"They are coming!" She screamed, and ran into my arms.

I stroked my little sister's hair. "Not for you, little one. They are coming for me."

Marie looked up, her eyes wide and scared, but also flashing with deep anger. "I don't want them to kill you."

"I won't let them," I promised, although it broke my heart to lie to her.

The footsteps were getting louder, and I cursed myself for wasting time. "Come on," I said, taking Marie's hand.

A fact about my little sister: She can't run very fast, due to her crippled leg. Well, she can't really run at all. She kind of limp-jogs. So, in order to save her, I had to run at top speed while dragging her behind me. She was not really happy about this.

"I can run by myself," she complained. "Just because I'm crippled does not mean I can't run fast."

"Marie," I growled, "I'm saving your life. You might as well be grateful, because if I was not dragging you behind me right now, you'd be dead."

That comment stopped Marie's whining, but I could tell that she still wanted to run by herself. Unfortunately, there was no time for that.

The footsteps were starting to get louder, and I was starting to slow down. Hey, I can't help it. I can run super fast for short distances, but for long distances... Well, it is not my good spot.

Blood pounded in my ears as I searched the hallway desperately for somewhere to hide. The Dead Ones had bad eyesight, so they might pass us by. They had uber-hearing, though, so we'd have to be quiet. Their smell was okay, only a tiny bit better than ours. I was sure they probably would not sniff us out.

Thankfully, there was a door leading to another hallway. If we could get through that door before the Dead Ones did, we could hide behind a corner and they'd fly right past... Unless they were listening to our footsteps, which they probably were, but the corner was our best bet.

They were catching up to us, I knew, by the sound of their footsteps. But there was only a few more feet to go... If I could make it...

BAM! Me and Marie flew right into the door, knocking it open. I dragged her behind a corner and waited until the Dead Ones ran past, not paying any attention to us.

I was planning on going in the opposite direction as the Dead Ones, but I needed to catch my breath for a few minutes. You would, too, if you'd been dragging around your sister at your highest running speed for fifteen minutes. It's hard work.

Marie said, "Thanks for saving my life. I'm sorry that I was being whiny."

"It's okay," I panted. "I'd never leave you with the Dead Ones. They'd give you slow, painful torture until you told them where I was."

"I would never tell them!" Marie said. "You're my sister."

"Their torture is indescribable," I told Marie doubtfully. "You'd confess."

"I would not," Marie said, a little too loudly.

The Dead Ones came running back, I was dragging Marie behind me, and we were sprinting along the hallway again.

"They are coming!" She screamed.

Their presence was all too familiar.

She knew it was them by the way they flooded her bloodstream: heating up her body and causing her stomach to writhe in fibrillating anxiety.

"No, no, no." She murmured, feeling her pulse quicken and her skin moisten with perspiration.

"This cannot be happening to me again."

But it was.

And it was irrevocable.

She had attempted and failed many times to wall herself off from them because she knew how they had controlled her in the past. She particularly loathed the idea of feeling vulnerable. Especially when they inflicted such an undesirable subordination upon her.

Simply intoxicating yet also sickening. The bittersweet harmony between love and hate. But she does not wish to evict hate in expectation of love's arrival. Love only bargains for a short lease which he promptly breaks with no promise of a security deposit.

She knew this sort of scandal all too well.

"Please,...get out."

A scanty and rather meager plea, but yet one so innocent and completely absent of will power that it would be difficult for anyone to resist. That is if anyone could even assist in her defense. But you see, no one can. She is alone. Full to the brim of ravenous feelings and emotions which devour her very being,...but alone.

They say "the heart wants what the heart wants". But she understands what is really occurring here. Her mind has evaluated her body's odds of survival and after a brief synopsis, has decided that the human heart is a danger to her own viability. It must go. So she watched as her mind decided to let her heart depart in a way that only its foolish, romantic self would approve of.

Her mind allowed her heart to discover what it loved,

and then let what it loved,

kill it.

THEY ARE COMING

she screamed

As the world around her went on about their lives

Paying her no attention

She had cried wolf many times

So the fact that she saw hell break out of its cage

Held no credibility.

Soon the people were screaming

Pleading for their lives

Wondering why no had warned them

And she just sat on a ledge

Watching the beasts of the darkness devour the unbelievers.

-AshleyAnne

"They are coming!" she screamed, her ear-piercing voice ripping through my dreams. I snapped my eyes open in fear, blinking rapidly to clear my eyesight. I had no time for morning grogginess. I never did.

"Where?" I hissed, sitting up. I reached underneath a nearby pile of leaves, groping for my knife. I managed not to cut myself this time as I gripped the hilt and held the blade in front of me shakily. I heard someone fall to the ground, followed by another one of my sister's screams.

"Omthertehhoramoph!" the muffled voice of my sister screeched. I looked over to my right, expecting to see a bandit with his hand around my sister's head, kneeling over her fallen body with a spearhead pressed to her throat. Instead, my cousin Archie was desperately trying to stifle my sister's screams by tackling her to the ground and clamping his hand over her mouth.

"Shh, Edyln! They'll hear us!" he whispered in my sister's ear. She was only six. She didn't know anything about the projection of sound, but we tried our best to teach her. And yet sometimes she simply forgot.

Archie turned to me. "They're over the horizon! Get Meredith and Anissa! I'll pack the food!" he ordered in a hushed voice.

I nodded briskly and took off, my feet carrying me up the hill in a blur of speed. I burst into the tent up the hill, panting. "Hurry! They're nearly here! Archie and Edyln are safe, but go!" I said between gasps of breath. The two twins stood up in a rush, grabbing their weapons. Once they were outside, they each pulled a thick string on the tent, and the tent collapsed. Meredith gathered the cloth in her arms and threw it off the hill and into the lake below us. She and Anissa jumped down after it.

Archie was running up the hill with Edyln in tow. "Tent?"

"Gone!"

"Twins?"

"Jumped!"

"Weapons?"

"With the twins!"

"Then go!"

Archie pushed me off the hill, and I fumbled in the air, twisting towards the lake below me. It wasn't a particularly high hill, but it was high enough for bandit cowards to second-guess jumping off of. Especially if they spotted a clump of red in the lake. Our red tent made for a good fake blood effect.

I had fallen off high places thousands of times by now, but I never got used to it. I clung to my knife, and as I was a few feet from the water, I threw it towards the dripping figures of Meredith and Anissa beside the lake. I didn't have to worry about hurting them; I knew they would catch it. Fighting against the wind, I hugged my arms together and closed my eyes as I hit the cold, welcoming water.

"They are coming!" she screamed, her iridescent rainbow eyes wild, her plump ruby lips curved into a deranged smirk. Then Char fell limp as her tiredness finally took hold.

Savior stepped back from the angel Prophet tied onto the wall. How long ago Cardio had gone insane, she didn't know. But ever since her insanity, she had to be chained to a wall lest she escape and injure the others.

Tier entered, his golden hair messy from sleep but his hazel eyes alert. "What's going on?!"

Savior turned around, her heart beating fast in fear and anxiety. "She spoke." Savior took a deep breath, her voice shaking. "They're coming. For us."

Tier's eyes widened, filling with tears. "We can't escape this time, right?" He buried his head in his hands. "We're going to die."

Savior walked over to him and stroked his feathery white wings gently. "At least we'll disappear together."

She straightened and fanned out her own wings. They were leathery black, matching the horns poking out of her pinkish hair. "Don't worry. I, for one, am not going down without a fight."

The door banged open down the hallway.

Tier pulled Savior in for one last forbidden kiss. Then he stood up straight, his scepter materializing in his hand. "Let's go."

“They are coming!” she screamed, looking out across the ramparts.

--

The little queen of the amber country looked out from her palace window at the war taking place. Her soldiers fought on and on, killing all. A devious smile grew upon her pale lips, her amber eyes flashing.

{The houses of the people were burnt down to the ground}

{So many voices would no longer make sound}

{The people who had suffered so much pain}

{Didn’t get an ounce of pity from the one who’d slain}

"They are coming!" She screamed.

The relentless sun was beating over the range to the east.

It shone crudely through the tall woods.

She arose with a start and peered off toward the direction of their cries.

The war chants had awakened her.

There was a steady breeze to the morning air and the birds of the high redwoods were aflutter. The twilight of an enchanted former evening had vanished quickly and the relentless sun through the high canopy had pierced Moon Dancer's sleepy gaze. He heard her rustling about in the nearby thicket searching for her things. He told her to quiet down, that there was no need for such noise.

She hammered his wide chest with both fists balled and cursed him, scream-whispering, for leaving the horses by the brook and gallivanting off to the edge of the woods to an unfamiliar region this time.

Ignited and provoked, he scraped his temples with curled fingers to calm and gather his nerve. The soil was soft beneath them and there was a still air among the ferns emanating the morning dew.

The mist was thick and fresh in the morning and the sun beamed out from the horizon in the east, stronger now. Footsteps gained momentum from three different directions and the cackling language among the pursuers was unmistakably her people.

They, indeed, were coming. He closed his eyes and kneeled, pressing his hands to the Earth and opening Her spirit.

She did the same, once dressed, and they could read the distance of the nearest cult of braves who trekked briskly and silently through the trees. The other two groups were bigger and rode many trees behind the nearest. Their calls echoed through the trees shrilly and fiercely and would grow silent once their distance matched that of the nearest braves.

Her father, the chief, was among the furthest of them. His gaze was set. Fearless and painted for war, he was ready to mutilate the incorrigible Moon Dancer and his tribe.

Their speed was causing Moon Dancer to tremble frantically but when they were about two miles off, he gained himself with an instinctive focus. He was recalling their notorious tenacity and the legends of their merciless carnage in conquest.

Together they strayed north toward the brook.

"They are coming!"She screamed. I covered my ears as my best friend attempted to hinder my good hearing. She was screaming as if she was being attacked obviously excited about her little plan and before I know it all four of us in the room were dancing to imaginary music as the excitement poured out of us like overfilled clouds bursting into rain.

It was our best friend Suga's first ever sleep over and she practically lied about the nights happening. It wasn't a normal sleep over that consisted of sweet treats, nail painting and the famous girly talks we usually have; nope! Far from it. This one consisted of 5"9, 6" muscular manliness that must have been carved by God himself and sent to us as special delivery gifts. Four guys that obviously seem older approached our dorm room and before they even proceed on knocking Suga already bust open the door leaning on the frame as if to appear kool, we all snickered.......

Well well I wonder what's gonna happen a great night of pleasure of doom??? What do you guys think?

"'They're comin'!' she screamed, y'know, even though there was a rule not to scream. But Kristi screamed anyways, because who needs to follow the rules?

Gen' Mandy looked over at her, signalin' for her to hush up.

When Kristi continued screamin' her flimsy li'l heart out, she pushed her over the rail, then lectured us about rules and how one day, the monsters were coming back.

'Nobody's coming nowhere, there hasn't been a report for decades,' I said to good ol' Joe. 'Why this old tramp fort is still here, I have no idea, I tell ya, but it better be here for a good reason. Otherwise I'll throw that old gen' over the railing meself.' Ha, if only I knew that Gen' Walters was listenin', then I wouldn't have gotten ten lashes later." He lets out a huge, hearty, deranged laugh, then returns his colourful eyes to me.

"The next day, I watched as the first vamp vaulted over the wall, stretchin' out his flappy wings to steady 'imself. 'It's a message from our kin',' 'e said, lookin' all regal and stuff. Gen' Mandy stabbed him right through the heart and she punched 'im over the rail, just like Kristi. Then Gen' Mandy 'erself's dragged over by a few tentacle hands from the swamp monster that's sup'osed to live in the south or somethin'. 'Twas all a blur t' me, 'cause I was busy bein' knocked out in the 'ospital wing." He grins and points to a scar on his head. "Ain't it funny? I thought I was gonna be a hero until the day I died, but it turns out I died before I could become a hero."

He starts to disappear, thinning out. "I hope that answered all yer questions, miss. See you again sometime. Be waitin' here tomorrow, a'ight?" He grins lopsidedly, yellowed and broken teeth showing.

I wave goodbye to the old ghost, shutting my notebook. "Thank you for coming today, Mr. Brian, I look forwards to tomorrow."

Then he was gone.