Alpha's Mismatched Mate

"Is everything packed?" a man in his forties still carrying the aura of youth exuberantly, dressed in his checked-trousers and a loose t-shirt came hurriedly and inquired his daughter.

"Umm..aa.. yes, almost everything is done. Just some of my books are left. Take these cartoons until I pack them " busied in picking out her wordy collections of books she pointed towards some packed cartoons and ignored any kind of eye interaction with her father.

She didn't want her dad to be worried over her being emotional. She tried hard but the instinct to cry right now was overpowering her determination to resist it.

Nothing in life is permanent, a time always comes when we must give sacrifices, close one chap that might intrigue us the most and begin a new one, experience the ups and downs it holds for us and cherish the exclusivity it offers and keep going like this. After all, this is what life is.

Life there in the wood of Rhode Island was different than it's going to be in the city. She couldn't remember the time she moved into this place or maybe her parents moved to the woods before her birth. She couldn't say anything about it because either way, she was not mentally mature enough to remember it.

She had a very unusual life, but it was all usual for her because she had not experienced the kind of normal life other people live outside of those woods. She was the reserved kind of girl who prefers staying at her home rather than going out or playing with other kids of her age.

Though she on some rare occasions went outside to play games like 'The Masquerade -Bloodline' with kids of her age. The name sounds like a game of adults but in her area, kids used to play these games with some childish rules to sharpen their skills and some physical tools. (winks you will know it)

Despite having no educational facilities in her area apart from those games and some other activities which were merely meant to prepare those kids for a life in the woods. She was always fond of reading and writing. Her father used to bring books for her about worldly knowledge and not the typical kind of books some people in her surroundings liked to invest their time in to enhance their knowledge of advanced sorcery.

She dreamt for years. Shifting to a big state, getting an education from a renowned college, and obtaining a job to support his father and herself. Provide him the lifestyle she wanted for him because he never dreamt anything for himself, she knew that.

All his dreams and plans revolve around her. From the day she came into their lives. He struggled hard to give the kind of lifestyle they both deserve Ella and his wife.

Till the day his wife died, and after that, his world revolves around Ella and only Ella. He never wished anything for himself. That is the reason when she expressed her desire to shift for the sake of her studies. He did not give it a second thought and agreed.

Obviously moving to a new place to get her higher education costs her a lot more than she had initially imagined. Wasn't it what she wanted?

Her father despite his low income, saved money for years to be able to pay her college fees. A whirlpool of mixed emotions caused a Tsunami in her stomach, she wanted to cry aloud, hug every inch of her house, but she cannot let it all out right now as she's aware of her father's emotional state as well.

It's hundredth times harder for him to do it than her. Going against the community that accepted him when he had nothing; neither a roof on his head nor a penny in his pocket to survive. Though the loveliest and most heart-warming people of Rhode woods welcomed him on their secret territories with their doors and hearts wide open. He made his own little hut with the cut-off tulip branches and greasy mud. Those woods had become his everything, the sky on his head while he's asleep after the day's long hectic work and his source of income. He used to cut woods and sell them in the city to earn pennies for him.

One fine evening of winter, he was returning home after selling the woods in the town when his stars collided with the ones he had never dreamt of. She was wearing a pastel, purple-colored overcoat opened from the front revealing the light green midi dress she had on. Her squinted eyes were moving constantly with tiny scorns changing expressions on her forehead proved that she was indeed looking for something she might have lost.

Bewildered by her enchanting beauty and the gleaming beauty bone peering out by the slipped-off overcoat from her shoulder. He changed his path unconsciously and moved towards her.

"May I help you? You seem worried. Have you lost something? What is it?"

With an organ thumping like wild horses within his chest, he showered his unswerving questions on her.

Lost in her own process of findings she jolted on this interruption as she had just witnessed a lion in the woods. She turned around and the previous expressions of searching flew away leaving her face shocked, and ashen.

"Oh my gosh." She blew from her mouth these words while confronting a man in front of her now, instead of any lion.

"You took my breaths for some time," she said shuddering off the jerks of shock she got moments ago.

"What? Am I just that handsome? He said as a mischievous smile brewed on his face.

Eh, I didn't mean that." She said in an annoying expression.

"Ok. Ok." He raised his hands in the way of surrendering, "BTW what is it? You are looking for?" he asked her in a more serious tone now.

"Amm... I lost my earing over here." She replied while biting on her lower and eyes pointing towards the location.

"Oh, there. Ok lemme have a look." He proceeded towards the spot she pointed earlier and started searching for it.

"May I ask you something?" A befuddled voice came back from the weeds he had been groping in for the lost earring.

"I give you the permission." She said uninterestingly.

"What do they call you by?" he asked

she squinted her eyes again but not in search of something this time. She was startled at his question and pondered for some minutes whether she should trust this man enough to tell her name. Is he worthy enough? It took her a complete 5 minutes to make her mind and come to the conclusion.

"Abigail." She took her name while looking around to check there's nobody around them.

"A father's joy. What pretty name just like you."

She blushed on having this comment, but she was equally shocked that this man knew the meaning of her name.

"How come.."

"Edward. My name is." He said while cutting off her sentence.

"Here it is." He emerged from the weeds holding high in his hand an earring like a winning sword and offered it to her. A rejuvenating aura appeared on her face as she put on the earring in her empty earlobe.

"I'm so grateful to you," she said while smiling.

This was the first time he had seen her smiling. Her glinting milky white perfectly aligned teeth were making her smile just so perfect and die for. It was the second time he got froze after being enchanted by her beauty.

"I owe you for this favor young man." She interrupted his moment of secretly admiring her beauty, as she felt his gaze being stuck on her for quite some time which obviously made her uncomfortable.

"A cup of coffee together. I mean what better option can you offer to equalize this favor." He suggested without showing any perks of hesitation.

"Well, I've to think about it," she said and left from there.

It was their first interaction that led to a series of meetups, which later turned into dates, long walks at nights, and one day he went to his home to ask for her hand officially.

It was a dream for him which he couldn't believe in until the day she became his bride and entered into his hut which was rebuilt, furnished, and decorated on the occasion of his wedding.

He worked hard to sell woods for years and did part-time labor to provide her the best he could. Soon that hut transformed into a two-storey house where they together experienced the most beautiful years of their lives. Now the time to say goodbye has arrived.

"I wish I could take this house with me." She muddled to herself when her father left the room, "Mom, you'll remain in my heart, forever. I'm leaving this home, but your memories will perennial in my heart, forever" taping the last cartoon she thought of her Mum and the memories they had together. She wiped out her blurry eyes with the back of her hands, pushed the cartoons out of her room, and locked the door, lastly.

"Take the last one too, and I am ready to leave." Standing at the upper stair that led to her room she forced out her voice which was blocked by the emotions stuck in her throat.

His shirt became wet from her tears as she cried on his chest because she couldn't control herself more.

They both stared at the building of the house for some minutes, recalled all those years spent here, and finally, they sat in the car and the vision gone like the smoke from the car desolated in the air.

"Dear Ella,

By the time you'll read this later, you'll be eighteen. I better put a full stop here and wish my sweet Lil munchkin who wouldn't be any little, anymore, a prosperous Happy Birthday.

I can imagine you, grown-up as an enchanting beauty who can take the breaths of men by her mere standing at any event. A breathtaking beauty, just like your mother was.

Seeing your passion and love for books in your early days, I could not doubt even a little, that this girl will grow up as nerdy and super intelligent. Just like your father was".

Her reading of the letter was suddenly interrupted by the presence of her father in the room, and she quickly folded it back and placed it in the same book on page 313 from where it slipped out.

Now as she headed on her new journey, eyes still heavy from the crying and constant rubbing and wiping. Her mind suddenly flashed back to the letter.

"Wait.. whattt. Why had Mum used past tensed back then? What was she meant by 'Mother was' and 'father was'?

"Maybe she was aware of her death." she tried to give reasons to herself.

"But no, it is not possible. It cannot be. Her death was normal. She was not confronting any serious or severe disease. Yes. Yes, I remember. It was quite normal."

Plus, the doctor said it was a heart attack. She reflected on the day when she was in one of the hospital's rooms with her father. When the doctor told them the reason for her mother's sudden death.

That day the hospital looked to her as the gloomiest place on the earth. It haunted her soul for several years after that. The loss of losing her mother was grave. All the lights turned into darkness and the floor vanished underneath her feet.

"We are sorry. But your wife is no more." The doctor said to her father and all she could hear was her soul screaming in the pin-drop silence of the room.

As the nurse removed the pipe of drip from her right hand and shut her wide-open eyes with her hands and covered her face with the white sheet. She stood there still looking at the face of her mother which was covered, and she could hear her soul screaming asking her to wake up and kiss her and hug her. But she didn't. She couldn't. As she was gone.

Their car passed down a bridge and the sharp rays of sun filtering through the glass window hit on her face and brought her to the present. Her heart was already heavy from the past event of her life and now this memory of her mother's death had added more weight on it as she rested her head on his father's shoulder and started crying.

But why she used past tense with her father also? She burdened her thoughts with the constant self-questioning. This heaviness drifted her mind towards an instantaneous easiness, and she slept

on her journey which will expose her mind and eyes to more surprises, awaiting her on the campus.

It was dark. When Jim, a twenty-year-old stout boy with golden-brown eyes who lived in their previous neighborhood, slammed the brake outside their new house.

The sudden jolt of the car disturbed her sleep as she woke up to confront a view which was no less than a horror movie scene, two big trees covering up an old two-storey house. A pale dim light blinking illuminating the tiny garage and a dusty brown locked wooden door.

She was engrossed in analyzing the whereabouts of her new neighborhood when her orbs caught a stranger illuminated in the blue light of his garage gazing at her. His disheveled hair was concealing his face and it seemed like he just woke up from an impromptu evening sleep. Twirls of smoke was whirling around his arm as he had a half-smoked cigarette clutched in between his fingers. There was something weird about the way he was looking at her as he threw some eerie vibes towards her.

What's wrong with this guy? She muffled to herself while shrugging off and she turned around to help his father unload their luggage.

"Let me take this inside" she offered her help to him and took the picture of her mother from his hand which was taken back in her years of youth in the same woods they had left behind.

She unhinged besmear doorknob and pushed it open, a cool gush of air suffused with gritty smell welcomed her. She groped in the serene darkness for the switchboard and flipped on the lights.

"Oh... it's a whole lot of mess out here." She huffed as her still swollen blues eyes took a visit to the living room.

"Yes, that'd be a perfect place for it." Moved towards the right wall just behind the two-seater couch where she hanged the picture of her mother carefully.

"Ella, here comes your treasure," Jim yelled while entering the living room, carrying a big heavy square box, and placed it carefully on the table covered with white sheets.

He knew how peculiar Ella was about her books, so he took it straight to her rather than putting it among other piles of cartoons.

"Oh, thanks, Jim." She said that in a very curtsied manner while turning around towards him.

We unloaded the truck; this was the last one. I thought I should hand it over to you personally and take my leave from you too." He spoke

"Are you leaving?" Ella asked immediately.

"Umm... yes." He mumbled to her.

Her eyes filled with tears once again, but probably it would be the last goodbye of the day. She had to gulp this too, as he couldn't stay with them, obviously.

"I'll miss you guys all." She whispered as she was trying hard not to cry this time.

Jim hugged her and took his leave.

Jim's family was very close to Ella. She wasn't acquainted with many of her neighbors except the Petrovas'. His younger sister Emily was very attached to Ella and she liked scribbling some mysterious notes with her. Ella was in her pre-teenage when she lost her mother and she always admired Mrs. Petrova's relationship with her children and got envied sometimes because she wasn't lucky enough to cherish her mother's love for a quite a long time.

Jim even though never expressed his adultery emotions but secretly he admired Ella. He had feelings for her since the day he saw her crying at the funeral of her mother. A salty ocean was flowing down her cheeks and he saw a reflection so pure and magnificent in it. That moment caught his heart wired in the love of her, but he'd never be able to gather enough moxie to express it to her.

Ella on the other hand always had considered him as his older brother. She was the single child of her parents and always yearned to experience the bitter-sweet relationship of sibling. Though she had seen Emily and Jim fighting like dogs over the tiny things.

She took that box and went upstairs. Her new room was quite spacious because there wasn't any furniture in it except one single bed, one broken rocking chair, a table, and a blinking lamp resting on its chest. The wall was decorated with cobwebs which were also covering the in-wall shelves.

She started dusting off the cobwebs and gritty dust from them and in a matter of some minutes, she cleaned them all.

Then she looked for the scissors in her shoulder bag. Yes, she had kept the scissors in her shoulder bag she knew they'd be going to need it while unpacking that's why she kept them in her brown shoulder bag, so she'd access them easily when needed.

She cut the tapes and opened the box, carefully picked out the book, and started organizing them on the shelves.

"Ella" she heard a voice from downstairs calling her to come down.

She went downstairs to meet his father's old friend who came with his son, Ronnie, to welcome them to this new place and give Ella her documents which she'd be going to need on her first day of college.

"Hi, Uncle John. How are you?" She greeted him and hugged him lightly.

"I'm just cherishing old age. By the way, it's so pleasant to see you. You grew up so beautiful just like your mother, I must say." He replied to her while making little giggles.

Ella blushed at his comment, but this reminds her of something. A flashback. Her old house. Her room. She picked out books. A letter slipped out. Her mother's letter. The use of past tense in reference to her parents.

Her bubble got busted by Ronnie, who was standing ignored beside his Dad, probably waited for quite a long time to be noticed. Ronnie was the single child of his parents. His mother died during childbirth and it was his father who took care of him and they both lived in a single-storey house just around the corner from their new house.

As he observed Ella was not there mentally, he decided to take this initiative by poking her first.

"Hi, Ella! How are you?"

He politely asked her. Ronnie was a very shy and timid boy. His physical structure was so thin that a minor high intensified wind can blow him away with it.

Dragged back to reality by this mousy interruption she finally noticed a tall thin shy boy seemingly of the age between 16 to 17.

"Oh, soo sorryy. I didn't notice you. I am good as you can see." She replied to him in her usual manner of greeting boys.

She had not been interested in any boy in her entire life. Neither had she felt anything for anyone. She was the kind of girl who lives in her own fantasy and enjoyed it a lot.

She didn't know what had made her like this. She had never seen her parents fighting over anything. In fact, they were the most ideal couple she could ever imagine. Neither does she had any bad experience in her life with any boy, but it was a true fact. She hated boys. That's the sole reason she never talked to them in a manner normally girls do.

She's also not the kind of girl who goes mad after boys. She was the kind of girl whose heart was hard to melt when it comes to boys.

She went to the kitchen to make coffee for his Dad and their guests. As she set the pot on the stove, she felt an eerie heaviness weighing down her body.

The milk in the pot started to boil as she was beating the coffee in a mug.

The heaviness she was confronting now grew dense. She moved towards the sink to wash coffee mugs when a strange sight caught her. Though it wasn't entirely strange for her as she had confronted a similar view when she reached there. She tried to move her hands, but they dropped as some strange forces were sucking her energy. The light in the kitchen suddenly started to blink. She turned around to go out, but her feet were glued to the floor. She looked out of the small aluminum window screeching with extreme pain to see what powers he had that are weakening her to such an extent.

"What the Heck. What's wrong with him"

She growled behind her teeth.

Why this man is so weird? She thought as she was frozen there for some minutes.

As long as she looked in his way, she felt the heaviness inflicted on her from the past 15 minutes vanished. But as soon as he averted her eyes a sharp pain crossed her head all the way down her spine. She bit her lower lip between her teeth as her eyes winced in reaction to that sheer pain.

"Oh, God." She whispered.

"What is this?"

Unable to take that pain she again averted her eyes and looked outside of the window. To her shock, the man was not there this time.

Though her pain and heaviness had also vanished, and she came to her normal state. She was still burdening her mind with a thread of questions. The man. His weird stare. The sheer pain and heaviness.

"Do you need any help?" Again, her bubble of thoughts, or questions, we must say, got busted by Ronnie.

She turned round to see Ronnie standing at the door of the kitchen wearing a sweet smile on his face.

"Amm... No thanks. It's almost done." She replied to him while making her way to the stove.

"Why are you so rude to me?"

Ronnie who had been observing her impolite behavior towards him finally asked her.

"Well, I'm not," she replied busied in her work.

"I felt so."

"It's your fault then."

"My?"

"Yes. Yours. Because I'm not indifferent to you. I'm just being myself." She spoke.

"Oh, Ok. But I just told you what I felt. Maybe I was wrong. Sorry for that." He said with his chin kissing his chest. He was a very shy guy but the other bold, wild, and manly kind of.

She added hot milk in the mixture of coffee she prepared and pushing Ronnie aside she made her way to the living room where her Dad and uncles were arguing on some hot political topic.

Staring at the ceiling of her room. She wondered about the two weird incidents that happened today.

The man had an eldritch stare which sends sheer pain. This place started to appear mysterious to her now. Before moving in here, she knew that she would be going to miss her room and her home a lot. But the events that occurred from the time of leaving her house till now had given her sheer jerks of shock and made her forget the feelings of leaving her place but ponder on these both strange and mysterious events.

Why does he stare at me like this?

Who is he?

Why always stands outside?

A pool of questions was whirling around her head and that mysterious guy whom she encountered first after arriving at this new place was the center of her questions. Her mind swung from one question to another trying to find their answers, as a cool gust of wind seeped through the open window blowing away the curtain making its way towards her, it lulled her to sleep as she whispered in her dream, "But what's the matter of this man with me?"

'Tock tock'

A ticking sound resonated in the room still saturated in the darkness while the white satin sheets on the windows blocked the way of the sun rays.

Ella stretched her body buried under the blanket when a sudden realization hit her temples.

"Oh shit." She blurted out while rummaging on the left side table for the alarm clock.

With still half-sleep eyes, she threw a glance at the clock, and the very next instant her eyes became wide opened just as she had witnessed a black bear in the semi-darkness of the room.

"Argh... how can I manage to be late on the first day of my college?" She swung her feet out of the blanket and pushed them in her slippers hurriedly.

"Tock tock"

Again, a ticking sound against the glass window resonated in the room caught her off guard.

Her feet pacing towards the bathroom stopped at this interruption in her room and she turned around alert.

'What is it?' she muddled in her thoughts.

She moved towards the source of the noise, the window, but she stopped for an instant.

'Who it can be? That man? Or his freakish, screwy stare unable to find its way to me, knocking at my window so that I'd open it and get attacked by it.'

"No," she fumbled averting back towards her bathroom and tilted her head in the way to show her final decision. "Let it go, Honey, you're getting late."

She proceeded with her morning routine with the excitement of having her dream come true stirring wild in her veins.

"Tock tock"

That same voice welcomed her when she came out of her bathroom, wrapped in white towels and her mid-length red hair turbaned in a medium-length white towel.

Following her previously formed decision, she decided to ignore the noise coming from the other side of the window, but with each passing second, the sound and intensity of the knocking increased. It had become louder and more tenacious.

Troubled by the disturbance it caused to her she couldn't hold onto her decision for quite a long time.

She threw her hairbrush on the bed and headed towards the window with her feet stomping against the wooden floor of her room.

"Who the heck are youuu..." she pushed aside the curtains as a gush of sunlight drooled towards her, but her eyes were agape, resisted to wince and squint at the rays hitting on her reedy veins shrilling them. She was flabbergasted at the view she had just witnessed on siding the curtains from the window. Since she had shifted to this new place nothing as surprisingly pleasant had happened to her like this. Neither had she dreamt of this nor had she expected anything like this to come and greet her this early morning.

"My God..." She shouted aloud as if she couldn't be heard from the other side of the window and she was making herself heard.

She unlocked the window and pressed aside the slide of it. She didn't know when she started crying as she was still in profound shock at this happening. Outside near the windowsill was standing a black creature hitting his beak on the glass of the window from the past 30 minutes in hope that Ella would open the window and he'd meet her, greet her a good morning as he had been doing from the past 7 years.

Ella named him Raven because it suited his personality more than any other name she could possibly think of. Black as the moonless night sky, his body exquisitely perfect; his chest shines like diamonds in a dark cave and his long-crooked beak produced the most dramatic morning songs for Ella for years.

Ella loved having pet animals and knew the skill to communicate with them and interpret their language. She didn't have many friends and except Jim's family, she never talked to any of their neighbors or went to their houses. Though many birds used to come to her balcony to eat their breakfast from the tiny pitchers decorated with the painting of birds and flowers, Ella had painted herself.

Raven was special to her; a pet or more than that. Her sibling, best friend, and a companion to share her stories of daily routine things she does, or the things she planned to do in the future. He was the best partner she could have imagined of. One who listened to her agreed to her every decision, and care for her.

What else we look for in a partner to spend our lives with or even before befriending someone.

{No. Obviously, she wasn't going to marry him. But who can predict the future better; would she really going to marry a human or a Raven or someone she herself can't even imagine. ~Winks}

"How have you reached here?" Ella leaned forward quickly and stretched her hand forward. Raven jumped onto her fingers and gripped them tightly in between his tiny fingers.

She continued with her early morning cuddling with Raven as she eased back her other hand on his back, chest, and top of his beak.

"Wonk Wonk." He Croaked. This was the first time he spoke, if he'd have croaked earlier, Ella would definitely have recognized his voice at his 'Wo'.

"Oh, what a pleasant surprise it is." She muttered as she buried him into her chest while caressing his back.

"You literally made my day."

"Now that you have flown all the way to here. I won't let you go. You will stay here with me." She announced it authoritatively as if no argument on this matter would be accompanied further.

Suddenly she realized that she was running late but Raven has diverted her attention. She quickly landed him on the back of the rocking chair and went to dress up in the bathroom again.

"I will be home in the noon." She informed Raven as he was still enjoying his stay on the rocking chair and planted a goodbye kiss on his head.

Climbing down the stairs she called for his Dad,

"Dad! I am leaving for college." She shouted as his dad was in the kitchen preparing breakfast for her.

"Wait. It's almost done. I've cooked your favorite pancake with honied strawberries toppled on it." he hollered.

He came out holding a plate of pancakes nicely presented, "taste it and rate it" he said while carrying out the plate towards her like some professional chef offering his special food.

She picked up a sliced piece of it and put it in her mouth.

"Umm...10 out of 10." She curled out her lower lip and raised her eyebrows to show her likeability on the pancakes.

"Good job Dad. Soon we are going to open a restaurant for you. Get your tools prepared for that."

She teased him as he blushed and kissed her forehead. His eyes brewed with tears. He had never dreamt that one day his daughter would attend a college because people of their area usually do not consider getting the worldly knowledge necessary but preferred their so-called secret old traditions and customs over everything. Though he wasn't related to them in any way, they were the people who accepted him when he had nothing and gave him everything.

He put the plate on a small, squared shape dining table with two chairs, one for Ella and the second for him, and reached for the keys hanging on the keyholder fixed on the wall on his left. Yesterday, his father's friend handed him the keys to a mini car which Ronnie droved to their house when they came to meet them.

"Let's go, I will drive you by myself."

"No, I will manage, Dad. You go into your room and take some rest. I'll take a cab."

She refused him as she didn't want to bother him because she had the idea that despite his old age how much struggle he does for her.

She hugged him tightly and left the house.

"Ah." She screamed as a sharp pain crossed her head. She clutched her forehead into her hands to control the sheer streams of pain piercing the veins of her brains traveling down to her back making her body crooked as she let out another scream.

It was going out of her control this time. The yellow bucket bag she had been carrying on her shoulder slipped down and fell on the ground, her notebook which moments ago was in her hand, now lying around her feet.

She dug her teeth in her lower lip to resist her urge to yell but it was all in vain. She couldn't take that much pain. Neither had she ever experience such extreme pain; she had cut her fingers multiple times while cutting vegetables, but this pain was not near to that pain.

It was sucking out her soul, she could feel herself dying. Slowly slowly. It was leaving her cage and cherishing the moment of freedom. Or maybe it wasn't actually the kind of freedom souls yearn for. Or it was just an illusion of freedom her soul was rejoicing. Who knows the future better after all?

She whimpered because she had lost all the energy to wail or scream so that someone could hear her voice quivering with pain and come to her help. The next moment her body fell to the ground, nobody was there to help her, save her, except her notebook and bag.

As another stream of pains went down her body descending from her head, she grasped on her denim jacket tighter and looked up to catch a breath when suddenly her orbs caught someone.

Against all her hopes that someone would come and save her from this devilish torture, she saw the devil himself. This time she wasn't shocked to see him. Though his location was different, it didn't make much difference, his vile, facinorous stare was doing its magic.

"Ughh..." She wailed her lungs out as a stark stream of pain bolted her head and it went down piercing very vain of her body, the moment she contracted her eyes with his. She felt herself drowning into a dark abyss, there was darkness everywhere and no one was around to help her, save her and pull her out of this dungeon. She was on the edge of a mountain with a chasm of darkness on both sides and there was no way around to escape it. She felt hopeless and was on the verge of losing consciousness when she heard hope fluttering in front of her.

But it was too late, she lost complete consciousness.

She found herself groping in the Tartarean abyss. Black bats were fixated everywhere, on the wall, roof, and floor; two around her hands and two around her feet cuffed her to the greenish rocks of the wall of the cave and one on her mouth.

She wanted to scream, 'Help', but her voice was restricted by the bat covering up her mouth. She tried hard to break free her hands and feet, but it was of no help, the bats were more powerful than her. Perhaps, she would have succeeded in breaking them if she were tied with rope or chained but she couldn't set herself free from these living creatures.

She lost her hope and the power to fight back, she felt herself dying. "Is this death?" she wondered.

Then suddenly she saw a silhouette approaching her; a giant shadow taking over her timid body cuffed to the greasy rocks smelling of reeked blood. There was silence, darkness, and a silhouette burdening her figure against the rocks as she felt some sharp edges digging into her flesh. Blood was sluicing down her back just like a waterfall from the hemline of a mountain. She winced as a hot gush blew back her perspiration-streaked hair from her neckline. She felt something moving underneath her dress climbing on her back; a cold, sharp touch, arousing her yet she sensed her wounds healing, her energy reverting in her and the last thing she remembered was a dimmed, wet whisper.

~The Keys~