Free The Shattered Genesis (Eternity) by T. Rudacille

refusing to move me forward, but I was already close enough to reach the shade on the window. I reached out, just needing the relief of knowing that it wasn’t real, that we were in a waking dream. I needed the relief that came with realizin g a bump in the night was just a neighbor slamming a door in their house. With my breath held tightly in my chest, I threw open the shade.
    It was a woman. But it certainly wasn’t human. Her eyes were too large and all white, with thin flecks of black like someone had sliced at them with a sewing needle or erased her iris and pupil in a hurry, I couldn’t decide. Her hair was long and as white as her eyes and her jaw jutted outwards at an impossible angle. When she opened her misshapen slash of a mouth for ev ery slow, tedious breath, she immediately snapped it shut and ground her pointed teeth together.
    As soon as she saw me, she raised her arms, shrieking in rage, her head shaking back and forth rapidly. She slammed her hands on the window hard, trying to bre ak the glass. Even as an icy fear seized me, I did take a moment to marvel at the fact that the force with which she hit the window didn’t shatter it into pieces. A gargling noise was escaping her, followed by another loud shriek that forced Alice to final ly uncover her eyes and look.
    Alice drew in a gasp and before the words, “Don’t let her scream” could pass completely through my mind, I turned backwards and grabbed a hold of her, trying to cover her mouth. But she had already covered it with both of her own hands, forcing the scream back down.
    I let go of her and rushed forward, pulling the shade down again. As I stumbled backwards to put as much space between me and the window as I could, I tripped over my feet and splayed out onto the floor. Alice knelt down beside me and wrapped her arms around my neck, staring at the window with wide, alarmed eyes. I looked at her and then back at the window where we heard the thing grunt in frustration and then go silent.
    “What is that? Quinn…” She whispered, her voic e trembling along with her body.
    I shook my head, feeling as though my heart was lodged in my throat, blocking any words that I could possibly say to explain away what we had seen.
    We sat up for the rest of the night. I had to be driving her crazy with the way I was opening my mouth to say something that would rationalize what was happening, only to come up short on words. The thing stayed out there all night; though it never spoke again, we heard its steady breaths until the first light of dawn began to br eak. As soon as I could see light starting to leak through the crack between the shade and the window, I jumped to look outside.
    She was gone, galloping over our heads on the roof away from the rising sun. An ear-splitting howl wrecked the quiet of the ear ly morning and I scanned the houses across the street to see if anyone came running, searching feverishly for the source of such a strange noise. No one came, nor did I even see any curious faces appearing in the windows.
    Because no one knew of her presenc e, no one would know the reasoning behind it. Alice and I were, horrifyingly, alone in the mess, left to decipher it by ourselves before cleaning it up, if we ever could.
    It took precisely an hour of daylight before we began to excuse away what had happened.
    “Maybe it was like one of those group hallucinations that Dr. Meyers was telling us about in AP Psych. Do you remember?”
    “A group hallucination? Caused by what, exactly?” She asked as she twirled the glass of orange juice in front of her but neve r brought it to her lips for a drink.
    “I don’t know. Maybe there was something in our food last night.”
    “I don’t remember reading anything about Burger King suddenly adding LSD to their food, Quinn.”
    “Do you have an explanation, then?” I was frustrated now . I just needed to know that what we had seen wasn’t real. I needed to believe that. If that thing was real,