.
He manages the first bite, tearing skin from muscle, a maniac giggle bubbling from his wet lips. Bly immediately vomits, the churning of her stomach could not be stopped. As if monsters being real wasn’t enough, now she was being eaten. Eaten alive. The walls are bare, there is nothing to tell her how she got in. Nor is there a door or opening at all for her to find her way out of. I’m trapped, her weary mind thinks as she stands on trembling legs, trying to see past the flow of blood. Trying to find the light in this darkness, the end to this misery. Another chunk is taken from her, she does nothing to hold back her screams now, she does not fight back anymore. She weeps and allows her legs to buckle beneath her, she crashes to the floor, the little man holding fast. Her fight was gone, what little she possessed. She remains still and welcomes death, anything to end the agony of flesh from bone. "Momma..” she whispers, with barely breath enough to form the word. The little girl closes her eyes, sighing in straining, hitched breaths. Momma always said that bad things come in threes, and Bly could almost laugh at the irony. Tetraphobia-one. Phagophobia-two. Cleithrophobia-three.
Death will be sweet, but she does not die.
Bly’s eyelids tug open, quickly this time, though her head is dull and achey. She scrambles to her feet, pacing sideways and backwards in the attempt to right herself. To dodge the sharp toothed creature she just knows will be there to finish the job. Instead her blue eyes find a prison. A prison lit by flickering, dying light.
