Through Glass(51)

“Sarah? What’s on your wrist?” I asked, my eyes widening as she unfolded her arms, her hand twisting as she looked at something I couldn’t quite make out in the darkness.

“Casualties of war, I suppose,” she said, her hard voice attempting to sound indifferent, but instead it sounded menacing, terrifying. “It’s what happens when you try to fight one when you don’t know what you are doing. You get cut.”

Cut.

Don’t trust a cut wrist.

“On your wrist?” I asked, my voice shaking.

“Yeah… on my wrist,” she snapped, her voice sounding more like a high-pitched hiss. “On both of them. They tried to kill me. What do you think is going to happen?”

“I thought you said they were gone?” I asked, everything in me tensing, straining against the ripple of fear that was moving over me.

“They are gone. These are old scars, see?” she pleaded as she shoved her arms toward me. The scars became more defined in the dark. My eyes adjusted the closer they were to me and then widened at the circles of scars around her wrists; the jagged edges of her skin, the droplets of black blood that still drizzled out of her.

“Then why are they still bleeding?”





Sarah said nothing, she only smiled.

Her smile expanded as her face kept stretching, the smile widening unnaturally as her teeth glimmered in the light.

“Blood!” she screamed, the words deep and hollow. The sound surged through me and I jumped. My back pressed against the shelving unit I had run into only moments before.

“Blood!” she screamed again, her body shifted to stand, the movement disjointed like someone had pulled a string that she had been attached to. Her body lifted up slowly while her shoulders rippled and her body expanded unnaturally until she towered over me.

“They are going to let me kill you. Sent me to kill you.” She smiled again, just as the screech of the Ulama hissed from her mouth. The sound was the deep, vibrating screech of death. Her eyes narrowed at me as she arched her back. The movement of her bones ridged as loud snaps echoed around the cavernous darkness. Her mouth opened wide like the maw of a cat as she screamed. The massive bat wings unfolded as they burst out of her skin, razor sharp feathers dripping with the deep black of her blood. The massive things hovered ominously in the air as they stretched out before me, trapping me in place.

Everything in me stiffened as I watched her. My face froze in fear and confusion. The screech of the Tar sounded again, seeping out of what was once my friend as the sharp points of the razor sharp feathers began to cut through her skin and clothes. Her skin darkened as her body fell away, leaving a monster behind.

I couldn’t scream, I couldn’t move. My hands clenched tightly around the rail I still held, the tip lifted as I prepared to strike. However my body would not respond to the desperate plea that surged through me. I sat still as I watched her change, as I watched her become a monster. I tried to understand what I was seeing, but I knew there was no way to understand. No explanation.

Don’t trust a cut wrist.

I couldn’t look away from Sarah’s face—the face that was now surrounded by jet black razor feathers, each one covered in the black of her blood. I stared into her dark blue eyes as she stared at me. Her breath heaved as the change completed itself. Her mouth opened and she screamed, the human sound I expected replaced by the call of death that I was so familiar with. It was loud in my head as it ricocheted through me.

“Death…” she hissed, her voice distorted beyond recognition, the screech of the Ulama taking over.

I had been so focused on her face, on the sound that seeped from her mouth, that I didn’t see it coming before it was almost too late. The golden talons that had replaced her fingers lifted above her head, the final blow one drop away from ending me.

The screech grew as my scream joined it. The fear that had gripped me finally released as my arms moved, the rail swinging ahead of me in an attempt to attack her, only to be intercepted by the long, golden talons, the metallic clang ringing through the empty space.

I barely held onto the rail, the impact threatening to send it to the ground. I gripped it tightly as I swung blindly, not waiting to see if my aim was right. The rail only made it half way to her before her arm swung wide, the talons coming toward me like five razor sharp knives. I jumped away in an attempt to avoid them, only to find my back pressed against shelving, the ridge of the backpack hard against my back.

I pressed myself against it, my eyes wandering as I tried to find a way to dodge her, a way to attack. Part of me screamed not to hurt her, that it was still her, that this was all a joke. It wasn’t, though. I could see that in the deathly black of her eyes.

She would kill me. I needed to kill her first. I let the shelf fall behind me before I lunged myself toward her, the rail held out like a spear. The pressure on my arm increased as the rail came in contact with the flesh of her abdomen and I stepped forward plunging it into her.

The creature screamed as the sound of ripping flesh filled the air, the screech high-pitched and pained as I lunged the bar into her. Everything inside of me tensed as I looked into Sarah’s face, her jaw wide as the scream left her, her eyes angry and pained. I knew I had to attack her, but now that I stood with my hands pressed against the flowing wound in her abdomen, I wasn’t sure that what I had done was the right decision. Regret was more than what she deserved, what the thing in front of me deserved. It didn’t matter. I felt it anyway.