A sudden sun-blinding glare forced me to step back to shield my eyes away. Behind the scorching light came a whooshing sound, drowning out his voice. The beam slowly faded. One, two, five people stood dusting off their garments. I mentally drawled, great, another man in a suit and it had to be plaid. He had short wavy hair like Mr. Kidnapper over here, even their noses were equally sharp and sort of Greek—I’m sticking with that name—ruffled his silky hair and patted invisible dust off his pants. Three other people who faced his back—appeared to be coming out of a medieval festival or straight out of medieval times dinner theater—saluted and kneeled in front of the said kidnapper. A cute-looking kid with cat ears and two tails settled beside the other man-suit. I blinked and rubbed out what caught my eyes. I’m sorry, I wasn’t looking right. They were probably not real. The ears moved! The tails were wagging and twitching. Now, this was what I called the best cosplay ever. I pinched my chin and nodded. If Steven were here, he would probably be asking for tips. Man loved his costumes.

“We better get moving along. Sid, take Ray back home, we’ll handle this,” Mr. Plaid-suit said, gesturing to the kid whose name happened to be Sid.

“I’m not going anywhere with anyone. Back off!”

My voice was louder now, I didn’t care. I pushed Mr. Kidnapper away from me and he tried grabbing me back into his grasp. I’ve had enough of this crap. They exchange worried glances and across the narrow corner, I saw this kid, Sid nod and walking towards me. I fumble for my phone, checking my pockets, nothing but the pocket watch and this wrinkled envelope with some spare cash and dust balls.

“Where the hell is it?”

I groaned—scratching my head roughly, frustrated—I left it on my damn bed. Damn it! I drag myself far away from these lunatics, ignoring the throbbing and piercing pained ankle and following me like a little chic—all we were missing was him chirping.

“What do you want—”

I stopped short. The ground moaned, shook.

“What now!”

Some kind of black mist started to crawl out from the broken benches and boomed. I paled in shock—it shifted into a person and screeched. The kid’s tail trembled and his ears flattened. An appendage shaped into claws shot like a bullet straight to Sid. I don’t know what came over me when I saw him shivering, paling, growing ever so smaller. I pushed him out of the way. There were underlying roars including the voice of my kidnapper. If this was it, well damn, it was one way to go. It came, claws crossing over my amber eyes, the gut-wrenching regret of not having told my Mom and Dad I didn’t sleep fine; being myself in front of Michael and the guys, and fall in love with a dude like any other person my age.

Many of us think our lives won’t flash before our eyes, it was all a myth, just to get your undivided attention. It wasn’t a myth, not everything. We didn’t have visions of ourselves in the past flashing before our dying eyes, those things only happen in movies behind a shutter of film. No. We remember the little regrets we have in those minuet-seconds in our brain; it starts by sending signals to your brain, creating a chemical reaction—not at all helpful when we’re about to die—yet reminding us, this is what you were about to lose and there was nothing you could do to stop it, except I did stop it; I did do something about it, something I didn’t expect.

Their roars had gone silent. Between the arms across my face, my eyes wavered over the church, everything stayed amid air; still, silent, pieces of debris frozen in animation. My arms fell limped at my sides, I shuffled away from the stilled clawed inches away from my eyes, and walked over to its vessel. I’d pushed floating pieces of wood, clouds of dust, and lumps of concrete marveled and gaping at the suspense. The closer I got to the monstrous form the more its figure became clear. The old battered woman, my neighbor on the other side of the street held a sinister, sharp smile. What was supposed to be healthy-supple arms thinned to toothpicks. The black streaks of her makeup marred her wrinkled skin and deep wedges below her eyes dragged down on her sunken cheeks.

I gazed around, furrowing, waiting for answers to pop out. What now? Right over her hunched figure, Mr. Plaid-suit had jumped a few feet above the ground, the men dressed for a medieval festival had pulled out their swords at the ready, and my kidnapper had balled his hands into fists; panic-stricken, gapping, eyes blazing wide in gold. I shivered at his fierce countenance and went about to touch his warm hands and stopped, having heard groaning behind me. My spine caramel cooled, turning, I carefully shifted my weight; expecting her to be yowling with sharp claw-filled rage. Teeth clenched, hands quivering, nostrils flaring; I broke my gasp, not wanting to make more noise than I already was. She had her mouth gaping and closing. Her throat scratched and heaved like sandpaper, staring into my amber eyes:

“H-help m-me….”

Mrs. Hatchet whispered so low, you could hardly discern her words through her shudder. No way was I getting near her. I didn’t want to give her a chance to pry me into sashimi. Have you seen what happens to the blonde girl or the jock in movies—I was no cheerleader or a dude with a steroid-filled built body and two-cents of bigot—they were eaten alive or killed. Whichever ending it had, they all ended up dead.

“H-help me… kill m-me… let me die.”

Her voice got louder—she struggled to move her lips—enough for me to listen to her every whim. She wanted me to kill her, what? The closest thing I’ve ever killed was mosquitoes, itching to suck my blood—those were the real bloodsuckers, not some sparkly thing coming at you in a dream, breaking into your room, and staring at you while you slept without a cry or care in the world. Dude, get a life. I shook it off and noticed she had stopped to look down the rubble by my feet. Mirroring her direction, there was a gold-chain necklace with an oval pendant stuck between one of those metal construction rods and concrete.