Fff272 - Blog Posts

A Bit Old For This

@flashfictionfridayofficial

Where did this come from? I don't know... I woke up at 6:10 am. and saw the prompt. This story just kinda came knocking on my brain without notice.

Story Warning: breif thoughts of death, violence, abduction, mentions of unstable mental state, and isolation.

Aaron woke up scowling to the sound of his alarm. 4:30 am. flashed brightly on the small LED screen. He’d overslept again.

Not bothering to snooze, Arron slowly sat up in bed and attempted to fight his growing desire to pitch himself over the balcony of his fifth story apartment. Imagining the complications in the event of his failure he discarded the unproductive thoughts turning his attention to the bathroom instead.

Pictures and Phil and Rachel in their uniforms hung on the mirror taunting him with their smiles, a constant reminder of his failure.

Blasted psyche test. Weren't people like him the very kind that the military were looking for?

Aaron's scowl deepened as he tried to push down a rising sense of nausea, he really needed to take down those pictures before he…

A loud boom sounded from the living room and his failures were replaced by a sudden and unshakable dread.

He'd been anxious and angry in equal measure for most of his life, so Aaron was familiar with voids in his gut, but this dread seemed to be emanating from the back of his head telling him to run.

His brain didn't even process the command that had been instinctively issued before his body was moving calmly towards the bathroom window.

Unhooking the latched he ducked out to the fire escape and began to descend the stairs as quietly as possible while his heartbeat began to accelerate with each successive boom.

The wind began to pick up as he heard a low growl from above. He didn’t dare stop, didn't dare to look up and see what might have invaded his home. What would have happened had he hit snooze one more time? It was then that his anxiety caught up with the dread and a pit formed in his already weakened stomach threatening him with a putrid bile that crept into the back of his throat.

Aaron stopped just long enough to force the bile back down into his stomach. Unfortunately It was a moment too long, for even as he took several deep breaths after finally forcing the caustic mixture down his aching throat, he felt icy fingers gently wrapping around the back of his neck.

The back of his mind began to scream as his body froze in place. He wanted to move, needed to continue fleeing but it was as though his body had been frozen by those fingers which dug into the back of his neck.

"Are you sure this one will do?"

Aaron closed his eyes before he could see the person he heard them stepping closer. It was like his brain knew something worse than the eternal sleep he dreamed of would be forced on him if he made eye contact with whatever it was.

"The Professor was very clear in his description, and I can feel radiance even if it’s faint. I am a bit surprised he made it this long without being discovered."

His brow furrowed as Aaron tried to make sense of what was happening. What did they mean radiance? The feeling in the back of his head flared once more with the urgent desire to escape these things, but he was still firmly rooted in place as a bony finger pressed into the side of his face as warm blood pooled under the sharp nail.

The sting of torn skin was enough to convince the last sane shred of his mind that this wasn't another of his insane dreams, he'd always wake up when he was injured and less had drawn him from his wanderings. The icy grip around his throat tightened, and his vision blotched to blackness.

....

"Simon, wake up!"

His eyes snapped open at the unfamiliar voice. He was in a plain white room filled with sleeping figures. From a cursory glance he was probably the oldest by about fifteen years. Among them only about a fourth seemed to be awake, and half of those were staring at the walls in a daze.

He didn’t have much time to linger on his confusion as a familiar boom filled the room and his eyes were drawn to a wolf-like creature that stood towering over one child that was still sleeping. The creature's maw dripped with red as it didn't hesitate to bring its jaws down on the sleeping boy's shoulder before blinking out of existence with another boom, taking the boy with it.

Cries rang out from nearby children as they began to scramble away from any of the sleeping kids as more booms filled the room in rapid succession, always a sleeping child, and always there for less than a moment more than necessary. The teen near him continued to shake her unconscious friend while calling out his name as another boom sounded and knocked her away from the defenseless teen.

Aaron wasn't sure if it was that strange new part of his brain , or the well of frustration the had been brewing in his gut which caused him to leap at the wolf, but in the end the result was the same. Without an ounce of hesitation he pounced on the focused beast like a coiled spring which had finally been released.

Its body was lighter than the wolves he'd dealt with in the past, and as he pinned its throat to the ground with his knee, he reached to his belt finding his knife had been left unchecked.

His fingers gingerly gripped around the handle pulling it free as the creature seemed to catch up with its current situation and attempted to claw at him while snarling.

He was struck by the pathetically weak nature of this thing as his blade was buried in the creature's throat, tearing it cleanly with more ease than should have been possible. As the blade broke free of the creature it burst into a cloud of thick purple smoke and rapidly funneled into his mouth and nose suffocating him for a brief moment.

When the swirl was gone he looked down at his hands with patchy vision and tried to focus on the strange fog that he could now feel slowly making its way through his lungs.

"Congratulations!"

A little old man appeared not far away smiling from ear to ear.

"The first dream wolf has been absorbed so all survivors are now eligible dream Arbiter candidates!"

Little bursts of confetti sprayed over the room as the children and Aaron looked at the man in confusion.

It was at this point that the sleeping victims all started to wake up and look around them in confusion before happily reuniting with their peers and crying tears of what he assumed were relief.

For his part, all Aaron could manage to do was put away his suddenly clean knife, hoping the old man would suddenly decide it wasn't something that an abducted adult should be allowed to have.