Afterlife - Stephanie Hudson Page 0,76

last time, and I walked through after a moment of hesitation. Once I was inside the door slammed shut sealing me in along with my fate. I tried opening it but it seemed stuck or worse... locked. I turned to the room, which was the same as I left it the night before. There were the same groups all sat at exactly the same tables and I walked the same steps I had done the night before. Thinking of the one friendly face I could find I walked towards the bar in hopes of seeing Karmun.

I was getting close to the centre table and my hands started to shake. I really wished there was a different way to the bar but it had been cleverly positioned. I took a deep breath letting my lungs fill with air so that I didn't have to breathe while I walked past. I wasn't sure why I did this but I was almost convinced that the very scent of him had me feeling strange things. I wouldn't look. I wasn't going to look. I promised myself not to look.

I looked.

Of course I did, I was weak. However he didn't look back. I tried to move my eyes but they wouldn't listen to my silent pleas. He wasn't wearing a full suit tonight. He wore a tight fitted t-shirt instead of a shirt and tie, but just kept on the jacket. My god he looked sexy. I started to mentally undress him and stopped before it got too much to handle.

I found myself thinking what his skin looked like in the glow of candlelight. More than ever I wanted to touch it. Would it be soft or hard under his powerful muscles? He leaned over to the Goddess next to him and listened to what his sister was whispering to him. Then my cover was blown as his head snapped up too quick for me to react. I almost ran the rest of the way to the bar.

I bumped into people on the way but what I saw in them wasn't the same as last night. My curse, it had come back to haunt me and I screamed. But no one looked at me even when they pushed around me. I dropped the tray and bottles smashed around me in slow motion. Their faces were monstrous! I was terrified and I wanted to run. NO, no, no, this couldn't be happening. Not now....not again!

I began to run but it felt as though my legs were made of metal. I could hear the crunching of glass beneath my feet and the heavy thunder of my own heartbeat. I was looking for the way out of this hell but as I passed each table the horrors kept showing themselves in wave after wave of Demons.

There was one whose skin looked as though it was melting from the bone but it just smiled as though what I was seeing was normal. I gagged at the dripping skin and lipless grin. I ran past another table of men that didn't have faces but teeth. That was all, just teeth that locked together like a prehistoric sabre-toothed tiger. Their lips started from their foreheads and went down to their chins with just deadly teeth but their faces kept twisting and contorting into what I had seen last night, their normal faces.

I couldn't get a grip. I turned around hiding from them only to see more monsters. The table I thought were Vampires were actually a table full of broken skulls that bled through the cracks. They turned to look at me and pointed to me with broken fingers that kept fading into the air like they were made from the ash of cremated corpses.

I grabbed my head and sank to my knees wanting to curl up into a tight ball saying “There's no place like home,” over and over.

I could see from the corner of my eye a figure coming over to me before I made my secure ball. Everything was blurring like when I was a child. I couldn't make out what was real and what was my craziness. The figure was getting closer and every instinct told me to run but I was paralysed with fear. I hung my head and let my hair cover my face and the sobs started to erupt from eyes that couldn't take any more.

“Please make it go away.” I whispered like a frightened child.

“I will little one. Don't worry, you’re safe now.”