Hunter s Chorus

My fingers drummed against cracked leather as I stared at the bolted door, willing it to open.  The boys should have been back by now. Not just hours ago, a day and a half ago. I closed my eyes, squeezing them against my rising panic. Daylight was fading fast, and with it, my hope of their safe return.  

I shook my head, trying to dislodge the worry as I looked back at my twin, her body still except for the occasion twitching of her fingers. We'd been identical once, right down to the freckle behind our right knee and it was strange, almost surreal looking at her, knowing she should be what I saw when I looked in a mirror.

My sweet sister cried when she’d seen what I'd done to myself. She'd tried reasoning, pleading, everything she could think of to make me change it all back, but I'd liked tinting every hair on my body black and I'd liked the feel of my short pony tail tickling the edge of my shoulders.

For the first time in my life, I'd felt normal. 

Lillith didn't see ourselves the way I did though, she thought our differences were a gift, something that made us unique, special. But we weren't special. We were the butt of nature's joke on humanity and my gut screamed at me every second of every day that we shouldn't exist.

The devastating truth was depressingly simple. We were seventeen year old white haired, violet eyed freaks, caught between the waking world and the one that existed behind our closed eyelids. The same strength sucking world she’d insisted on walking one last time before the boys got back.

I looked down at her, eyes closed, teeth clenched, struggling to hang on. I balanced her silver ring, a gift from our Mother, on my knee and pulled my grey sleeve over my finger tips, dabbing at the beading sweat on her forehead. 

Something was happening in the Blacklands and for the first time in memory, Shades were crossing the Southern boundry in droves, bringing with them their violet sky and starless nights. They didn’t eat, they didn’t sleep, they didn’t stop. They just kept coming, pushing us back and taking our land, leaving a sea of dead bodies in their wake. 

Lillith whimpered and I jerked into action. Left hand to her forehead, right to her pulse, hammering visibly through the delicate skin of her throat. It was a habbit as familiar to me as breathing, a habbit I longed to forget.  

"Damn it Lillith! Wake up. Now!"

She parted clenched teeth, her bloodless lips twitching with words that wouldn't come. I caught one of her trembling fingers, shoving her ring back on. Her eyes snapped open, their pupils blown to an incredible size as she tried to focus on the room before her.

 "What…” my twin caught sight of my dark expression and trailed off, taking a moment to collect herself. “It’s getting worse, isn’t it?”

I bit back a sigh and stood. It didn’t matter what I said, truth or lie, it would do nothing but upset her. Besides, it wasn't her fault I'd gone against my better judgement and given in. At least now I wouldn't be stupid enough to let her do it again, however persuasive she tried to be. Being the bad guy was better then loosing her. 

She huffed at my silence, scratching the side of her neck as she sat up. "I swear this bed has fleas."

"It wouldn’t be the first." 

She twisted the ring I’d forced on her finger, slipping it off to put on her thumb. "I didn't find him."

My heart sank with her words. "No news is good news."

She nodded, though she looked far from convinced.

I softened my tone, wary of her disappointment. “Lie down and get some rest, I’ll keep watch for the others.”

She shook her head, stuffing her still trembling fingers beneath her armpits. “I don’t want to sleep.”

“You don’t have a choice.”

“You’re the one who hasn’t slept since they left.”

“I’m fine.”

“But-”

“You know you’re weak after that,” I snapped, nodding towards her ring, “and we can’t afford you getting run down and sick. You know the deal. You go there, you sleep.”

She glared at me, pulled out her hair tie and lay back down, rolling her back to me. I put what distance I could between us in the matchbox of a room, letting her sulk on her own as I leant back against the far wall.

As much as I hated to admit it, even to myself, I was tired. And my nagging need for sleep was steadily growing from a dull thud behind my left temple into a full blown headache. I tilted my head back, inspecting each and every light above us in an effort to keep myself awake.

Our temporary home was just like every other we'd stayed in this close to the creeping boarder. Two double beds, a cracked cabinet sporting a small radio and a round table that surprisingly enough, still had three matching chairs. 

They’d tucked an olive kitchenette into the far corner, making the fridgeless waste of space share a wall with the bathroom. The two windows had been boarded up with splintered planks of rough wood, whilst the roof, completely intact and free of water stains had its usual horde of hanging lights plus an extra row of fluorescent tubes that ran the perimeter of the front door and window panes.

Before the war, this kind of lighting was unheard of outside the mining towns that ringed that Blacklands. But as the blue sky turned violet, heralding the coming terrors, night proofing had become essential to everyone’s survival. Light produced an impenetrable barrier to hostless shades. Add an Ultra Violet bulb to the mix and you could kill them. Taken on the other hand...

The wind shrieked, giving voice to my growing fear as it raked its angry claws down the side of our motel room. I glanced at my thin fingers, studying the battered band I spun with my left thumb, the identical partner to Lillith’s.

"Fayle?"

My head snapped up at the sound of her voice. "Yeah?"

"I miss him."

"Me too."

"Do you think we'll ever find him?"

"I know we will."

"What if we're too late?"

"Then we'll find a way to free him."

She rolled over to face me, her long white hair coiling around her neck. "And if we can't?"

"We'll find him."

She curled herself into a ball, hugging her knees to her chest. "But -"

"Lillith, listen to me. Would you have found him if he’d been Taken?"

She nodded, wiping her wet cheek on her knee. 

Nick being Taken, becoming one of the countless people that had stepped too close to a dark corner and become, for lack of a better word, possessed by a shade, was our biggest fear. When they took hold of your body they forced you from it, sending your wandering soul to the other world whilst they used your flesh to fight the rest of us in the light of day. It was these faces that Lillith searched, trying to find our brother.

"I won’t give up on him Lills. Neither will you."

"But there's so many now... Begging for help... What if I've missed him?"

"You could never pass over Nick. You love him too much and I doubt he'd let you."

She put her head back down on her lumpy pillow, her face defeated.

"Who did you see?" I asked, recognising the look. 

"No one."

"Lillith!"

"It was... It was Stuart," she whispered, her voice breaking.

"Stuart?" My stomach leapt to my throat. "What about the others? Did you see the others?"

"I -"

My gun was in hand and aimed at the door faster than I could think, the turning lock giving me just enough time to land crouched at Lillith's feet, my body her shield. If those spawn of hell wanted her, they’d have to get through me first.

"Put your gun away," Aaron said, his voice muffled by the thick door.

Relief tugged at the edges of my consciousness but fear held me still. The lock turned and the slab of painted wood opened just enough to let him and his cousin slip through before he closed it again, bolting it behind him. The second man in was smart enough to to enter face first and make eye contact, he knew I was too trigger happy to risk doing otherwise. Aaron on the other hand?

"Turn around!”

Ice blue eyes met my violet, and somewhere deep inside I acknowledged the fact that he didn't flinch from my gaze like most others did. The thought sent a tingle of unwelcome warmth through me, from its molten start in the pit of my stomach to the tips of my gun gripping fingers. I shoved it aside with a viciousness saved for little else, telling myself it was nothing but relief at having them back. 

"If I wanted you dead, you'd be dead." He flicked his thumb towards Dave. "And do you really think he'd still be himself if I was one of them?”

"Where's Stuart?" 

His tired face hardened. "Gone."

"How?"

He turned from me, unzipped his duffel bag and upended it, spilling dented tins of food and a spare light bulb onto the table. "All you need to know is that he's dead. The shade too."

He threw the bag on the floor and strode off, slamming the bathroom door behind him. 

"Give him a break Fayle, it was a rough couple of days."

"Unless you're gonna fill me in on why you're a day late and how Stuart ended up dead, shut the hell up!" I yelled, turning my anger on Dave.