The sound of the door creaking open was almost painful. A human face, flushed white with fear, peeked out and into the hallway. The woman's breath hitched in her throat and she ducked back behind the door, turning the knob so that when it closed, there would be no loud click. In a chamber five rooms down, a keening warble of a voice called out, worse than the squeak of the rusted door hinges.
"I heeeear you. Such a noisesome little cricket. Stay where you are now, and I'll find you..."
A lanky shadow hovered out of the chamber and slid down the hall, making no noise. It paused at the woman's room, twitching faintly. There was a slight, wheezing sigh of satisfaction. Slowly, ever so slowly, a long and pointed ear, the color and texture of wax, eased towards the door. It pressed firmly up against the dark mahogany, there was baited breath. Somewhere beyond the wood, in a corner sheltered in blackness, there was a muffled sob.
Spidery fingers wrapped about the knob, ending not in nails but in gnarled talons, cracked and yellowed. When a feline licks you, its tongue rasps. Much in the same way, a long pointed tongue, resembling some kind of tubular subtropical ground worm hued a brilliant, striking red, slid up the front of the door. The human huddled tighter, for all the world picturing a great serpent rubbing itself across the comparatively flimsy barrier.
That had all occurred two hours ago. For two hours, Theo had tried to imagine herself elsewhere, somewhere with familiar faces and a sun in the sky. Daydreams don't last forever though, not unless you're insane. Feeling very close to being such, Theo at last hesitantly pushed herself to her feet. There was no chamber pot, no bathroom, and she felt like her bladder was going to burst. She considered peeing right there on the hardwood, considered it very seriously, and at last decided to wait just a little longer. This was not her home, and she felt it most unwise to provoke a second monster into stalking her.
The sounds had stopped quite a while ago. Now, at this point in time, Theo knew she had two choices. Remain in this room and wet herself, wait in her own filth until something found her...
Or try to escape, as impossible as it seemed. She was not brave. Her cheeks were puffy and swollen, her eyes bloodshot and glazed over with a now innate sense of blind, nauseous anxiety that had been wrought as a result of the horrors she had been subject to over the course of the last two days. She hadn't slept a wink. Not since she had agreed with the old monster to play a game of hide and seek. She almost wished she hadn't. She hadn't been hunted so much as haunted, and by now was entirely convinced of which state of being was the worst.
She edged up to the door and listened. Nothing. She peered through the old brass keyhole. Nothing. She carefully twisted the knob and pushed the door open.
It's quite easy to open a door. For Theo, however, the task took nine minutes. She was able to do it slow enough to not so much as put a ripple in the thick aura of quiet which so permitted the fourth floor of the castle.
Heel toe. Heel toe. Heel toe.
Tippy toe. Tippy toe. Tippy toe.
She whirled around, something flitting in the corner of her vision. Her fully dilated eyes were wide and, for a second, quite literally stupid with fright. She pissed herself. She knew not what she had just seen, but it had felt like a dream caught in an instant. Something capering back into the pitch black shadows of the hall behind her. She almost immediately regained rational thought and realised that it could have easily been her imagination.
She let out a breath and glanced down at her soiled nightgown. Behind her, a scarecrow arm that was too long to belong to a human craned out to brush against her hair.
"Found yoooou..."
Throughout the castle, the other vampires would be able to hear the gut twisting, animal screams that only humans in the worst kinds of anguish can make. Old Mahzun was at it again, and it likely wasn't going to win him any popularity contests.
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