Here's Chapter 3! I want Feed Back!

This is the first chapter of the big epic back story/flash back

DISCLAIMER: If I owned Bleach, I wouldn't be wasting my time writing fanfics, I'd be writing in more parts for Kenpachi.

I opened my eyes only to shut them again. The bright light burned my poor retinas. I tried to roll over and go back to sleep, but my bed felt so hard and uncomfortable for some reason.

'……wake……'

"Jess? Jess! Wake up!" That was Nick's voice. What's he doing in my room?

"She's not dead is she?" Ben's here too? "Maybe you should smack her."

"No way, she'll smack me back! You do it."

"Imma smack bof uv ya if ya don shuttit," I slurred out. Honestly, did they have to scream like that?

"Oh good, now we don't have to bury you."

'……awaken……'

"Gimme an excuse, Ben, that's all I ask." Sure, we acted like we hated each other and stuff, but that's just how Ben and I acted. If an entire day went by without him calling me names or making jokes about me getting hurt, then I would think he was seriously mad at me or something. Ben would think the same if I went an entire day without threatening his life or well being.

"Ignore him, Jess. Can you open your eyes?"

"Yeah, but I'm not gunna as long as the sun's in my eyes."

"Well then cover your eyes. Nick and I are trying to figure out whether we've gone nuts or died."

"I can tell you guys right now that you're both nuttier than that giant peanut guy with the top hat and the monocle."

"Oh, ha ha."

'……rise……'

"Could you please just open your eyes and see what we mean?" Nick was my other best friend. We would all pick on each other about everything, but we weren't quite as violent with Nick. He was more laid back than me and Ben. He was also more of a thinker. All three of us were smart, but Ben usually played dumb so people wouldn't realize how smart he really was, and my attention span was so small that I really only acted as smart as I was when I wasn't being lazy and bothered to focus. Nick, on the other hand, would actually use his brain more often than not. He was always more likely to think things through than me or Ben.

'……arise……'

"Fine," I sighed and lifted my hand to block the sun from my eyes. My arm felt like it weighed a million pounds. I squinted carefully and looked around. We weren't in my room. "Why are we in the middle of the street in a city that I've never seen before?"

"Our question exactly."

"We both remember getting home after hanging out last night, and then going to bed. The next thing we know, we wake up here." Nick and Ben were both dressed in everyday clothes, thought they did look like they just rolled out of bed. I glanced down at myself and saw that i wasn't in the pajamas that I knew I put on before I went to bed last night. The clothes we were wearing weren't even the ones we had worn yesterday. That would at least have made some sense.

"Well, I guess the logical thing to do would be to figure out how we got here and where the heck 'here' is." Nick scratched the back of his head in a very 'anime' way as he spoke.

"Right," Ben sneered. "'Cause everything about this is just screaming 'logical'." Looks like someone woke up on the wrong side of the curb. I stood up and took a closer look at the buildings surrounding us.

'……confusion……'

"It looks like we're in a suburb-ish area," I told them. "The good news is that we're less like to get run over, trampled, or separated due to foot or street traffic." I bit my lip and continued. "The bad news is no major sites or tourist attractions means no easy access to information."

"Well isn't this just peachy..."

"But, with any luck we're in another country."

"Jess, why would that possibly be a good thing?"

"Yeah, there's a little thing you might have heard of. It's called a language barrier, and it might just cause us a little problem."

"You sure you didn't hit your head or something? You did take a long time to wake up." Nick seemed genuinely worried about me.

"Not to mention the fact that you still look like an irritable zombie freak." Ben just seemed more irritable than usual.

'……………………'

"A: I'm not a morning person. B: You're not so hot yourself, Princess Peach." Ben was seriously starting to bug me. Sure, he would say that kind of stuff to me all the time, but never with such a rude tone. Whatever his problem was, he needed to get over himself. "3-no wait-C: How I look right now is completely irrelevant. 4 or D:We're American. If we're in another country, we can play dumb American Tourist. All we have to do is make up some story about how we're lost and need directions to the nearest major city."

"Well, it's not the best plan ever, but it's the best we've got."

"I can't believe you two!" Ben snapped. We both jumped and stared at him. "You're acting like this is all real. It's not! It's physically impossible for us to have just randomly ended up in the middle of the street in some random city, much less in another country!" I resisted the urge to cover my ears with how loudly he was screaming at us. I didn't know what it was, but something was definitely wrong with his voice.

'……aggression……'

"Ben, calm down!" Nick yelled back. "You're right, none of this makes any sense. But this feels realer than any dream I've ever had!"

"Then maybe you've just gone nuts and you're hallucinating or something!"

"And what about you? Are we both having the same hallucination?"

'……pain……'

"Oh! Of course! That can't possibly be it, can it? No, we magically got transported to some random country! That's it!"

"Well I don't see you doing anything to help!"

'……fear……'

"There's nothing to help! None of this is real! It can't be!"

"Ben, I swear-!"

'……fight……'

"Guys, Please!" I couldn't take it any more. I screamed at them and clutched my head, covering my ears. They were screaming so loud I thought my ears were going to bleed. I didn't know why, but my ears felt so sensitive. Relief came quick, though. They must have been able to tell that I was in pain, because they were instantly silent. I looked up at them and they looked down at me. Neither one was mad anymore.

"Jess," Nick said in a soft voice. "Are you alright?"

"Yeah, I think so." My voice was equally soft as I slowly dropped my hands.

"Jess, I'm sorry." Ben grimaced in a way I had only ever seen on one or two other occasions. That grimace meant that he was pissed with himself for hurting me or letting me get hurt.

I was shorter than both of them by a fair amount. Nick was almost 6'1" and Ben was closer to 6'5", while I was a measly 5'3". I could fight, but only because I was scrappy. We had been friends since we were little kids, and they were like the big brothers I'd never had. We had wrestled and messed around with each other all the time when we were little, so I learned how to hold my own, but I was still a small girl. I had a petite, athletic build, so I wouldn't last long in a fight on my own. As a result, they were both really protective of me. Whenever I would get into trouble, no matter how often, they would be there to bail me out. We all looked out for each other. The only thing that pissed one of us off more than when someone hurt one of the others was when we hurt them.

'…………………………'

"Forget about it, Ben. This is really weird and it's a lot to take in and accept." I was still mad at him for his attitude, but I couldn't stay mad for long. He had finally come to his senses, and he was probably beating himself up worse than I could. "I don't know what's going on or why, but if this is real, we need to do something. If this is just some bizarre dream, or hallucination, or we're all nuts, then we might as well enjoy things while they last."

"Yeah, I'm sorry too, both of you. But, you know the saying: when life gives you lemons, make apple juice and let the world wonder how the heck you did it." Leave it to Nick to fix everything with a bad joke. We all laughed, more at how bad the joke was than the joke itself, but the tension in the air dissipated in seconds.

"Alright, so what now?"

"Should we go door to door?"

"We're not Girl Scouts. I mean, if you want to go dress up in a little skirt and baret, knock yourself out," I said to Ben. It was good to be back to normal. Well, as normal as we could get anyway.

"You know what? I think I will, thank you very much."

"I would like to avoid the mental scarring that seeing Ben in a skirt will cause me, so I think we should probably look for a store or shopping area. We need to figure out where we are and what language people speak around here." We nodded in agreement and he started down the street. Ben followed, but I didn't move. Something had been bugging me since I had properly woken up. Our voices sounded so strange. There had been something weird about what Nick just said, too. I understood the words, and they made sense, but they sounded weird. We all sounded like our accents had changed, or like we were talking through something.

'……listen……'

"Hey!" I jolted out of my thoughts at Ben's call. I glanced up at him in time to see him chuckle at me. "Let's go, Shortie." He waved me over. My eyes widened. I replayed his words in my head along with how I saw his lips move. I brushed my fingertips over my lips.

"Guys, wait!" I felt my lips move. I heard the words come from my mouth. They didn't match! Ben and Nick stopped and looked at me. This was just getting weirder and weirder. Things were starting to click together in my brain, but I had to be sure. "Say something!" I commanded. They looked at each other and then back at me.

"Like what?" they asked simultaneously. I laughed. They looked at me like I was nuts.

"We're dubbed!" I giggled. This was too much.

"We're what?"

"Jess, what are you talking about?"

"Read my lips!" They looked at me like I had seven heads and purple skin. "When I speak," I said, exaggerating my lip movements, "my lips don't match the words that we are hearing. We are dubbed!"

"Nick, the midget has officially lost it."

"No, wait. I think she's right." He touched his lips. "Hello, testing, testing." He looked down at his fingers in amazement. "Ben, read my lips!"

"And you guys are always telling me how crazy I am."

"We don't beat the living crap out of anything that catches out eye when we're pissed."

"No matter what you say, those flowers did not deserve that, Ben."

"Now would you just look? Humor us!" Ben leaned in close to Nick's face and watched as the other started talking about turtles and platypi. It took a while, but when Ben was finally able to keep from laughing long enough to look at Nick's lips and process what he was saying.

'……discover……'

"What the hell?" Ben jumped back. I winced when he screamed, but I couldn't help but giggle.

"We must be speaking another language," I said still giggling.

"Another language? Seriously?"

"It makes about as much sense as everything else, right now," Nick pointed out.

"So last night, something took us from our beds, changed our clothes, dropped us in the middle of the street somewhere far away, possibly in another country, and magically switched us from English to some other language? Yeah, that makes perfect sense."

"This is all like some bad fanfic or something," I laughed.

'…………………………'

I stopped dead and froze.

"What? What's wrong?"

"Jess?"

"Fanfic."

"What?"

"Fanfic! A fan fiction! This is just like a fan fiction! I actually read one kind of like this! These two girls were crazy anime fangirls and this random guy walked up to them and gave them this anime magazine that had a map in it and it showed where different characters were on it and they both wished that they could meet their favorite characters from this one anime and it granted their wish and it sucked them in and teleported them into the anime and they-!"

"Jess!" Ben shouted and grabbed my shoulders. "Breathe, darn you, breathe!" he shook me.

"Seriously, you're turning blue. And you should probably stop shaking her now. You're going to give her whiplash." I took a deep breath when Ben finally let me go and calmed myself down.

"Now, what's all this about fan fictions?"

"It's like the one I was I was just telling you about!"

"But we didn't get sucked into a magazine," Ben put in. "And for the record, that idea was totally ripped off from Final Fantasy Tactics."

"It's got a good plot base, and the story wasn't as deep or cool as Tactics, but that's besides the point."

'…………………'

I pushed the fuzzy, muffled sound to the back of my mind. I kept hearing it, but I couldn't for the life of me figure out what it was. I shook myself out of my musings and focused on what I was saying to Ben and Nick.

"Think: what random creepy thing happened to us last night?"

"We were abducted by some magical force thingy?

"No, well yes, but-That's not what I mean. What happened before that? Before we got home? When we were still hanging out and talking about the newest chapters of Bleach?"

"That guy! He asked us why we like anime so much."

"And if we would choose living in one of those worlds over our own."

"So that guy brought us here? He put us in an anime?"

"I don't know, maybe. He said something else too, though. Didn't he?"

"I think he said something along the lines of 'be careful what you wish for'. He definitely said that we would regret thinking that way."

"What was it that he muttered?"

"Huh?"

"He muttered something after we laughed," Ben reminded us. "We laughed when he said we would regret it, and then he mumbled something as he walked away."

"I remember that." I racked my brain. I knew that what he said hand make things seem even funnier at the time, but now I couldn't remember what it was.

'……comrades……'

"I think it had something to do with being heard. Well, about not being heard. He said how we weren't the first people to not listen to him. I just thought he was one of those "the end is near" nuts or something."

"So, what? We're in Bleach now?"

"It does sort of look like Karakura town."

"He never said anything about Bleach, though. He just said anime in general. Besides, if this is Japan, which we don't know for sure that it is, this looks like every suburb, town, and city street that's in a present day anime. We could be in Bleach, but we could just as easily be in Death Note, Inuyasha, xxxHolic, or even DragaonBallZ, or Yu-Gi-Oh. We could be in an anime that none of us has ever even heard of before."

"We might not be in a Japanese anime. This could be a Korean or Chinese anime."

"Or Canadian." They gave me another look. "What? Scott Pilgrim was a Canadian anime!"

"Anyway, we might not even be in an anime. It just happens that we're somewhere we don't know that looks like a Japanese suburb, speaking a foreign language, and last night we met this creepy guy who may or may not have had something to do with all this."

"Let's just play this by ear. We need to lay low for a while and figure things out. We should try to find jobs and a place to stay." A loud growling noise caught our attention. "But food first," Ben chuckled. I hugged my stomach and groaned as my hunger refused to be ignored. Nick ruffled my hair and we finally began our walk down the street.

'……lost……'

…

…

After some mindless wandering, we found a shopping area. My stomach only growled louder as my nose was taunted with all the wondrous smells coming from the different restaurants and food stalls. I could hear Ben's stomach start growling in harmony with mine.

'…………………'

"Looks like we're in Japan after all."

"How do you figure?" Ben asked without looking away from the tantalizing treats.

"The writing on all of the signs is in Japanese."

"Well that's stupid." I grimaced at the Hirigana and Kanji.

"What do you mean?"

"The special magical force thingy made us speak Japanese, but we can't read Japanese. It's stupid."

"Wait, you can't read any of it? I can read it just fine. What about you, Ben?"

"I want a pound."

"A pound?"

"Yeah, just get me a pound of whatever you're getting."

"Ben, we're not talking about food. Focus!"

"Can you read any of the signs?" He looked.

"As well I can read Greek or Elvish."

"Then why can I understand it?"

"Who knows? Who cares? Just get us some food!"

"What do they say? Anything helpful?"

"I think we're in Konohaakai town."

"Konohaakai?"

"Red leaves. Makes sense with all the Japanese maples around. Their leaves are red most of the year."

"Again, who cares? I want food!"

"We don't have any money."

"Stupid special magical force thingy!"

"Stop blaming it. Pointing fingers is not going to fix anything, Jess."

"No, but it makes me feel better." My stomach grumbled again. "Not that much better."

'……weak……'

"We need to find a way to get some money, or we'll be stuck trash picking for breakfast."

'……weakness……'

"Excuse me." We all stopped and turned to the little old man who had just walked up to us. "I'm sorry, but I couldn't help over hear a little bit. My wife and I run this shop right here," he pointed to the snack shop we were standing in front of. "My nephew usually works for me, but he called in sick today. It wouldn't normally be a problem, but we just got a rather large shipment of some of our stock. I could use some help moving the boxes from the truck to the store room and restocking the shelves, if you're interested. I can't pay you very much, but I could give you enough to fill your bellies, and you can help yourself to the snacks free of charge."

"That's very kind of you, Sir-"

"Thank you!" I cried as I dove at the man and gave him a giant hug. "I can never thank you enough, kind sir!"

Ben smacked the back of my head and drug me off of the man and into the store. Three hours later, the shelves and our bellies were full and the boxes had all been moved from the truck to the back of the shop. We talked endlessly with the old man, Yamanaka-san, and his wife who insisted that we call her Keiko. They were a sweet old couple, and were very grateful for our help.

"You know," said Keiko, "Our friend owns a tea shop just down the street. She lives alone in one of the apartments above the shop. Her husband just died, you see. She's been planning on renting out the other apartments over the shop to help ends meet. I'm sure she would love to put you three up."

"That's right! And you could probably work for her too. She says she can handle it all on her own, but she's just a stubborn old woman. We could introduce you, if you'd like."

"That would be great! Thank you both so much!"

So, we met Nara Kyoko, who was more than glad to help us out. By the end of the week, we were all living comfortably in the apartments above and working in the tea shop below. We worked all day doing everything from making tea, and dango, and other tea foods to cleaning every nook and cranny of the shop to running errands on the other side of town. When Nick wasn't teaching us how to read our new language after work, we were trying to figure out which anime/manga we were in. One was highly successful, while the other seemed to be more of a waste of time every time we sat down together.

'……alone……'

Weeks turned to months, and we all fell easily into the swing of our new life. Eventually, we stopped caring what anime we were in, or that we were in an anime at all. Our memories of the mysterious stranger from the night before all this happened became a distant shadow in the back of our minds right along with most of the other details of our lives before Konohaakai. We remembered the basics, but not much else. Our lives were simple and we loved it. We made friends easily enough, and we acted like we had always lived this life. We even changed our last names. We vowed to stick together as friends and as siblings, so we became known as the Hanashi trio. Everything was going wonderfully.

Until the 'accident'.

We all went out to run an errand for Nara-san in the next town over. It wasn't very far, but it was far enough that we needed to drive. We were on our way home long after dark when it happened. We came up to an intersection to see a car sitting in the middle nearly torn in half. Ben pulled over and we all got out to investigate. Nick ran over to the car to check to see if the man was alive.

"What happened?"

"It looks like something tried to rip it to shreds."

"What's that smell?"

"He's dead." Nick pulled away from the man and the car. He was still buckled into his seat.

"It smells like something's rotting."

"I told you, he's dead."

"Corpses don't start smelling right away, it takes time. They don't start smelling till the start decomposing."

"Well what else could it be? I don't smell anything."

"Does he have a dead body in the trunk or something?"

"Guys! I man is dead!"

"She's right, we need to call the cops."

"Ugh." Ben groaned and covered his nose as he joined Nick in searching for a pay phone since we had yet to save up for our own phones.

'…………………'

I spun around to face the empty road.

"What's wrong, Jess?"

"I thought I heard something." I was sure I had. I had heard some kind of whisper. I turned back to what was left of the car when I heard another whisper. This time I was sure I had heard someone inside the car. I ran up to the car and looked the man dead in the face. Poor choice of words. His eyes stared at the road ahead of him, but they were blank and lifeless. I heard the whisper again, louder this time, coming from the car. I pushed the electric un-lock button and pulled the back seat door open. Nothing and no one. I went back to the driver's seat and pulled the tab under the seat to pop the trunk open. Nothing and no one. I pulled the mat up out of the trunk to see the spare tire, car jack, and tire iron. The whisper came again. I stood and listened.

'……help me……' came a small voice. '……monster……' I spun around, searching for whoever had spoken. Nick and Ben were way too far away to have whispered right next to me like that, but there was no one else anywhere.

"Where are you?" I called out. "I can't help you unless you tell me where you are."

'You……hear me………? Please………help me……monster………'

"What monster? Where are you?"

'RUN!' I jumped at the deeper, louder voice that followed.

"Jess! What's going on?"

"Are you alright? We heard you yelling."

"I heard a voice. It was just a whisper, but I heard it. I thought it was coming from the car, but there's nothing-" I stopped and turned to Ben who was now doubled over and gagging, trying to keep from throwing up. "Ben?"

"That smell!"

"What smell? Ben, there is no smell! The two of you! I understand it's not easy seeing a dead body, I'm freaking out too, but you guys are having break downs."

"No, Nick, there's something else. Before you guys came over, I heard another voice, a different voice. I've been hearing this voice for a while."

"What voice?"

"Don't look at me like that, Nick, I'm not insane. I first started hearing it when we woke up in the street. I couldn't really make out much, and I barely noticed it. It was just there. I could hear him better when we all got really excited or happy or upset, but I could never hear more than a single word. Sometimes I'd just hear the sound of his voice, but I wouldn't be able to understand any of the words. But, just now, I heard his voice."

"Him?"

"Yeah, it's a guy's voice."

"What did he say just now?"

"It was the first time I've heard him this clearly. It still sounded like he was far away, but I heard him. He only said one word this time."

"Jessica." Nick walked up to me and grabbed my shoulders. I looked up into his eyes and I knew he could see how scared I was. "What did he say?"

"'Run'."

We all jumped again when our car flipped onto its side. We just stood there staring for a while, not sure what to do.

'………run………………monster……'

"Where are you?" I broke away from Nick and shouted to the weak voice. "What monster?"

"Jess!"

"The voice I heard from the car, I just heard it again." We turned and ran to Ben when he finally lost the fight and his lunch. I wrapped my arms around him to try and support him as he collapsed.

"Holy shit, that smell. How can you two not smell that?" He asked us weakly. Now we knew it wasn't just the shock of seeing a dead body. Ben was a tough guy who could handle just about anything. Now he melted into a pile on the curb, his face a chalky, sickly green color. Our attention snapped back to our car once again as it made a horrible 'nails-on-the-chalkboard' sound that had me gripping my head in agony. I looked up when the sound stopped to see our car had been mangled.

"What's happening?" I always tried to put up a tough front so Nick and Ben didn't think I was helpless, but I didn't care now. My voice and my hands shook like leaves in a hurricane.

"I don't know." I could hear the fear in Nick's voice too.

'…………Jess………run…………must………away……' It was the deeper voice again. I was starting to snap now.

"Who are you! What do you want!"

'…………Jess…………safe………I……you………………hear…………' He sounded so far away. The other voice had sounded like it was right next to me, but this one sounded like he was calling to me from far away, or like he was trying to talk to me over some other loud sound.

I ran back over to the man's car and the boys followed.

"Jess, what are you doing?"

"We need to get out of here."

"Jess, look at Ben, look at the car, look at our car. Something is going on here and we need to get out of here NOW!" I didn't listen to them. I yanked the car door open and wrenched the seat belt off the man's body. Whatever was happening had something to do with him."Jess-"

"Nick, look." Ben's voice sounded only slightly stronger than it had a moment ago. "Nick, his chest- That wasn't cause by a car accident."

"It looks like he was mauled by a tiger." My words came out barely louder than a whisper.

"No," Nick could no longer hide his fear. "Tiger claws couldn't leave cuts like that. They're too wide, too deep. This was something else, some kind of monster."

"But why'd it only hurt his chest? it didn't touch his face."

'……Jess……'

"Forget that, why is the seatbelt still in one piece? If he was slashed across the chest while he was buckled in, then why wasn't the seatbelt cut?"

'………Jessica………'

I froze.

It finally dawned on me that the deep voice knew my name. He hadn't used it before now. I only ever heard one word at a time, and it always felt like an after thought. Now, it was easier to hear.

"Jess?" I snapped back to reality and looked at a worried Ben.

"I'm fine, I just- that voice, the one I keep hearing..."

"What's it saying?"

"My name. He keeps saying my name and something about running."

"Guys, I think I finally figured it all out. We need to get away from here NOW."

"But the guy, he-"

"There's no time! We have to g-" Ben and I stared in pure shock as Nick went flying. I felt my stomach lurch when I heard bones snapping and flesh tearing. We stood, too scared to move, staring at the giant claw marks that had appeared on Nick's side.

"But there's nothing there! There was nothing there to-" I couldn't finish. I tore away from Ben and ran to Nick's mangled form. I collapsed next to him, placing both of my hands on his chest, searching for a heart beat. It was there, but it was fading. I scooped up Nick's head and cradled it, gently rocking back and forth and whispering to him that it would be okay. I was only fooling myself.

"Holy- Jess! Run!" I looked at Ben in time to see him fly in the opposite direction, just as bloody and mangled as Nick. I could hear my own heart pounding in my head, and I swore I heard Nick's and Ben's hearts too. I sat there. There was nothing else to do. I listened as the two heart beats aside from mine steadily faded away, leaving me alone.

But I wasn't alone.

I stared dead ahead of me. That's where it was. The thing that had killed that man and Nick and Ben. I knew it was there because I could hear it. I heard it's footsteps as it slowly came to me. I heard it's breathing as it got closer to it's prey. I heard it's chuckles as it claimed it's victory.

'………delicious……can't wait……eat……little one………' This voice was new. It came from the same place as the footsteps and the breathing and the chuckles. It was that thing.

"Then stop talking and eat me" I told it.

'…………are you afraid………darling little morsel………?……'

"I'm not afraid. My fear left with my brothers."

'………………you not……for your life?……do………not fear death……?…'

"I'm not afraid of death and I'm not afraid of you."

It chuckled.

'…………death……coming……………' His voice was louder this time, like it was closer. I was relieved to hear it after the bone chilling sound of the monster's voice.

'What?' I asked the voice. The soft, scared voice had gone, just like all the other voices. I had always refused to admit it before, but his voice was not the only one I had heard. From the time I woke up in that street, I began hearing voices and sounds. I always brushed them aside, telling myself they were coming from the market place, but it was a lie. I always knew what voices were from the market place and which ones were different. I was the only one who could hear those voices. The voices of the dead. This voice, his voice, was different from all of them. It never faded away like the others, and it never sounded the same as the others. No, his voice was very much alive. It was probably more alive than mine.

'………………………………………'

'What? What do I do? Tell me.'

'………stand……………tall……………brave…………………victorious……………'

So I did. I forced my legs to move and obey. I stood up and faced the monster. I stood tall. I stood brave. I stood victorious.

'………time for you to die……time for me to eat………' The monster's voice.

'What are you doing?' Ben's voice.

'Jess! Run!' Nick's voice.

'……wait……' His voice.

It was there.

'You've got to get out of here now!' Ben.

'……stay……' Him.

I could hear it.

'It's going to kill you!' Nick.

'……die……' Him.

I heard its footsteps as it slowly came to me.

'Now Die!' It.

'……stand……' Him.

I heard its breathing as it drew closer to its prey.

'Jess!' Ben.

'……die……' Him.

I heard its chuckling as it claimed its victory.

'Run!' Nick.

'……victory……' Him.

A premature victory.

"I die on my terms."

I heard the air whoosh as it swung whatever clawed limb it had at me.

I didn't close my eyes.

I didn't blink.

I didn't flinch.

I didn't fear death.

I was in control.

I stood tall.

I stood brave.

I stood victorious.

I died.

…

Jess, Ben, and Nick too

are dead at this chapter's end.

Care to share your thoughts?

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