Little Bear Lost

I woke to the oddest sensation. I lifted my head and looked around, I was laying on something dark and wet but all around me was veiled in a fog. It was raining and I was soaked through. Upon closer inspection, I was on blacktop, a road in a small cul de sac and there was a rain grate between the road and the sidewalk to my right.

This was odd, I normally only awoke at night, but it was daytime, probably late afternoon by my judgement. Where was I?

The next question was, where was Timothy?

We were inseparable, and considering what he was forced to face every night I couldn't blame him for his fierce attachment to me.

I need to find him by tonight!

As I sat up, I heard the unmistakable screech of tires and saw that a small red car had swerved around me. I heard doors open and slam.

"Bob! You almost gave me a heart attack, what did you do that for?" A woman's voice was clearly upset.

I felt a large hand close around my middle and turned me to face the owner of the hand, presumably the aforementioned Bob.

A man looking to be in his 60s or 70s faced me "Look Edith! It’s a little bear. I used to have one just like him when I was little" he held me up for, I presumed, Edith to see.

Edith's face twisted with rage, and she stomped over to Bob "You almost killed us for this filthy, wet, smelly little bear!???" She snatched me from Bob's hand and tossed me with great aim into the rain grate.

I lay at the bottom of the rain gutter, I heard things slither and scuttle in the dark, and whispery echoed laughter came from everywhere and nowhere all at once. I sat up and sighed, aware of the danger & my deadline.

The laughter echoed again along with a mocking feminine voice laced with malice "Guardian! Poor guardian. No charge around to look out for you while you sleep." Laughter peeled from the walls.

I stood and brushed the muck from myself. This was a standard Frightener tactic.

The creepy voice, vague taunts, and scary laughter, they used it to feed from people’s fear, especially children. They liked children best, the younger the better.

I growled "You have been scaring little kids for too long Frightener! You have forgotten a guardian’s true nature"

Again, the laughter had deepened, and the feminine voice was now smokey and purring "Frightener! I haven't heard that name in a very long-time guardian. You must be quite old, but then so am I, and I’m oh so hungry!" With that, a large shadow pulled itself together from all the other darkened corners and took shape.

It stretched and lengthened out into black spindly limbs and an oddly tall body.

Her face and torso were reminiscent of a human woman wearing a rain poncho, underneath took the appearance of a mutated spider with long and sickly legs and a clear abdomen.

A soul eater! She was indeed hungry, and very dangerous.

Her lips curved into a smile that stretched too widely across her face. "Yes, my little guardian. Now it’s time for dinner." She lunged at me a cross the muck-riddled concrete. I dodged, smiled, and caught her under her "poncho" causing her to lift it into its true form, her cicada-like wings.

I punched through her chest with the help of my aura, the energy that a guardian must have to keep their charges safe , and crushed her heart. "What is that saying about counting your chickens before they hatch?" I glared at her.

She was caught off guard and could only open her mouth in a silent scream as I ground her heart to pulp.

The amber light within her eyes winked out, I was running out of time.

Then a thought hit me, Soul eaters tended to stick close to their territory and due to their nature, they knew everything that happened in their territory. When times were desperate, they were incredibly useful for information because of this trait.

This was her territory, She would know what happened while I slept.

I placed my paws on her midsection and did a deep energetic sense dive. My fur crawled, I wanted to retch from how she felt. I scanned the energetic history of her territory, my senses pulled and scattered everywhere all at once until I felt Timmy's light. Timmy’s light is his soul’s energy, it’s a specific energetic signature that all living beings leave in their wake; it is also how bad things track little kids.

Timmy and his parents had been on this street, something bad happened and Timmy's mother had taken me from him and thrown me into the road. Timothy's energy spiked with his emotional turmoil at losing his protector.

So, that was why the Soul eater laughed. When the human guardian of a child takes their spirit guardian away it is akin to giving permission to whatever entities are hunting the child a free pass to harm the child.

No human would do this naturally, they have an innate instinct for danger to themselves and their offspring. Which means that the entities hunting children evolved to be a bit smarter. The predatory entities would often attempt to either entangle their energies with a parent or mesmerize a parent’s mind so that the parent was agreeable to the entity's goal.

Now, I knew that the entity hunting Timothy had worked itself into the corners of his mother’s mind. I had been suspicious for some time of her behavior. I knew this entity was top shelf, but this was worse than I had thought. It also disturbed me that I was vexed about the nature of the creature that wanted my charge.

I stayed in the soul eater’s energy until Timothy's light trail ended. Luckily, the soul eater’s territory was much vaster than it should be and I could make out where he had stopped.

I realized he had gone to his grandmother’s, his Paternal grandmother. While she didn't talk about it, Grandma Lorri knew a lot about the supernatural world.

I prayed she would lend him some safety until I got there.

I also prayed that she would levy me to stay by his side once I returned to him.

No time to lose, I began to withdraw my energy and my mind from the soul eaters when I felt her scraps of consciousness snap around me like a mouse trap.

Her voice came to mind like an oil slick "Guardian, as you have been in my mind, so have I been in yours. I have seen what you fight. Your charge will be gone by nightfall." She laughed.

"Even a guardian so old and powerful as you will be bested by a Taker! Your charge was doomed from the start!"

She laughed and laughed until I crushed her abdomen, snapping her link to this world. It was a vicious thing to do, and I knew it. I wanted her to be wrong, but it made sense. I shook myself, tore off her wings, and hurried to the nearest sewage pipe opening. This was revolting, but I was out of time!

I made it down the pipe to where the wastewater flowed with a deafening roar, there I tossed myself and the wings into the torrent of foul water landing on the wings as a makeshift raft.

I followed the current as it sped through the pipes.

I would get to Timothy in no time at this speed. The rushing tide of sewer water turned faster than I could compensate for. I ended up taking a turn too tightly and wound up flying from my makeshift raft and down a completely different pipe. My raft was gone and I was lost again.

I picked myself up out of the filthy debris, I had landed facedown and not only my fur, but also my button-like eyes were clogged with whatever I had landed on.

All around me,As far as the eye could see were piles upon piles of broken things, things carelessly tossed away and actual refuse.

A home for lost and sad things, the atmosphere reeked of depression, and it crashed over me like a wave sapping my will to move forward. It took all my will, which was considerable, to get up and move.

"If you let it, the miasma will get you."

I whipped my head in the direction of the deep voice that had clearly given up some time ago. I came face to face with a lopped-eared pink rabbit wearing a silk bow ribbon around its neck, it would have been adorable if not for its right eye being burnt out and a large slash across its middle that was crudely stitched.

"I know I'm quite the sight, aren't I."

"What happened?!"

"I was taken from my charge, Jilly Bean, by her father. He put a cigarette out on my eye and then went to work with scissors in front of her. I can still see her terrified face and hear her screams, but none of that compares to the knowledge that I failed to protect her. She was gone before I landed here, I could feel it when the Borrower took her over. It got to her father first. " The rabbit looked as though all its life had left it, a fellow guardian had been left here to rot in the trash. I couldn't adjust to it.

"What is your name brother?" I held out my paw and the rabbit lit up a bit and took it.

"Benjamin K. Hopsy" He stood tall then and straightened his bow proudly.

I smiled at him "What was your name before this?"

He looked pained "Shuralise" his shoulders sank.

Shock and incredulity were evident in my face and tone "The Shuralise?!"

"Yes." He hid his face with his long ears.

It was impossible. Shuralise had been one of the strongest of us, he had vanished after an assignment. We all thought he had been destroyed. Not this, never this. Shuralise had centuries of battling the child hunters, it couldn't end like this for one of us, let alone one like him.

"Where is the extraction team?" I couldn't believe this. Whenever one of us went missing or needed back up, there was an extraction team that came for us. If our form were too badly damaged, they would pull our soul out and place it in a new form. Our Guardian forms were temporary for our work.

Benjamin smiled bitterly “I would love to know. So would everyone else." With that, he waved his pink paw behind him and one after another, wounded and discarded guardians came in to view. A blue kitten with slashes and missing the top if its tail, a blue teddy bear missing a leg and bandages around his head, he used a pencil as a makeshift crutch, a purple rabbit with its back hanging open, wounded chipmunks and squirrels and skunks and the list went on. All broken and betrayed. They surrounded us after a bit, all weakened and in despair, encircling Benjamin, and me.

I looked into their eyes and felt their pain. These were fellow guardians!

"This isn’t the only dumping ground; they’re all over the world." Benjamin said it quietly.

"That's not possible!"

I shook myself from my stupor, my charge needed me, and time was growing short. "My heart breaks for you my brothers, but I must find my charge. He is in terrible danger, and I need to get to him by nightfall."

They all nodded knowingly, Benjamin nodded towards a pipeline to my left that I wouldn't have noticed as it was so overgrown "There, that will get you back on your way. Be wary, all our brothers who have gone through that tunnel have never been seen again. There is some sort of Shrieking entity, I have never heard its like and I’m ashamed to say that I am afraid to investigate it; we all are. It has a potent fear aura, more intense than I’ve experienced."

All the lost Guardians nodded, and I saw their fear.

I started towards the tunnel and felt it. I steeled myself because Timothy needed me, I didn't have time to be afraid.

It was dark and wet, and I smelled the sludge at my feet, but it was all canceled out by the fear that grew more oppressive the further down the tunnel I went.

I came to an intersection and attempted to reach for Timothy's energy signature, everything was static. As though there was too much energy overlapping itself.

What was this place?

It reeked of fear and deep sadness, almost like a child who has been abandoned.

What was going on here?

It was too dark to see my surroundings, I knew by feel that the water had gotten much deeper and it was too deep for me to cross where I needed to, I was chest deep as it was , while trying to make out vague shapes in the darkness I heard multiple sets of footsteps coming down the tunnel I had entered and I felt the spirit glow before I saw it.

I turned back to see Benjamin leading a few of the others towards me and then their faces contorted in horror as my ears were assaulted by a mind-shattering shriek.

I whipped back around to see multiple sets of red glowing eyes lining the intersection of piping and blocking my way to the other side. I felt the menace wafting from these creatures.

Fear ratcheted up, and a part of me couldn't help but be perplexed. There were no entities like this cataloged in any records, what was this?

I was so puzzled that I didn't see the tentacle coming up at me out of the filthy water when the second shriek exploded over me.

It grabbed onto me and dragged me under the murky waters, towards the middle of the intersection where a large mass seemed to writhe and twitch.

Benjamin and the other lost guardians were shaking and hugging each other, they crouched…frozen. I took a deep breath and used my aura to propel myself towards the entity as I knew it would not let me go, I wasn't fast enough to outrun it either. I felt its fear aura crack as it was surprised and then delighted. It gave an unnerving echoing giggle, as though several children were giggling all at once, and then swiped me up and pushed me through the air.

The giggle came again, and it changed my direction. It couldn't be...this thing was playing airplane with me?!

I heard a voice say sadly "I used to have a bear like you, I miss him." The tentacle paused and brought me gently down to just above the surface of the water.

The Blue Teddy bear on a crutch called out "Larry?!"

The mass started to give off light and the voice of the thing called out in a hopeful voice "Sarge?!???"

"Larry!!!!!!" Sarge dove into the water to sink quickly as he tried to make his way to Larry.

A tentacle swiped him up and brought him close to the mass, which opened to reveal a small boy’s spirit as he reached for Sarge. They hugged tightly and I saw Sarge’s aura glow bright, illuminating the intersection.

The joyful reunion was heartwarming.

I looked around and found that all those red eyes belonged to a small army of wounded guardians.

"Larry?" a little girl’s voice wavered from within the mass and then a small blonde girl's soul crept forward from the mass. I heard Benjamin gasp and yell "Jilly Bean!!!!" to which the girl whirled toward him like a shot and picked him up, squeezing him tight and crying.

One after another, children's souls came out of the mass and it shrunk to nothing, the children who were lost were slowly reunited with their lost guardians.

All these children had been lost and sitting a brief walk from their lost guardians.

"How long have you all been here?"

The children all turned to me in unison with their guardians in their arms and said as one "Since we woke up here." As though that were the most logical answer there could be.

One of the red-eyed guardians, an overly large brown puppy with darker patches and an eyepatch, came forward "These children are victims of the Borrowers and the Hunters. Their souls came here to hide after their bodies were taken over. Once my brethren and I found them, we began protecting them. My apologies brother" He stuck his paw out and I clasped it.

I bowed deeply to him "You have done honorably."

"You have brought a reunion to our charges; you have done honorably as well."

"Thank you, brother. However, my charge is in imminent danger and time is of the essence. The creature I fight comes at night. Do you know how to get to this place from here?" I touched my energy to his and showed him where Timothy's energy signature currently sat.

"Of course! Take this pipe to my left and turn right and then right again and you will come out into that home’s backyard. Quickly brother, night is almost upon us. Should you need our help, call for us!" He pointed to the tunnel to his left.

A tentacle lifted me and set me down at the farthest end of the tunnel. I made my way down the tunnel toward Timothy and prayed that I would make it in time.

I heard the joyous laughter as I hurried, and it warmed my heart.

I followed the puppy's directions and eventually came out behind Grandma Lori's house. The moon was high in the sky when I ran towards the house only to hit an energy wall of sickly green.

Timothy stepped from the shadows beside the house and stared at me detachedly. He walked to me and tilted his head this way and that, staring down at me.

His eyes were black, and all traces of humanity were gone "Guardian, you were indeed formidably, but I won in the end. Your charge is no more, and you have failed. See his last moments, look through my eyes, guardians and see his terror."

He linked to my mind then and I saw little Timothy curled into himself with his back against his bedroom wall after his mother had turned off the lights, he was crying, and I felt his fear. He had been alone in the dark and terrified when this thing had taken him.

I fell to my knees and screamed Timothy's name, it felt like my heart was breaking and, in that instant, my mind connected to Timothy's. He was still in his body. He was caged within his own mind, but somehow Timothy knew I was here...the Taker non the wiser.

The Taker smiled "Goodbye Guardian." and then turned and walked back into the house, knowing that I could not follow.

"My charge was taken by a Taker as well. They keep the child’s soul trapped and bound within the body to go unnoticed. They will commit acts that will drive the child insane. The child’s soul is tortured repeatedly until the body's death at which point it is released. The child never lasts long after that." The Puppy spoke softly from behind me. He had followed me. He came over to me and put his paw on my shoulder and we stayed like that for a time.