Death Dreams Dire Wolves: Part Seven

Chapter Thirteen: Promises

Manzer and Beatrice struggle to recover from the intensity of the event that just took place in front of them. The intense blast of energy that had put the both of them on their backs not only affecting their sense of sight but of location as well as they struggle to identify where exactly it is that they rest. It's almost as if someone lit a firework in between them that set a certain boundary into motion, one that comes with dire consequences if ever crossed. Despite the lack of cognitive and visual perceptions the back room of the shop that they are in no longer has light in it to give them any sort of guidance or locational substance. So the two are left to clumsily feel around the room with their hands.

"Beatrice, are you there?" Manzer says as he tries to figure out where he is.

"Yeah, I am here." She says trying to locate Manzer by the sound of his voice.

"Are you okay Manzer?" She asks, trying to get a quick assessment of what exactly is taking place or if whatever just happened was some sort of small disaster.

"Yeah, I think so." Manzer is not entirely sure of anything. He can hear The shuffling sound of Beatrice looking around in the dark, and as Manzer tries to make sense of the sound, he can soon see images of the world around him cast in an odd shadow of a light that seems to emanate from Manzers own eyes. The echoes of sound create light themselves, and soon the room is painted like a world of dark dreams and forgotten memories.

"Manzer, I Can't see." Beatrice says as Manzer can see her getting to her knees, she tries to stand but falls over as her legs have been sapped of all their strength. Manzer moves in quickly to catch her before she falls and holds her up before she hits the floor. "Thanks." She says holding onto Manzer, but then quickly notices something off about the way he feels to the touch.

"Hey, did you put on a sweater or something?"

"N-no." Manzer says as he holds up Beatrice.

"Then, what is this?" Beatrice says as she tugs on the hair on Manzers arm."

"Ouch!" Manzer yelps.

They both sit still for a moment as this subtle clue sets in to the both of them like ice filling in the cracks. Then suddenly, the lights in the room flicker on and back into life, and the horror of the circumstance sets in, taking the form of the terror in Beatrice's eyes.

Beatrice is frozen solid as she finds herself held firmly in the clutches of a furry monster. One caught somewhere between being a beast and a person in some sort of mix between a cat, a dog and a short person, it's dark fur tinted in a sort of dark blue.

Manzer looks up at Beatrice as he wonders why her body just went so icy cold. But his eyes meet hers, Beatrice's survival instinct kicks in and she pushes him away with all of the force she can manage causing the small blue monster to fall over into a pile of empty packing boxes.

Beatrice still however is unable to stand strong on her own, and has to catch herself on something after pushing away her only support. She shuffles her way towards the door of the room, hoping to make it out in time and lock the door behind her. But her movements are sluggish and clumsy, weighed down by her lack of balance and hard shock.

She manages to make it to the door but realizes that it has already been locked and by some strange force holding it closed. Looking at the door it seems that a number of magic symbols now glow in the light, keeping both Beatrice and this thing locked in the room. She tries to pull a number of shop keeper keys out of her pocket and open the door as quickly as possible, but her fingers are clumsy too, causing her to curse a few times as she drops her ring of keys on the floor.

"Hey, what was that for?" Manzer says as he struggles to dig himself out of a pile of boxes. I finally climb out and touch his head making sure nothing else is bleeding or injured.

Manzer looks up at Beatrice who looks like she is in a state of panic. She looks back at Manzer but only for a glimpse as she continues to struggle with her keys. Manzer is in a general state of confusion as he has no idea why she is acting like this. "Hey Beatrice, what's wrong?" He says trying to get a better understanding of what is taking place. Manzer does not know much about girls, he has for the most part tried to avoid them in all retrospect to how he remembers his mother was. Although the few interactions he has had with them, outside of his family life have not yielded much other than cynical response. Manzer figures something must be wrong however if Beatrice is acting this way, maybe a problem Manzer hasn't yet figured out.

'Maybe Beatrice just does not like being touched' Manzer figures in his after thought of how often girls react badly to anyone laying a hand on them without their permission. Thinking back to.how he was almost slapped in the face earlier that day by a girl he had accidently bumped into.

"Oh, wow, I am sorry. It just looked like you were about to fall, Manzer says."

Beatrice can only hear growling behind her, and snarling. The noises of a bloodthirsty monster that in her mind, somehow managed to trap her in a room sealed with a magic spell. She now realizes that she won't be able to get the door open in time. She realizes that her only chances of survival might be to fight off this thing, and in doing so she looks around for any weapon that might help her. Lucky enough for her, near the door is a dagger that is garnished and bound with molded silver. She grabs onto the hilt and pulls the dagger from its scabbards pointing it at the monster in front of her.

Manzer is caught totally off guard by the knife being pulled and pointed in his direction, and in response he raises his hand above his head.

Beatrice now sees that the monster is afraid of this weapon due its response. She figures it must be some type of shape shifter if it is afraid of silver. However unfortunately for Beatrice, silver does not react well to her touch and the blade quickly begins to to grow hot inside her hands burning her quite badly. She is forced to drop her weapon and clutches her hand, as the pain and panic bring her to tears. "No, not like this. Please, no." Then she covers her face waiting to be attacked by the beast that stands before her.

Manzer watches Beatrice break down into tears. As in his mind, he figures Beatrice must have had a bad experience in her past, that is causing her to react the way that she is. Beatrice tears move Manzer to an odd place one of sulking compassion. Manzer takes the time to think over when it is an appropriate time to make physical contact with someone who he knows very little about. The whole circumstance is strange and traumatizing to say the least as yet again he realizes how little he knows about people.

Manzer is overcome with sadness, so much so that it just causes him to find a place to sit down, looking away from Beatrice in her emotional struggle.

"Maybe I should just go." Manzer says as he tries to hold himself to a higher standard than someone who is just there to ask inappropriate questions.

Beatrice looks up from her crying for a moment. Realizing that she has yet to be attacked. She looks around the room and sees the creature sitting on something as if it is waiting patiently for her to stop in her hysteria. For a moment her panic subsides, and she is able to catch her breath and think, think as to the reasons why she has not been torn to pieces here in the back of the place where she worked. She looks down and sees the knife still on the floor in front of her, untouched and unmoved. Then up the creature sitting in front of her.

Looking more closely she realizes something, that this small beast is wearing a T-shirt. The same shirt that Manzer had on before the flash of light blinded her, and in that moment she realized. This is Manzer sitting before her, and perhaps, he doesn't even know that he is what he is.

Beatrice is still terrified, not entirely sure what exactly was going on, or why silver now burned her hand as it did not before. She thinks back to the pinky promise, then realizes that maybe it had something to do with that particular circumstance. A strange little detail that was not mentioned in any of the books that she had encountered in dealing with the creatures of the supernatural.

She slowly leaves the door and carefully walks over to the monster sitting in the room with her, looking over its long vicious claws, pointed big ears, thick bluish fur, and big sad silver eyes, like a cat's eyes.

As she slowly positions herself in front of the monster looking it over, looking at the bandage that is still wrapped around its ankle. It slowly looks up at her and looks into it eye's.

"M- Manzer? Is that, you?"

Manzer is confused by the question. Beatrice went from completely distressed to someone who was asking him who he was. Maybe that flash of light might have done more damage than he realizes. "Yeah it's me?" He replies. "Who else would it be?"

All Beatrice hears in response is growling which causes her to flinch. But the monster shows no body language indications as to being about to attack.

"Okay this is weird," Beatrice says as she looks Manzer up and down. "I can't understand what you are saying. All I hear is -growling... Manzer if you understand me nod your head."

Manzer hears the odd request. But being that he must obviously be in the wrong somehow he does what beatrice asks, nodding his head in response.

Suddenly the both of them can hear the front door to the shop open, and a large group of people walk in. It sounds like a group of young kids, looking around the store and talking about the events of the day.

"Oh no not now." Beatrice says, looking at the door still burning with runes. She knows that she won't be able to open it. Not with her injured hand. Curious as to why she is no longer able to touch silver, she begins to feel panic.

"No i need to be out there, I will lose my job if my boss knows I left the store."

"Oh well, then let's just go out there." Manzer says it is still a bit off center from what is going on. He thinks Beatrice might be losing her mind, but like anyone who has ever been confused by a young woman, he just stands up and walks over to the door, turning the knob and opening it.

"Manzer wait!" She exclaims, stopping him dead in his tracks before he leaves the room. "You cannot go out there looking like that. My god, ugh. Here!" Beatrice says as she grabs a thick cloak one of the coat wracks in the room. She wraps it around Manzer and puts the hood up. This causes the cloak to change color." (What is going on, are these cloaks really magic?) Beatrice says in disbelief as she sees the shifting nature of the cloth that Manzer is wearing. "Stay back here, do not let anyone see you." She says trying to keep Manzer hidden and out of harm's way.

Chapter Fourteen: The Less We Know

The Rasp and her creature leave the store only after a few moments, leaving abruptly after saying their farewells. However they whisper something to one another after stepping outside of the storefront display window. Beatrice would see that the Rasp would turn back looking at Manzer with a strange ominous gesture of her thin strangled face. Something about Manzer displeases her, as if she too knows that he might be something more or less than a person.

Beatrice is using her hands to keep herself up, and without falling to the ground. She has to endure this for a few more instances of long and daunting breaths through her own anxiety, trying not to break through the separation of what it means to be crazy or sane in reality. Only so many fragile branches of thought excited for Beatrice, all looking to now shatter into the precipice of untamed fear.

Beatrice doesn't know that monsters were more common than not, and yet again, she was starting to get a sense that Manzer had no idea that he was one, or why others would take such an interest in this. This was bad an Beatrice knows this- all things comming to the matter of a rougue creater wondering the streets, and the murder at the school getting a number of Monsters to crawl out of hiding.

Beatrice could not believe her own memories as she came to terms with who the Rasp was when she came through the door, and long time an old time customer. Ms. Dorrora had been coming into the store for as long as Beatrice could remember, always coming to pick up a number of objects that Keeps secret. Up until know Ms. Dorrora seemed like a regular but superstitious business woman, she always was in church on Sundays and kept a schedule of selling makeup at the mall. She always kept a body guard nearby who was always known to be relatively friendly, being the daughter of a famous Billionaire, the cosmetics Tycoon.

Beatrice cannot get over the shock, that someone she had known and interacted with for so many years, was something less than human.

What was going on? what was going to happen, all deep dark secrets now opened up like so many mysterious packages that brought to life all the things children would rather forget seeing at the bottom of a bottomless pit.

All the other kids realize that sister Therin is coming, and that Manzer might be someone who is involved in something they have heard rumors of, or seen nightamers of in their sleep, waking to up to the moment where something that looked like a person was reduced to smoldering ribbon of flesh at her feet. Now everyone knows what Manzers deal with, a kid who might be just like them, stuck in between being a targeted victim of whatever it is that sister Therin really is.

"So sister Therin is looking for you huh." Says Veronica with a grievous look on her face, she says to manzer as she tries to get a hold of the concept of where Manzer stands in the poor kid, reverence.

"Yeah, well it's not like it wants to find me." Manzer says to everyone.

"Why not?" says another kid, who tries to become involved. His name is not yet known, but his attire is something to be observed, as a skater type, with loose black clothes, under a hat and hair that cover most of his face. Only a small twingkle of his eyes can be seen past the hair that drapes events around his head, as it hides him mostly from anyones full on notice.

"I- am just sick and tired of her." Manzer says, trying to cover his tracks. ""To stern, to many rules, to many bible studies. I just wanted a break from her after, well we all know what I saw."

"Oh yeah, finding a dead body would make a lot of kids run." Says another guy, he is bigger and a bit more heavily built than the others, having packed on a good few pounds of fat. "I mean, its a dead body right, must have been shocking?"

"Yeah, well. I don't like talking to cops." Manzer says as he makes it clear of his standards of being a total skate kid.

"Yeah, right. Cops." Says Venessa, as she rolls her eyes in the afterthought of a past experience. "They barely listen to or believe anything kids say."

They never do. Says another girl in the group. She seems to be gripping onto some sort of book. "I we all came here as soon as we heard. "Seems like we have another mystery on our hands."

"We?" Manzer says as he looks at the group of kids.

"Oh, we are all in the paranormal research club. We kind of keep track of all of the spooky places around town. Word is that a great few buildings in town are old and haunted. So we try to do research on whatever we can in order to help with the growing concern."

"Paranormal research club?" Manzer says as he does not fully grasp the concept of what it is that these kids are doing, going around and researching old buildings.

"We call ourselves, Spooks, or the spooky kids. But each one of us has seen something happen in this town that was a bit hard to explain. The fact that sister THerin is after you is something of a concern."

"She probably just want to throw some holy water on me or something guys, you know how nuns are when someone dies." Manzers then replies, and sets his place in the realms of a non believer, knowing that it was a ghost that dragged him into the mall. Manzer does not know how to approach this, so many people that m might believe what he had just seen and experienced, the controversy of what it's like to black out and end up in some place after going through some symptom of mental disorder, rather than believe that ghost are real and can teleport entire people. "Common guys, it's not like I believe in that easter bunny stuff. Ghosts and all that are just a myth."

"You don't have to be skeptical with us,” says Veronica, "We have all seen some things that were pretty hard to explain."

"You, Manzer says, looking over Veronica's cheerleader-like demeanor."

"Are you doubting me because I am dressed as a cheerleader?" Veronica says she becomes a bit coarse with Manser." The two have a bit of a staring contest as they test each other's nerves.

"So then, you know I can't go back there, right?" Manzer says interestingly the point is very subty to test this group of young kids who have seen more than human things, creeping in the night and very close to their homes.

"You aren't a monster are you Manzer?"

"No. I don't think so." Manzer says with little to trust other than what others say they have seen.

"If she is coming here then you cannot stay, man." I have seen her get pretty mad.

"I know she isn't a human man. Like you need a place to hide. And fast." Says the other goth girl.

"We are in a club made to track what she is, we all have our bets. I say vampire."

"I say, a cyborg." Says the kid dressed in baggy clothes.

"No way, I think she is some sort of Ghost. She can pull things out of thin air."

"Well I think the less we know the safer we are." Manzer says as he tries to give reason.

"Pretty sure manzer could stay here for the night. But only if you get away from here right now."

"No.. I need him here." Beatrice says as she realizes what is really taking place.

"Why?"

"Beatrice cant speak, she is simply unable to formulate the words that she needs to say to help the others come to terms with how close they are to deadly monsters at all times.

"The movie theater is a good place to hide. Maybe the rec center at the park." Says the guy in the baggy clothes. "I saw her do something pretty crazy once." skipped school for two weeks. "Common, I will introduce you to some of my friends.

The other girls nod. and so does the heavy set guy. "Common lets go."