'Grave' Danger (TheKubikajiri)
It was cold and misty. The sky was covered by cloud.
Mai shivered behind the gravestone. She clutched her skinned, bleeding knees and panted against her skin, letting salty droplets of sweat slip between her parted lips.
Fear.
It was terrible. Her heart thudded so hard, the pulse point at her neck throbbed. Her eyes felt as though they were popping out of their sockets and her mouth was bone dry.
She had never been so tense! Her face was painfully taut, her ears strained to hear every whisper of noise.
Her back, soaked and chilled, rested on the marble gravestone behind her. The skirt she was wearing did nothing to warm her trembling bruised legs.
Mai swallowed thickly. After keeping still for so long, her knees ached for movement. Quivering like a leaf, she twisted around and revealed a dilated brown eye, wide with terror, out into the open that flickered from grave to grave.
A crunch from somewhere made her seize with fright. She gasped and concealed herself again, rocking on her heals for a second before she stilled and clamped a silencing hand over her mouth.
Lightening quick, panicky thoughts flittered inside her head in an incoherent torrent. Blind for a moment, she sat frozen, not able to breath, unable to think.
From out of the depths of terror, one thought surfaced above the rest. She clutched onto it.
She had to move.
She dropped onto her hands and knees, carefully crawled to the next grave head, then scrambled frantically across the ground, picking herself up onto her feet as she went, bent double. She dived behind another grave and listened.
Footsteps.
Mai smothered a moan. She scrunched up her face, and forced herself to think rationally, but no calm thought came to her. Please. Please! Don't come any closer!
She could hear shuffling footsteps. Please Naru, help me! She turned her creased, tearstained face around the edge of the gravestone and choked on a cry. It was there!
How terrible and atrocious. A human scalp dangled from its long, bony fingers held by the sprouts of hair. Mai shook violently, her mouth open in a silent scream. It had no head. Where the head should have been there was just a stump of a neck. Its body was grey, naked and wrinkled. Mai clapped a hand to her face and gagged on its reeking stench.
Thoughts shrieked inside her head. Kubikajiri! Somebody - Help me! Naru!
Rin Pyou Tou Sha Kai Jin Retsu Sai Zen!
The mantra was muttered quickly in her mind, but her throat couldn't make a sound, her tongue couldn't form the words. Even more horrifying was the fact that the words didn't work! This was a monster! It wasn't a ghost, but a living breathing creature!
Nothing could save her. Nothing.
Weakly, she stumbled backwards. It followed, stumbling on the corners of gravestones. Hungry. Starving for her head. Mai tripped, collided with a headstone which rocked and fell cumbrously to the ground with a thud.
The kubikajiri was instantly upon her.
"Iieeeeeeeeeeee!" A scream tore from her throat into the night. She covered her head and cried shrilly under them. Grotesque hands pulled at the neckline of her clothes.
"Naruuuu! Naruuuu!"
"Mai!"
Her heart leapt.
He was here. A dark shadow charged out of the fog toward her. She screamed his name, and was snatched away from the monster into his arms. The ground twisted and spun, then stopped. Her face was buried in Naru's heaving chest.
Naru.
"Hold on Mai!"
She sobbed, her fingers bunched in his clothes.
"Stay with me!"
They were running, tripping, with the Kubikajiri in pursuit galloping across the ground. Naru dragged Mai behind a grave and then was gone. She was left alone. Mai shivered in the cold hollow and barely acknowledged the bright, orange light that illuminated the graveyard. A horrid, pungent smell filled her nostrils and she went into a paroxysm of coughing.
She stood up and gripped the side of the stone. A pillar of fire was rushing up into the sky and beside it was a tall, black figure glowing around the edges with orange light.
Naru.
Mai couldn't breath. The fire snuffed out with a dull boom, mist swirled in the air and Mai ducked her head. Her knees buckled, but arms slipped about her.
"Mai." His voice was next to her ear. His breath swept across her earlobe. "It's alright."
They sat against the grave together. His eyes flickered with orange light and pale, long fingers touched her cheek tremulously. Both their hearts beat against each other.
"Naru." His name came from her lips in a breath as she stared at his face which was dirty and open with emotion.
It was over. She sat in his arms, relieved. Black remains were all that was left of the monster, and even that was smouldering to nothing, small flames licking at it. She sat with Naru and he held her in silence, the breeze stirring his tousled hair.
Mai lifted a hand, and brushed some grey ash off his fringe. She felt raw and on the edge of a deep precipice - only - she was safe and being held. His arms kept her from falling into the abyss.
"Thank you, thank you," she whispered.
Naru held her hand. A warm feeling spread from her stomach to her chest.
It was over- and here she was, sat at the crook of Naru's arm, safe, with his brow resting against hers, his eyes looking into her own. Safe.
What a day…
A Kubikajiri is a creature of Japanese folklore. It likes to eat heads. 0.0
I hope I conveyed how fear can make what is happening go so fast and feel so raw.
Thanks for reading!