Free Dancing With Monsters by M.M. Gavillet Page B

wall. He looked at it then at me as
bone protruded from his loose flesh. His eyes squinted and turned
blood red.
    I raised my hand to hit him again, but
his reflexes were quicker than mine. His bony fingers curled around
my wrist cutting at my skin. I had to get him off of me and
screamed out several times hoping someone from the busy salon or
café would hear me. But no one came.
    The only thing free was my legs, and
with my right knee, I slammed it into his crotch. He yelled and
rolled off of me as he moaned. I got up stepping away from him and
turned to run when I ran into Ben.
    Ben looked at me and then at the
man.
    “ You can’t leave him like
this,” he said, gazing down at him. “This is the longest I’ve seen
a human live after consuming serum.” Ben turned me around towards
the man that laid curled in a fetal position and whimpered. “He’s
in misery—put him out of it.”
    “ What?” I asked. “I—I
can’t. You’re the expert in that area.” I gazed down at the man who
didn’t appear threatening anymore, but cried like an injured
animal.
    For a moment, I saw a flicker of a
human being through his grotesque appearance. He was a man and he
was suffering. Something had to be done.
    Ben bent down beside him and pulled me
next to him.
    “ It’s time you learned,”
Ben said, as his eyes turned solid black.
    I gasped and tried to pull away, but
Ben only shoved me closer.
    “ Feel his life force, or
what’s left of it, that surrounds him.” Ben pressed his body next
to mine and whispered in my ear.
    “ I don’t feel anything,” I
replied.
    He pushed me slower to the rotting
man. “Concentrate, and let your hexmark guide you.”
    I thought of my mark and how it looked
on my pale skin. It had given me the strength to fight off the
demon that tried to attack me at Ben’s house. But I didn’t feel the
need to protect myself anymore, the dying man was no longer a
threat, but begging me to put end to his agony.
    I looked into his eyes, and a flash of
a former life filled with dreams, hopes and a future, I could see
clearly. The man was that, a man. His death would be slow if I
didn’t do something.
    I lowered myself closer to him, his
eyes, now blue, was the only thing left untouched by the serum’s
poison. The blood color was all but gone, and he clung to the last
thread of his human existence. I felt it radiate from him as if the
sun was warming my skin. With a skeletonized hand, he grabbed my
arm. I didn’t flinch with disgust of his condition. He was a human
being and he needed my help.
    “ You have it, now take
it,” Ben said behind me.
    Everything faded around me. Yellow
light engulfed me and the half rotten man. But I looked past that,
and all I saw was his magnificent eyes. Like two tunnels of blue, I
burrowed my gaze into them. I was light and heavy with exhaustion
at the same time as I pulled myself further into them until
everything exploded around me in a burst of gold and blue
flecks.
    I jumped back and covered my face with
my hands as I screamed.
    “ April, you did it,” Ben
said, holding onto me. “You’re alright.”
    He took my hands away from my face as
I gasped for air.
    “ There…there was an
explosion…I’m hurt,” I said, examining my hands and feeling my face
as Ben chuckled at me.
    “ No, there really wasn’t
an explosion, it just appears that way.” He smiled at me. “You
relieved him of a bad choice he was paying dearly for, and,” he
pulled me to my feet as I noticed the bits of thin tissue blowing
around my feet. “You now have energy—his energy from his life force
in you.”
    I glanced at the tissue remains of the
man that looked like discarded Kleenexes.
    I should have felt disgusted or even
sick at the thought of what just happened, but I didn’t. The man
wasn’t in pain anymore. I ended his misery that was prolonging a
certain death. My body felt strong, and I wasn’t a victim to any
human, monster, or demon anymore.
    “ But April,” he looked