Two To One

By: E.R.M. Griffin

CHAPTER 3

"Don't you comb your hair?"

Elena winced, but kept her gaze fixed on her notebook. There was a light titter of laughter somewhere behind her. Some things, it would seem, could never change.

There's nothing wrong with my hair…She sighed to herself, shutting her eyes tightly for a few seconds. It's just kinda…fuzzy today.

"Ms. Mercy, why do I have the strongest intuition that your dim-witted giggles have little to do with today's lesson?"

Elena couldn't resist the thinnest smile, masking it before it became too apparent.

"But…I was talking about the lesson Professor," the blonde tried to counter, opening her big blue eyes wide. She plastered the best innocent smile on her face.

How utterly sickening. A voice echoed. Deep and dark. Elena was the only one who heard it, but showed no outward sign of anything being amiss. Do you not utterly crave to take a large book and simply beat her to death with it? Elena stifled a giggle of her own. I imagine it would be as intimate as that creature has ever been to literature…

Biting down on her bottom lip, Elena felt her face grow warm.

"Then perhaps you would care to enlighten me as to what topic I have been discussing with the rest of the class for the last twenty minutes!" Professor Crane crossed his arms, watching her with an intensity that would melt ice.

"Um…phobias?"

"Did you just answer my question or ask me one?" Crane's eyes narrowed.

"I…"

"-Brilliant Ms. Mercy. Not only did your powers of deduction come to the obvious conclusion of the main topic this month-long lesson illustrates, but you have been ever-so articulate in pointing it out!" Seeing that he had knocked the girl into silence, he smirked. "Next time, I suggest you concentrate more on your education then what tint of pink of paint your fingernails with."

The girl blanched, sitting back against her chair slowly.

"Now then…" Crane turned his eyes away, bored with putting the so-called young woman in her place. For a brief moment, they lingered on Elena, who noticed the tiniest hint of a smile pulling at his lips. Blinking, she lowered her head back to her work, blushing slightly.

She only looked up again when she heard the simultaneous groans of disgusts and gasps of shock. Looking towards Professor Crane's desk, she felt her stomach start doing flip-flops.

How interesting…the voice observed. Elena was forced to disagree, too busy lost in a feeling of disgust and fear. She wondered what it was about Professor Crane that always had him bringing…specimens, into class.

It was no spider that sat inside the small cage on the Professor's cage. Yet it was twice as ugly. It appeared to be an emaciated rat, as best as she could tell. A long, furry bode and snout. It looked as though it had been considerably starved, the ribs poking through its lower stomach. From her seat at the front of the class, she could see the very color of its beady eyes. A milky white. She wondered it somehow, the rat was blind. The eyes were sunk into its head.

At the moment, it was busy gnawing on the bars of the cage. Elena half-expected to start foaming at the mouth.

Rats, spiders. Little, insignificant ugly things…Elena took a deep, shaky breath. She felt her fear subside, feeling the empty place where it had been fill up with the echo of the voice. After a moment, any trace of her previous feelings had vanished completely, leaving her with the simple fact that she was staring at a mere rat.

Which didn't seem to be the case for a majority of the rest of the class. Most, mainly the female students, were looking at it in obvious fear. The rest seemed either disgusted or at the very least, a bit nervous.

"This…is Mr. Nibbles!" Professor Crane spoke casually, nothing the mixed looks of fear and revulsion on the faces of his students. "Mr. Nibbles is here to help illustrate a fraction of the feelings that zemmiphobia induced in the early 1300's." He walked over to the cage, opening the trapdoor on the top. "As those of you paying attention to the lesson..," he shot a spiteful glance at Amber Mercy, "…are familiar with, the 1300's are most commonly known for the effects of the Black Death, commonly referred to as "The Great Mortality". Professor Crane paused, reaching into the cage to withdraw the quivering creature. "I trust all of you did your homework and read your assigned chapters."

A murmur of agreement rippled quickly through the classroom.

"Then," Crane continued. "You wouldn't all mind answering a little oral pop-quiz, would you?"

The class turned silent, most staring at the rat in the Professor's hands. It was squirming almost violently. Its blindness causing it to become almost chaotic.

"Your lucky, it only consists of one question…" he smiled. "Why…were the people of the 1300's so terrified of wild rats?"

At that point, he lay the rat gently on a nearby desk, releasing it. The student sitting there shot backwards in his chair with a shocked scream as the panicked rodent scampered around on the dark wood. Eventually it turned to leap along the line of desks randomly, emitting shocking screeches at it went. Screaming ensued, and most of the students vacated their seats to run scrambling to different parts of the room.

Elena almost rose herself, then had a second thought and remained where she was. Eventually, with the rat leaping from desk-to-desk, she remained the only one sitting.

"Professor Crane?" She rat had landed on her desk, and was not standing on its hind legs. It faced her, those milky eyes regarding her with the sheer dumb sense of a wild animal. Its tiny nose twitched, sensing something amiss.

"Yes?" The Professor replied, walking closer until he was a few feet away. He looked down at her, staring intensely at the rat. The creature's odd behavior caught him off guard as it simply stood there, staring that empty stare, as if mesmerized by something he could not see. Or perhaps it simply smells her fear, that sheer adrenaline terror… There was no way she was not afraid. Even those students far from the rat were regarding it with horror as it stood there, abnormally large. She must be frozen with fear, how lovely.

"The rats…they spread the disease sir."

"Hm?" The statement caught him slightly off guard. Her voice was calm and steady. Not betraying an ounce of the fear he had assumed she was experiencing.

"The Bubonic type Professor, the rats carried it. The fleas, more appropriately. The rats were just hosts…and once they died, the fleas had to find other hosts…sometimes humans." She paused, regarding the rat staring at her. "The rats were so many, because of how dirty everything was back then. Almost all of them were diseased, so people were terrified of encounters with them. Of being bitten, or catching the disease some other way." She reached out slowly, running a finger down the creature's taunt, scrawny belly. "He looks kinda hungry…" she trailed off.

There was a moment of absolute silence. Professor Crane's face tightened slightly, and he realized he was holding his breath. He let it out evenly, not wanting to make it obvious. A tiny spark of anger lit up inside him as he watched the girl continue to scratch at the rat's stomach lightly.

"Don't do that, it might bite you…" he said softly, hoping it would trigger some sign of fear. Apprehension, at the least.

"Is it diseased?"

"No."

She shrugged, picking it up in her hands seconds later. Crane felt his usually controlled resolve slipping slowly, as he watched the terror in some of the other students slowly abate as well. One or two even walked up to Elena and scratched at the rat's head cautiously.

Eventually, everyone went back to their seats.

"I'll take that back Ms. Sutherland," Crane spoke coldly, snatching the rat back before Elena could object.

She shot him a surprised look, then seemed to surrender and go back to staring at her notebook. The rest of the class continued uneventfully.

"I didn't mean to upset you Professor."

Crane looked up from the essays he had been marking since the previous day. Elena looked back at him, brown eyes regarding him shyly.

He placed the pen down before answering her. "I was trying to make a point…I suppose I was hoping you would have a better reaction to it then you did…" he trailed off, the tone of his voice almost disappointed.

Elena cocked her head in confusion. "Better?" She echoed. "You sound like you think being afraid is a good thing…" she noticed his eyes narrow slightly, "-no offence…I'm just wondering, that's all."

Professor Crane took off his glasses, taking a moment to rub his eyes. It was strange, but Elena only then noticed the dark circles under them, so similar to her own. When he placed his glasses back on, she noted the exhausted look in his eyes. It was familiar, and she realized she had seen it countless times in a mirror. There was a fine line, she had always thought, between an exhausted body and an exhausted mind. She couldn't help wondering what it was that haunted him.

You would know the signs of demons, wouldn't you child? It echoed once more, and Elena shivered, putting a hand lightly against her temple.

"Are you all right?" The concern was almost genuine. Professor Crane regarded her, noting the paleness of her skin. It was almost sickly, and he wondered if she went out much.

"Yeah, yeah I'm good. Sorry, just a bit of a headache, s'all." She smiled, despite the fact that her head was slowly starting to thud. She had left her codeine at home as well. A bit foolish.

Professor Crane nodded. "Then I shall see you after tomorrow." He went back to grading the papers without so much as a nary glance.

It was only a shadow. To anyone looking, it would have appeared that way. It's presence was too brief, it's mass to liquid-like and fleeting. Like a flash of darkness in the dim light of dusk. It remained in the shadows around it, the light still to bright for its liking. When it took a moment to stand very still, a form could be made out in the wispy continence of it.

It might have been human. It certainly had a human-like husk. The indefinite shape of a body. A head. Tendrils of liquid-smoke curling upwards, resembling wind-blown hair. Long and spiraling everywhere. No particular direction. Pieces of it melted together here and there. There arms may have been, where legs, feet, could meet together. Then it would move simply be a flying thing. Just a black blanket caught on air, travelling the updraft, even though it was not particularly windy.

If it had stayed still long enough to be seen, one may have been able to spot a gaping maw in the shadow-thing. A ever-changing orifice with no solid build-up, but full of spiky ugly things that may have been teeth, but too sharp and uneven to be even remotely human. Once in a while, other patterns appeared on the part that could have been a face. Perhaps empty sockets where unseeing eyes dwelt. One, two, three. A second mouth, toothless.

It was ever-changing. A nightmare in the still-waking world, about to materialize fully in the darkness.

Hungry.

Primitive thought. A single-minded thing.

Hungry. Food.

Someone was walking alone. A teenager, by the looks of it. Fifteen, perhaps sixteen. Not that it knew the difference. It was unlikely it even realized it was hunting a girl, or even a human. Food was food to it, all the same.

Fear.

The slightest twinge of that familiar scent, wafting up to the Nightmare. Alluring and sickly sweet.

It flowed down, liquid again. Shadows collapsing a mere foot from where the girl walked, moving along the ground.

She stopped, turning around to watch it lift up from the ground below her, wrapping her in perpetual darkness. Drowning out her screams in its embrace when she finally realized something was terribly wrong.

So hungry…

Author's Note: Jeez, sometimes I think I get too long-winded when I write. What do you think!? oO I'm trying to take this slow and not rush into anything. Meh.