Chapter 2 THE ADVENT OF THE NIGHTMARE PART ONE

Marlene's POV

After I had barricaded the doors and windows I was certain that nothing was going to get in, but

in my heart, I knew this wasn't good enough to stop the Pride Of Blood Lust. These guys

were brutal, I guess the embankment gave me a sense of security. When I turned around and

saw how terrified the two little beings in front of me were, well, Mona was the one who looked

scared, Daria, on the other hand, looked indifferent, it scared me.

"Are you guys OK?" I asked

them worriedly.

"Y-yeah, I think we are OK," stuttered Mona in a whisper.

What got me tongue-tied for a few minutes was what Daria inquired.

"Are we going to die?" Daria asked plainly.

I was stunned for almost a minute before my mind could register what I was just asked. The

truth is, I knew we were going to die. Heck, I didn't even know how we had survived this long.

But I couldn't say that to a twelve-year-old and a nine-year-old.

"We will be fine, I promise"

is what I had managed to come up with. Talk about a cliché.

A while after we had settled in a

bit, there was a loud blast at the door, and it blasted the door until it was specks of wood. I

had managed to push the kids out of the way. While I did that I got my fair share of pain, the blast created a shockwave which in turn made a shelf fall, instead of falling on

the ground it fell on me. As I struggled to get out of my current predicament, I noticed that

there was a figure laying on the ground a few meters away from me. I couldn't tell who it was

through all the dust and debris the blast created. I managed to get the shelf off me, I decided to

crawl towards the figure instead of walking, mostly because I didn't think my legs could carry

me after the heavy shelf fell on me. When I got closer, I noticed that the figure was a man laying

there motionless. I panicked and started frantically shouting for any sign of life.

"ARE YOU OK?!! HEY MR, CAN YOU HEAR ME!!!" I was shouting so loud that anyone could have thought that

I was being attacked.

I got closer to the person and instantly recognized him as my husband.

But why wasn't he moving, why was he breathing so slow? I turned him around

to see what was wrong. What I saw would forever be engraved in my mind. It would haunt

me for the rest of my days. I was about to scream and realized my mouth was already doing

it, my eyes were full of tears, and I hadn't even noticed that I had started crying. I moved away in

shock and disbelief because what I was seeing couldn't be real, it was too surreal, it looked

like something from a horror movie.

"NICHOLAS!!" I screamed

Half of Nicholas's body was disfigured, his face looked burnt, but there weren't any burn

marks, it looked like someone peeled half of his skin off. I could see his insides, all the

organs on his left side were bare. If a normal person were to see him like this, nothing would

stop them from running out the door, mostly because he seemed like an animal that had been

skinned alive or the undead or one of Frankenstein's experiments gone wrong. I wanted to

close my eyes, but I couldn't. It was like my eyes were glued open. I was in such a daze that

when I heard two tiny voices belonging to my girls calling me, I almost ran for the hills. Mona

and Daria were suddenly by my side, they must have come while I was in my dazed state.

"Momma, what's wrong with daddy?" asked a terrified Mona.

Daria was petrified.

Before I could answer Mona, I heard a cold and dark voice come from the hole that used to

be a door.

"I made it for you, don't you like your daddy's new look?" said a voice.

The owner of the voice came into view. It was a man, he looked about 6 feet (1.83 metres) 9 and around his twenties

was wearing a suit that was darker than the night itself and looked like it was sewn with shadows. He was wearing a skull

ring, with a snake coming out of its left eye. He was wearing a black mask with a crescent

moon and a snake circling the mask. His aura radiated power and evil. When he began to walk toward us, it almost seemed like a jaguar was walking, a predator hunting his prey. His movements could seduce snakes, his

posture was elegant, and his body seemed like it was sculpted by the dark angel Lucifer himself. His eyes were iridescent as they changed colours each second, it seemed like a rainbow, and it was almost hypnotic. Something about his look left me glued to the floor, I was frozen, I couldn't move nor could I blink. I felt stuck inside my body, it was as if I was in a vegetative state. I was unable to talk or move,

I could just watch as the world carried on. When he looked at me and saw the fear in my

eyes, a cold smile formed on his face when he saw this, tears fell from my face. I was crying, but I was unable to make any sound. He then looked down at Nicholas and his smile became

wider. It was full of evil that every cell in my body stopped moving. My hands shook uncontrollably, my breathing became shallow, and my heart started thumping rapidly. It was as if I were about to have a heart attack or shut down right there and then. The children increased their grip on my hands and I could feel Mona's body shaking. Daria just stood there frozen with a dumbfounded look on her face. I couldn't blame her, what they did to Nicholas was beyond words and belief.