Free Ancient Blood: The Fallen by Renea Taylor Page A

thoughts scattered, mind feeling like putty. A slight sense of amnesia claimed me, for I couldn't recall what I'd been doing just moments earlier. Gingerly I tried to move my arms, finding the effort to be in vain, for they felt heavy and weighted, tingly, numb, as though they'd fallen asleep, my legs as well seemed to be consumed by the strange lethargy.
    I tried to move my head, but found that failed as well, the first prickles of unease I’d been experiencing climbed and advanced towards panic.
    I found myself wondering if maybe I'd suffered a stroke, or fallen and injured my neck or back in some manner, however, I thought fleetingly, if I were hurt, in my current condition it would be impossible to know, for there was no sense of pain or discomfort, just the numbness and dysfunction of my extremities, as though they belonged to another.
    Afraid to move, for fear of worsening the situation in case I really were hurt, I lay there without exerting any effort, confused, drawing in deep breaths as I tried to calm my panic and rapidly beating heart.              
    Using the overhang of the trees that softly swayed within the breeze as a focal point, I debated what I should do, I couldn't call out, for I had no voice, which left me with few options. Slowly, ever so slowly my mind began to clear, my memory tossing up jumbled flashes of my day.
    Then in a sudden rush, I recalled everything, from the voice in my studio, to the swirling darkness within the hallway. A darkness that had somehow morphed into the night sky and trees of the swamp that I now gazed at, and panicking I shouted inwardly at my body to move, uttering soundless sobs when nothing happened, for my torso was just incapable of following what I pleaded for it to do, leaving me helpless as a newborn babe!
    I lay there, scared, confused and bewildered. Then the rustle of footsteps penetrated into my awareness, and I felt pinpricks of fear shoot through every nerve within my brain.
    Though my body continued to feel nothing, my mind on the other hand was a different matter, and I became consumed in terror, for I was helpless, a sitting duck for whatever was approaching, and though I tried to summon my shield, it seemed to be frozen by the strange paralysis as well!
    The closer the steps came, the more my fear mounted, until finally it reached such a fever pitch that I began to pray for unconsciousness, knowing that at least then I wouldn't have to look death in the face.               However, when the steps slowed and finally came to rest beside me, I gazed at the jean-clad legs, unable to comprehend what I was seeing as my mind abstractedly asked, “since when did Satan where jeans and boots? Where were the hairy legs and cloven hooves?”
    I struggled to move my head, needing to see, to understand, to comprehend that what stood next to me was human, not beast, but as the effort to move failed miserably again, I silently screamed at my body to do something, anything besides lay there!
    My limbs however, seemingly deaf to my pleas, didn't even make the slightest effort to even twitch, remaining completely unresponsive to my demands, and my eyes, the only things that did seem to be working properly, welled with moisture.
    As the jean and boot clad figure hunkered down beside me, I heard a quick inhalation of breath as the clouds above us broke, revealing my features and the tears that trickled freely down my cheeks in the light of the moon.
    I heard a low muttered hiss of, “this has gone on fucking long enough !”
    Then I felt the lightest of touches, something similar to the kiss of butterfly wings against my temple, and suddenly my hearing dimmed as again, darkness enveloped me.
     

Chapter 7
     
    Stretching out an arm, I tugged at the sheet, pulling it a little further onto my shoulder, slow to wake, as I just wasn't quite ready to lose the semi state of awareness that held me cradled within its arms.               With a