June 2nd 2015, Hampstead, London
.
Forty minutes of class left.
That's two halves of twenty.
Which is really only two sets of tens.
Which is, of course, is only four lots of five.
Which means only another five minutes of English before the bell rang.
Obviously.
After running over her calculations a second time and finding them fault-proof, Helen Mathers relaxed into her uncomfortable chair. The dark-blue plastic creaked under strain as she lent backwards, kicking out her feet under the table. Her seating partner shot her a quick smile before turning back to the text in front of him.
Five minutes, five minutes, five minutes.
Being the beginning of a short British summer the classroom was hot and muggy from the accumulated sweat of the upper sixth year English class. Near silence reigned, interrupted occasionally by the collective sounds of teenage life. A rustle of a wrapper here, a half concealed laugh there and rushed whispers of confusion speckled the subdued tones of the bright room. West facing, the space was bathed in the yellow-orange glow of a descending sun. The blinds were broken, leaving the students bare to the elements. Those unfortunate enough to sit in the lights direct line shielded their eyes with hands and pieces of paper with wonkily photocopied Shakespeare on it. Others had no such luck and no matter the position of their hand had to endure the wrath of the light with half closed eyes and scowls.
The teacher, Clare, sat on a desk pushed up against the back wall, King Lear clutched within her abnormally small hands. She would occasionally read a line from the last page, periodically looking about her for a victim but the class ignored her questions and searching gaze. Favouring instead to look down at their sheets (or books, if they had bothered to buy it) and avoid her eager gaze.
Helen almost felt sorry for her.
That is, until she risked a glance at the clock and accidentally made eye-contact with her.
"Ah- Helen, what do you think?"
The girl in question grimaced and dropped her hand from in front of her face, squinting against the sun. For the life of her, she couldn't remember what the question was. So focused was she on her mathematical formula for how to get through class on a Friday afternoon at twenty past four that she hadn't bothered to listen to a word her bird-like teacher had said.
"Um…" she stalled, looking at her partner beside her.
He, in turn (traitor that he was), studiously ignored her pleading looks and kept his eyes trained on his own book.
Helen sighed and, accepting defeat, smiled at her teacher by way of apology.
"Could you repeat the question, please?"
On her part, Clare didn't look as annoyed as Helen thought she might. "I asked you what you thought?" She held up her copy of the play, shaking it slightly as if to remind her student where she was. "Of the quote?"
Helen, shamed, further admitted her treachery. "And uh- what quote was that, Miss?"
Clare sighed, bringing the book close to her face as she read the line again.
"'The weight of this sad time we must obey. Speak what we feel, not what we ought to say. The oldest hath borne most. We that are young shall never see so much, nor live so long.'"
Clare paused to twist a lock of grey-blonde hair behind her ear before continuing.
"What do you think Edgar meant?"
Helen, though appearing calm to her classmates, was inwardly panicking.
Who the fuck was Edgar?
With a nervous smile she flipped to the back of her book, skim reading the last few lines.
"Uh…I think…I think he meant that they, as the younger generation wouldn't ever learn as much as the older generation? I-"
Something caught her eye and she turned towards a student whose hand was straight in the air, slim, delicate fingers wiggling from eagerness. Helen scowled immediately. Of course it would be her.
"Miss Sue? Do you have a point to add?"
The girl in question beamed, perfect white teeth gleaming. Her hair, thick and blonde, was tied into a messy pony-tail, something Helen hadn't ever been able to master.
If possible, her scowl deepened.
Far be it from her to discourage academic prowess, Helen had no problem with the goody two shoes' willingness to learn. It was her academic willingness to step on anyone else to further her own gain that rubbed Helen the wrong way.
Clare looked at Helen as if to ask if she didn't mind being showed up in front of her peers by someone with superior intelligence. Helen smiled, tight lipped and annoyed as Clare gestured for Mary to start.
"It refers, again, to the Felix Culpa of King Lear."
Fuck, thought Helen as Mary's voice rang clear through the classroom, what the hell is a Felix Culpa? Many of the male students turned to watch Mary with intense focus swiveling in their seats into impossible positions just to catch a glimpse of her. Helen always wondered whether the focus was on her words or her looks.
"King Lear suffered a happy fall, meaning that to gain perspective on his life, he had to lose all of his worldly possessions. He essentially had to lose his mind to gain his sanity. Edgar laments that none of them shall ever go through the same process, they'll never be able to learn as much as King Lear did unless they learn to speak to one another and be honest. He is telling them to be better people."
Helen blinked.
Shit. That was so much better than her answer.
Mary beamed at Clare who seemed to be in as much surprise as the rest of the class was.
"Yes, perfect." A small smile appeared on the teacher's face, making her already small, bird-like features scrunch in happiness. "That's exactly what it means. You see, King Lear was a-"
Helen tuned out almost immediately, a scowl settling over her dark features. She tried to keep her gaze forward yet found herself unable to resist throwing a few accusatory glances at the perfect 'Miss Sue'.
Mary-Elizabeth Sue sat eagerly in her seat, elbows planted on the hard plastic desk, hands clasped under her chin in a contemplative manner, bottom scooched forward in her plastic chair just in case anyone mistook her for someone who wasn't eager to learn. Helen almost groaned as Mary's blonde head bobbed up and down as she agreed with whatever Clare was harping on about. Occasionally the pretty girl would 'mhmm' or say 'yes, no I agree' and Helen's frown would deepen in response every time.
It just wasn't fair, she thought petulantly. How could she be so pretty, so popular, so rich and so smart? I mean, she continued with her inner monologue, leave some for the little guy. Her dark brown eyes quickly looked to her traitorous partner to gauge his reaction to her being shown up, only to catch him staring goofily at the devil in supermodel's skin. Louis' head would even occasionally bob along with Mary's as if he gave two shits about whatever the hell Clare was saying. Helen's mouth began to cramp with how hard she was frowning. On impulse her right foot lashed out, hitting Louis' shin. She felt a little bad at how much his face contorting in pain made her happy.
He shot her a filthy look and hunkered down in his seat, muttering something under his breath. Whatever, Helen reasoned childishly, as long as he wasn't looking at Saint Mary anymore he could stay mad at her for as long as he liked. She didn't like the thought of Louis giving puppy eyes to anyone let alone her arch nemesis Mary Sue.
The girl in question hadn't noticed any of this exchange and had eyes only for the teacher. Helen scoffed and looked back down at her book. Twelve ninety-nine and a complete waste of money. She just didn't get Shakespeare. She got the fact that he was the father of rhyme or whatever but she'd much rather read a modern book than read whatever the hell some guy who had died five hundred years previous had to say.
The rest of the class dragged on slowly despite Helen's 'five minutes more' mathematical breakthrough. Just before she thought she may pass out from boredom the bell sounded and the class let out a collective sigh of relief. Except Mary, of course. Her sigh was of frustration.
"Alright class," Clare called over the hustle of students trying to shove their possessions back into their backpacks. "No homework this weekend." Score, thought Helen. "But I want you to review what we've said in class today and do some independent research. There'll be a small test on Monday and it'll be good for you to get some experience in independent research for university before you go so you aren't overwhelmed."
Helen groaned, loading her pencil case into her backpack and zipping it up. She wasn't going to university and the idea of doing more research into a play she didn't care about made her feel a little ill. Or maybe that feeling was caused by what came out of Mary's mouth next.
"Wasn't there something else, miss?"
This time Helen wasn't the only one to glare at the pretty girl.
"Actually, yes, you're right, Mary." Clare gave a little laugh, as though she enjoyed ruining the lives of her students and took pleasure in their wasted weekends. "I almost forgot. I thought it might be quite a fun and enjoyable task for you to do." Helen immediately knew it was going to be the least enjoyable thing she'd ever be made to do. "I want you to write a section of the play in a modern day setting. It doesn't have to be long, just take a few pages and change it up. It might help you to see how Shakespeare is still relevant today. Have it ready by Wednesday, please."
A chorus of despondent 'yes miss's' rang out throughout the classroom before they were eventually allowed to leave. Heads down shoulders hunched, the class converged into a single file line that almost resembled a funeral march. There was only one student who didn't feel the sentiment of the masses: Mary. With a straight back and wondrous smile on her face she thanked Clare 'for a wonderful and informative lesson' and skipped out of the classroom like the sun shone out of her arsehole.
If possible, Helen's bitch-face deepened. She managed to give a quick nod to Clare in thanks before rushing out of the room, Louis hot on her heels.
"So what're we doing tonight?" he asked, long legs propelling him forward with ease. If he was angry with Helen for her small act of violence, he didn't bother to mention it and for that she was mildly thankful. The beginnings of embarrassment were latching onto her for her rash actions and she didn't want to have to explain herself. She wasn't even sure why she did it in the first place.
"Dunno. Something." She replied imaginatively, shouldering the main doors open for her and Louis to walk through.
Sunlight caused her to squint as they emerged out of the school's blue painted front doors. Her hand rose immediately to block its intense glare as she made her way out into the front grounds. Louis trailed behind her, occasionally stopping to say hi to some idiot or another. Helen had no such distractions as she cut a solitary path through the gathering students, barely mustering up a few sorry's as she barged past the throngs. She received a couple of glares that barely fazed her in thanks.
She didn't have Louis' powers of conversation or Mary's powers of beauty and it was a wonder how she had any friends at all but it never bothered her. She preferred having a two close friends over five thousand 'acquaintances'.
As she reached the edge of the front grounds she came to a stop, clumsily dropping her backpack on the floor as she turned back around to look for Louis. He was talking to a Toby Meadows and Helen rolled her eyes at the sight. Toby was such an idiot but Louis never seemed to mind whether his 'friends' were idiots (her and Amy being the exception, of course). He's a nice guy, he would always say. Nice and dull, she would always thing but never say out loud. The threat of an inevitable argument at her harsh words was never worth it. Not with Louis. As she waited for him to be done socializing Amy Stuart sidled up beside her, bumping her shoulder with Helen's by way of greeting.
"One of these days your eyes are gonna pop out from all that glaring that you do." She said, loudly chewing a piece of gum around her words.
Helen snorted, turning to face the tall girl. Amy's short black hair was in the awkward stages of growing back after a pixie-cut-gone-wrong and though she always tried her best to style it flatteringly it very rarely ended in success. Helen reached out an impatient hand, smoothing a few flyway's back from her friends' face, a rare, soft smile forming.
"Piss off. How was class?"
"What're you? My mum?" Amy retorted, linking her arm with Helen's. She turned their body's back in time to catch Louis thump Toby on the back before jogging over to them. Helen stuck her tongue out at Amy's remark and the pale girl grinned as Louis came to a stop in front of them.
"So," he began conspiratorially. "Guess who got us invites to Rob Fellow's party tonight?"
Amy squealed at the same time that Helen groaned. "What? How?"
Helen let the smile drop from her face. "That guy sucks arse." she muttered eloquently. Louis ignored her.
"Toby invited us." He said, answering Amy.
"You mean he invited you." Helen grumped, wiggling her arm out of Amy's hold.
Louis sighed, running a frustrated hand through his brown hair. His eyes, a clear green, sparked with the beginnings of annoyance.
"Do you have to be such a downer about everything?" He snapped, folding his arms across his chest.
Helen, seemingly blindsided, gaped at him wordlessly. Amy shifted uncomfortably. His face softened minutely and he sighed, uncrossing his arms as he did so. "It'll be fun, 'El."
Helen didn't mention that the idea of getting drunk and dancing with a bunch of people who were ambivalent to her entire existence wasn't exactly her idea of 'fun'.
She looked at Amy, who was as eager as ever to socialize and felt equal stabs of jealousy and guilt. If she didn't go Amy either wouldn't either or would have such a shit time that she'd leave early.
Helen didn't want that on her conscience.
Yet at the same time she wished her friends would stop pushing her to socialize with people she just didn't care about. Or rather, people she might care about if she could socialize. But that was too deep a self-reflective assessment and it was easier just to think of everyone else as annoying rather than think of herself as the problem.
A flash of blonde caught her attention across the way. Mary was laughing at something some twit had said. And not the fake laughter of someone trying to be nice that Helen often found herself employing. Mary's head was thrown back, long neck bared to the sunlight so that it shone golden. Her mouth was forced open, tongue pressed against her teeth in utter glee. Helen felt jealousy sliver down her spine. She just made it look so easy.
"Yeah. Ok." She found herself saying, forcing a smile as she looked back at Louis. "It'll be fun."
Louis whooped, long gangly arms descending to pull her into a hug. Helen resisted, of course, pushing at his chest until he had backed off.
"Let's go." She said, cutting off whatever he had been about to say. "The second bell will ring soon and I don't want to be-"
Fighting a fifth year for a seat on the bus is what she had been going to say. But didn't. Because something washed over her right then. A coldness that seemed to settle over her skin, making her dizzy and uncomfortable at the same time. It sounded stupid but it was almost as if someone had walked all over her grave.
Silence fell across the front grounds and the only sound Helen could hear was her own, very loud, breathing. As if in slow motion she looked to Louis, who seemed suspended in time, mouth opened awkwardly as though he had been about to say something. She glanced at Amy, seeing her similarly frozen, gleeful face frozen in joy. She spared a few seconds on them before looking behind Louis back towards the rest of the students.
She didn't know why she did it. Surely she should be shouting and raving and trying to make Amy move her face but instead of bother to try and rouse her friends, there was one person her eyes sought out. It made no sense to her, nor would it ever make any sense to but she looked towards Mary of all people in this strange timeless scene. She expected to find her suspended in time like everyone else but Mary was already looking at her. Her pretty blue eyes were wide with panic and her mouth moved slowly forming Helen's name almost at the same time that Helen found herself calling hers.
"Ma-ry?" She called, her voice stringy and elongated as though someone had stretched the decibels across time and space.
Determined, she made to step forward only to feel a jolt in the air around her.
It was strange, this new sensation. It was as if everything was moving around her but her. She was stuck in place as the world rushed past her until Louis and Amy and all of the kids she'd grown up with blurred and shifted and faded into nothingness. She tried to scream but found a large weight on her chest, pushing and pushing until she felt as though she couldn't breathe. All around was blackness but there, as far away as she had been stood, Mary hung suspended in the darkness too. She was mouthing something to Helen, shouting it maybe, but all Helen could hear was the blood whooshing past her ears as it pumped through her body. With every beat Mary drifted further and further away until she was lost to the darkness. Helen's eyes drooped and her breathes became shallow as the strange place of nothing seemed to close in around her.
Come, a voice whispered across he ether and Helen found herself nodding in obedience.
.
TA 2963 Trollshaws, Nan Tornaeth
.
God, she felt like shit.
More than shit. Because shit would imply that it would wear off eventually like a hangover or a cold but her pains felt permanent. Like she would never recover from such a horrible trauma. She must be dying, she theorized, because nothing but certain death could ever feel so bad.
She cranked open her eyes slowly, a groan bubbling up her throat. She was lying on her back and above her dizzying shapes filtered around black spots that appeared and disappeared. Or maybe it was the black spots that filtered around the shapes, instead. She didn't know. All she knew was that she hurt. Her head hurt. Her eyes hurt. Her arms hurt. Her legs hurt. Everything hurt. And hurt so much that it just felt like her whole body was one big bruise. Even blinking seemed to hurt.
Breathing deeply she tried to sit up, and immediately yelped at the way her brain seemed to tip inside her skull. She didn't even have time to roll to her side before vomit bubbled up through her throat. The force of it forced her to sit up, spinning head be damned and allowed her to promptly puke all over her bare legs. The bile burned the back of her throat and tears sprang to her eyes, growing larger as the fumes of stomach acid irritated them.
Throwing up was never a good experience but this just seemed like the worst of the worst. She looked down, watching as goblets of food and clear plasma slid across her brown skin. What a mess.
Christ.
Head swimming, she did the only thing she could do, even as she felt like throwing up all over again: she wiped up her sick with her bare hands, scooping the sludge from skin to ground. She repeated the action until her skin was sticky but mostly dry, wiping off her palms on the grass she lay on. It was only as she ruined the scenery with her bodily fluids that she realized she wasn't on the front playground anymore. Her voice was shaky when she eventually called for her friends, delayed panic warbling her normal tones.
"Louis?" Helen called, hand rising to clutch at the side of her spinning head as though a part of it may fall off, probably getting residual vomit in her hair. Ew. A new strain entered her voice as silence answered her question. "Amy?!"
She stood up uncertainly, forcing her eyes to focus and make out her surroundings. Instead of concrete and students for as far as the eye could see, her non-school regulation shoes sunk into soft, grassy earth.
With bleary eyes she forced herself to look around, head throbbing.
Louis and Amy, as well as the rest of her student body was nowhere to be seen. Not even Mary was in sight and she was always there when you didn't want her to be. In fact, there wasn't much to see. She was in a copse of trees, perhaps even a forest. Large trunks surrounded her, mixtures of grey and dark, rising so high that she couldn't even make out the canopy from where she was stood. The trees were packed fairly close together with some medium sized gaps and no discernible paths in any direction. Someone had clearly driven for a long time to find a forest to dump her in. It was dim at her level, barely any light filtered down to through the thick canopy above her and what light did manage to seep through was murky and unappealing.
She shivered in the shade, wishing she had worn tights that morning. What happened to summer?
With wobbling knees Helen attempted to step forward, only to have her legs collapse under her weight.
Her head throbbed as it impacted the grass floor and she suddenly thought about that time she had tried to do a header with the football in year three and missed exponentially. When she fell her head had smacked so loudly on the field and with such force that her horrified teacher had thought her skull had cracked upon impact. As her head bounced on the grass and her skull rattled and Helen could understand Mrs Hushland's fears.
With a groan and another helping of vomit just waiting to be spewed, she screwed her eyes shut, breathing deeply as she counted back from ten. It took three tries for her to be able to bear to sit up and another ten minutes for her to try to stand again. This time, before she fell, she pushed herself to one of the trees around her, hands scraping against its dark bulk as she used it for leverage. Her hands grew hot with stinging as she held on for dear life, lowering her forward to the jagged bark as she once again counted back to ten to settle her head.
Whatever joke Louis was trying to pull had just run a mile past 'ok prank material'. She managed to turn around slowly until her back rested against the uncomfortable tree, legs trembling as they struggled under her weight.
Something was very, very wrong.
"Yeah no shit…" she muttered to herself because the forest was quiet and panic had begun to claw at her innards. She almost wished she were dead rather than whatever hell she had just been dumped into. Being dead would have been so much easier to deal with than being stuck in a random forest, covered in puke and probably miles from home or any kind of telephone. Hearing her voice was the only thing that stopped a full on panic attack. Like when she was five and afraid of the dark and to help with her fear she would talk and hum herself to sleep to ward off the demons. If you could hear your own voice, there couldn't possibly be anything evil under your bed, right? Right?
Helen tried her old calming tactic now, shakily humming a small tune. She closed her eyes, focusing on the repetitive short tune to help calm herself down and help her headache.
She heard a strange snuffling sound just over the newly found calm of her humming and her voice faltered, lullaby breaking in two. She forced herself to carry on, eyes still firmly shut, pushing the tune through trembling lips.
There's nothing there. There's nothing there.
Of course she knew it was dumb to keep her eyes closed with potential danger staring her (quite literally) in the face but her fear of the unknown was causing her to shake so badly that her voice shook and her hands twitched at her sides. A lump of fear rose in her throat so that her humming became scratchy and throaty and eventually nonexistent. It became very hard to breathe and her struggles sounded suspiciously like whimpers.
Helen had never been so ashamed to be scared.
She used to have fantasies about saving the world with long luxurious hair and shining beautiful eyes and in her fantasies she'd never once shown any fear and here she was; eyes shut, body trembling and about to wet herself over a sound.
A sound of which, she realized suddenly, there had been no repeat. Maybe she had just made it up. Yeah, she thought, desperately trying to calm her breathing. Maybe there was nothing there. Maybe-
"Ajog nar gagnaz lat, biavch."
Her eyes flew open and she felt her legs almost give way at the sight before her. Whatever joke Louis was playing it was decidedly very cruel. The thing standing before her was a sight of technical achievements. She almost went up to the thing to touch its face. Whoever had done its makeup deserved an Oscar.
That shit was on fleek.
Deep, sallow greens mixed with what looked like particularly slimy grey flesh all cut up and heaped on the persons face greeted her. It looked like layers of fake skin had been piled onto one another so that the creatures skin looked like it had natural grooves and lumps and bumps. Its head was oblong in shape and its nose looked far more like a snout than anything else. Its ears were long and pointed, chewed in places so that the flesh hung strangely. Its eyes were a putrid yellow and sunk deep into its face, flickering about her body with curiosity. Crudely made clothes covered the hulking figure and Helen wondered where they were hiding their stilts because she'd never seen anyone so tall in her entire life.
"Whaav?" The creature grunted and Helen had to commend this person's dedication to the role. Even their voice sounded low and garbled. They must be hiding a speech manipulator somewhere, she thought. Part of her panic sidled away as her and the creature locked eyes.
Of course, she reasoned suddenly, smiling with relief. Louis must have gone a little prank crazy and Ashton Kutcher was behind one of the trees just waiting for her to wet herself for prime time television. Well, she thought, she'd show them. "Nar maz kandog?"
Straightening against the tree she ignored its harsh speech and tried to forget about the way the words made her gut twist and her head swim strangely.
"I know Louis put you up to this." She said, feeling far braver than she felt but comforted by the fact that this was all one big joke and it would end very, very soon.
The person in the horrible mask titled their head to the side and a horrible click sounded making Helen jump. He spat at his feet and Helen grimaced. This person is so dedicated, she thought. He or she grunted, taking a step towards her and something at his belt glinted in the dim, murky light filtering down from the high canopy. Helen immediately looked towards a serrated knife strapped to his side that she hadn't noticed before. The edges were black and rusted and the creatures gnarled, bandaged left hand immediately went to rest on the hilt of what Helen really, really hoped was a toy knife.
"Losog." It grunted, straightening his neck.
It made no further move to come towards her for which Helen was thankful for. Whatever bravado she had felt before seemed to leave her body in one big whoosh as it fingered the handle of the large knife. There was a little voice at the back of her head that niggled away at her fragile sense of hope.
This isn't a prank, it screeched, run run run this isn't a prank.
"Leav'uk plaausan ij losug."
A smell clouded her vision and she scrunched her nose at the offending scent, almost gagging at the putrid, cloying odor of decaying meat and something else. Something that made her toes curl in her vagabond's, scratching against the sweaty material of her knee-high socks. The thing whistled through the gaps in its teeth and the smell assaulted her senses again, leaving her to push her head against the tree as if asking it to swallow her head so that she may never be subjected to such a stench again.
"Awaausan faav biavch. Mog caavcheuk lat." The thing laughed and in one fluid motion unsheathed the mammoth knife and stared at her with glee filled eyes. The rusted blade swung by his side easily as though he was used to pulling out large knives in front of school girls. Helen had no idea what was going on and made one last attempt to get this all to stop before she really embarrassed herself by pissing her panties.
"Louis. This isn't funny anymore." She ground out, breathe hitching as she made an effort to push away from the tree as if to make herself seem bigger. What a sight I must be, she thought absently. Knee high socks, dirty jumper and off white collared shirt,rumpled school skirt and vomit all down my thighs. Perfect. This is how I'll enter stardom. Crying (it was only then that she felt the cool breeze against wetness on her cheeks) and soiled. Leonardo DiCaprio will never marry me now.
Which, in hindsight, probably wasn't the best thing to be thinking when a (possibly most likely) real life demon was about to hack your body to pieces and eat your bones.
"Zunn." The beast growled, voice oddly high-pitched as if it was singing to her as it stepped forwards again.
Helen squealed in response and in that moment she could swear she felt a little pee seep out. If this thing didn't kill her she was almost certain she'd die of embarrassment. "Kirth. Hokh. Let."
Helen had no idea what the fuck the thing was saying but with every word it stepped a little closer. With no intention of finding out what the thing meant or, more importantly, dying, she side-stepped around the tree, pitching forward into a run before she could even register what her limbs were doing. From fear or adrenaline (or maybe the world had just decided to stop shitting on her for five seconds) her headache evaporated and her legs stopped wobbling long enough to propel her forwards into the trees and away from that thing. Because let's face it, it wasn't a man in a mask. And if it wasn't a man in a mask it meant that that thing was real. And that meant that she was wrong, and she had probably died but had gone to hell for calling Mary Sue a goody two-shoes every day in her head for fifteen years.
She could hear the beast laughing behind her, loud hacking sounds that seemed to carry over the space between them and slide into her heart to plant fear. Crying openly now she ran for a little while, until she could no longer hear the thing behind her. Risking a glance and breaking every rule of survival in horror movies known to girls across the world she looked behind her, seeing nothing but darkening woods in her wake. She breathed a sigh of relief, only to let out a yelp as she turned back around as she almost collided with another beast, only tilting to the side at the last moment to avoid impact. Her feet tripped and she hit the ground in a tumble of limbs. This one was shorter than the last but equally as repulsive looking. She flipped onto her back before shakily getting to a stand. The thing did nothing but stare at her and through the ruins that were its face Helen could swear she could see it smiling.
A whistle sounded that sounded suspiciously like the one the other beast had done earlier and Helen skittered to the side, breaking off into a sprint not caring what direction she went in as long as it took her far, far away from those things.
Heart in throat she continued for a while, only to spy another thing to her left, far off yet watching her with the same leer as the other one. She wondered why they weren't attacking as she veered off into another direction and it wasn't until this happened twice more that she realized they were herding her.
Like cattle.
She was someone's sport.
And cattle were only ever good for one thing.
She knew right then that she was going to be eaten alive. Bile rose again in her throat and she swallowed it down, tasting the bitterness on the edge of her tongue as a scream tore through her throat.
"Help!" she shouted. And kept shouting until her legs burned and slowed and her chest tightened so much she thought she may just die from the pain alone.
She could hear them now, behind her. It seems they had gotten her to run wherever they wanted and had grown tired of her running about like a headless chicken. As she slowed due to exhaustion they gained on her until she could almost feel their breath painting the back of her neck. Thoughts of being eaten slowly filled her head and her will to live gave her once last push. She sped up spying a clearing up ahead. If she could just find people. If she could just find people-
As if answering a prayer, a shout came from ahead and Helen strained to hear what they were saying but found the words foreign and more importantly, seemingly coming from thin air. She didn't know if they were friend or foe but she was going to take her chances. Instead of shifting direction she ran towards the new voices.
"Dad!" They shouted. "Dad!"
Why the hell was someone calling for their dad? Helen thought as she neared the clearing.
Something scraped the back of her neck and she yelped, stumbling slightly but managing to regain her footing at the last possible moment. All she could hear now was the heavy breathing of the beasts behind her and the blood rushing through her ears and above that, somewhere in the distance, a high pitched keening. She focused on that sound, willing herself to make sense of the words her mind recognized.
"Down Helen! Duck down! Dive now!"
Without even questioning the command she made a dive for the ground as she got to the edge of the clearing, arms coming up to take the brunt of her fall. She fell onto her front and the impact was jarred her whole body. She flopped once, twice, eventually coming to a painful stop. Multiple twanging sounds surrounded her followed by great hollers. Thuds and grunts and low wailing could be heard behind her and just as she thought she could get up something heavy fell on top of her. A shooting pain lanced up her side and the breath whooshed out of her. Whatever it was was crushing her. With her head lying on its side she watched as several pairs of booted feet rushed past her followed by the peculiar high-pitched swishng sounds of swords being unsheathed.
Whatever happened next happened very quickly. A mixture of war cries and answering snarls sounded until something grunted one last time and a heavy thud sounded near her feet.
Helen hardly paid it any mind as she staved off unconsciousness as the thing lying on her threatened to suffocate her. She struggled to draw breath into her lungs, hands clawing the earth, nails breaking and snapping against the densely packed dirt. Her side smarted and her body hurt and her legs were beginning to get pins and needles from the lack of circulation. She floundered like a fish, panicking in the face of death.
Boots came into her line of vision again and she found it so strange that she hadn't heard them approach. The weight was lifted off her and she immediately rolled onto her back, gasping for breath, uncaring of the way her skirt had hiked up her thighs or how she had most probably wet herself a little bit more. All she could think about was the fact that she could breathe and the sun was shining and-
Wait.
No.
No that wasn't the sun at all.
It took her eyes a moment to stop dancing around in their sockets before her vision became clear. Once her eyes had focused she found herself looking at a man who was- fucking hell.
Was he glowing?
Radiant, blonde hair cascaded down his sides and medieval, silver armour, splattered with a sticky looking black substance, adorned his body. His face- Christ.
She didn't have time for this, she thought with a huff, forcing herself to sit up despite the ache in her body.
Louis was in so much trouble.
First he scares her half to death then he hires a hot guy to save her? More boots came into vision and she found herself looking up at a circle of beings that had formed around her. They were each tall and foreboding and she wondered if she had made a mistake in running towards them.
Jesus, she thought dumbly, where had Louis found ten hot men to act in his dumb prank? All long haired and fair of face they watched her blankly, keen bright eyes noting her every movement. Except they weren't all men, she realized with growing annoyance. In fact, she wasn't even sure they were men. Each and every single one of them was giving off a faint glow and no one was that pretty. But that seemed like the wrong discussion to start having right at that moment as the stench of death filled her nostrils and vomit threatened to spew out of her nose.
Helen groaned around her bubbling puke. No. They weren't all (maybe)men. Standing directly in front of her and looking at her with a mixture of relief, fear and disgust was Mary-Elizabeth-fucking-Sue.
Because of course she was there too.
Helen couldn't even be saved by angels without Mary Sue swooping in to steal the glory.
"Mary?!" she spat incredulously. The girl in question smiled tentatively, only to step back at the venom in Helen's voice when she demanded, "what the fuck is going on?"
Translations
Black Speech:
"Ajog Nar gagnaz, lat biavcb." Literal: That no Helper you bitch. Meaning: That won't help you, bitch.
"Whaav? Nar maz kandog?" Literal: What? No more sing?
I have no idea if these ones are right but: "Losog. Leav'uk plaausan ij losug." Literal: Game. Let's play a game. (I know game is right but the rest is a mystery.)
"Awaausan faav biavch. Mog caavcheuk lat" Literal: Away, fat bitch. Mog catches you.
"Zunn. Kirth. Hokh. Let." Ten. Nine. Eight. Seven.
Sindarin:
"Dad! Dad!" Literal: "Down. Down!"
Author Notes
I'd like to start this by saying that I'm not here to bash Mary Sue's. I'm going to actively try to not take too many cheap shots at them. Truth be told, I don't really even mind Mary Sue's. If they're written well then they can sometimes be enjoyable you must admit that it's sometimes nice to imagine yourself as someone who is perfect at everything.
First and foremost, this is me trying to write a comedy. Most of my work is serious and angsty and I wanted to write something lighthearted and (hopefully) funny. I'm not the best writer in the world but I try my best.
This story is about female friendship, abandonment and sisterhood. And eventually I'd like for you all to come to like Mary because, deep down, all a Mary Sue wants is for the greater good to win and is there something so wrong in that?
This is a pretty generic beginning for an idea that's probably already been done before and for that I apologise. I may go back and change it but for now I kind of like how it's gone. Thank you for reading and do try leave a review if you can (: It would be much appreciated.
Have a lovely week, Aobh x