Grey II - Ghosts

Chapter 19 - King & Queen

  I'm taking you down with me 'til you can't sleep, can't breathe.
You met your enemy. Can't sleep, can't breathe.
Won't get no peace with me.

Digital Daggers - Can't Sleep. Can't Breathe.

I was running, hiding from something. It felt like I had been my whole life. I was in the city, down streets and alleys I should have known, but couldn't place. Lamplights and strange shadows swirled by me as I ran, snow blurring my vision. Finally I turned into an alley, too tired to run anymore, and cowered against the cold brick of the building on one side. I was terrified. I had never felt a fear like this, gnawing at my insides, enough to make me wish I could die before having to face the creature chasing me. I wanted to die, I wished I could. I didn't want him to do it. My hands were shaking, my entire body quivering with fear, with the knowledge that he would find me, he could find anyone. And I had goaded him, I had watched him, seen him, spied on him. How stupid of me to think he wouldn't know, to think he wouldn't come for me...

I had been here before, been in this dream before, but everything was different now, darker, colder, more deadly. The last time it had been Gabriel, the night after he walked into my store. My mind trying to tell me of the monster he was even before I knew they existed. But this time, this time it wasn't just the descendant of a monster, it was the monster in all its heinous glory, in all its power and hate and evil, all that Heaven could spit out. And it was coming for me. It was him, I knew it, and I knew I was about to die. The last time I had simply seen the creature I feared, but this time I was going to be destroyed by it, by the terrible thing I had watched on the bar's rooftop. How stupid I had been.

And then there he was, a slim man before me, like Death, clad in the same black jacket he had worn when I saw him last. If I hadn't known who he was, if I hadn't known what he was, I probably would have thought he looked weak by how skinny he was. He was tall, many inches taller than myself, but he was thin, so thin it looked like he could be broken by a single blow. I was sure he was insane, sure he had forgotten to eat for days, weeks during his rampage in the city, sustaining himself only by his bloodlust. No one would let themselves become so emaciated, so gaunt, willingly. Even with a winter coat on I could see he was meant to be a much larger man, maybe he even had been, before he lost himself.

I was too terrified to move, too terrified to even think of trying to escape, trying to fight. I just stood before him, cowering against the wall as he stared down at me, his face hidden in the shadow of his hood, just his pointed teeth gleaming down at me, shining like the moon in a dark, starless sky. His lips curved slowly, until a smirk played with the edges, and my chest tightened again, threatening to stop my heart's frenzied beating altogether. Even slower than his smile, his hand raised, inching closer and closer to me until I wished he would just do it, just kill me so I wouldn't have to feel this fear anymore, but that wouldn't be fun for him. He was enjoying this, playing with his prey, watching my terror, knowing my helplessness against him, his smile said as much.

His fingertips were so close I could feel their heat crossing the frozen air to my skin, my neck prickling, my crippling terror keeping me rooted in place like a statue. I was as paralyzed as I had been when I first encountered the Collector, Gabriel's father. Then I felt his hand close around my throat, and I could feel death nearing. He didn't even put any pressure there, but it didn't matter, I knew he could strangle me or snap my bones so quickly I would never know he had moved until my body hit the cold ground. I prayed a silent plea, a prayer that I would wake up, so I could control my emotions and banish the fear I felt, the kind of depth of fear I couldn't even fathom in consciousness.

And then the man, the Fallen, was gone like smoke, vanished, as if he had never been there at all, as if he didn't exist anywhere but in my dream, my mind.