PROLOGUE BITCH

        I felt my heart pounding, taking a glance back at my pursuer as his thunderous steps sounded behind me, seeing almost nothing else but the monster's black-as-night flesh, which seemed to fit on its elephant-sized aberration of a body as tightly as a knot. He had no teeth in his black maw, though the grin was still there, as he stepped towards me, as slow and threatening as oncoming lava. His eyes lacked any color in them, any semblance of life, only a glowing white that showed that the being was still active, the ghostly light blocked only somewhat by his grey, wide-brimmed hat. I tried to run away, but with each step I took, his four spindly black legs, around the same size as an adult male human, took two, until in every direction I turned I would be blocked off by one of his muscular arms. His body bent backwards, so he could see me, his quivering prey, with his deep black void of a jaw visible in an ever-grinning state. "Aren't you ever so scared?" He spoke, his voice as smooth and comforting as a bed of spikes, with his body bending backwards, more and more, bringing the face inches closer with each passing moment. "Don't you want to say anything, so someone can hear your voice one last time, before I snuff it out forever?" His words pierced through my skull like a bullet, unraveling the little collection I still had left in me, as I emitted an ear-piercing scream, to the delight of him. His jaw unhinged, his white glowing eyes ceasing their light to become a glossy black, and he lunged forwards to consume me whole like a snake eating a mouse.

CHAPTER ONE NOT BITCH


        "Alex?! Alex, wake up!" I snapped awake, to feel my friend, Tobias, shaking me awake. "You were screaming, again!" His shouts were just as helpful to my fear as the voice the tall beast had, his sapphire-blue eyes widened with concern for my well-being, and his pitch-black hair wild and unkempt from his rude and sudden awakening. "I saw it, again..." I tucked my arms around my legs, holding myself in a fetal position, rocking back and forth, my long brown hair eclipsing my silver-grey eyes. "The monster that took it all away from me, it's still in my dreams..." My voice wouldn't go above a whisper, and Tobias shook me roughly. "Alex, snap out of it, already! He's not here, he never will be, we already lost him!" He slaps me, and I rub my cheek, slowly standing up and escaping from the shock of the vision. "Toby..." I murmured, as he himself got up, looking around the dusty old house that we were using for shelter, tonight, fixing his shoulder-length black hair with his hands. I look outside the window to my right, seeing a night sky blacker than pitch, with not even a single star visible in the sky, something I've come to expect in these gloomy times.

        My gaze shifts back to Tobias, who was putting on his navy-blue jacket on, over his black and faded t-shirt, his eyes gazing into mine. "Alex, we gotta go, now. Your screaming might've brought another Hopeless near us, there's been a few Class D sightings around here." Tobias went over to an overturned bookcase, and reached into the largest book-a black encyclopedia-sized tome, labeled 'The Hopeless'-pulling out five throwing knives with a golden tint on their metallic blades. I rub my eyes, looking at the knives, tilting my head at the golden knives. "I thought there wasn't any gold around here, Toby...?" I asked him, walking over to him as I slipped on my ocean-blue pullover hoodie, putting my hands inside of the pockets, to try and keep them from the cold autumn chill. "Yeah, well, I lied, alright? You know how things are around here, Alex. Someone hears we got gold, and they try to steal it from us, to protect themselves from the Hopeless." He looked at the tips of the knives, checking to see if their tips had somehow been dulled, pricking his index finger on the top to test them, with blood running down the edge like a teardrop.

        I hand him some paper from one of the books in the bookcase, wrapping it around his finger, and he pockets the quintet of gilded blades. "Let's get the hell out of here, and fast. Hopeless will have caught on to our scent, by now." He and I grab the end of the bookcase, pulling it away enough from the oaken door it covered that we can open it, leaving the cold and dark room we had to sleep in. The rest of the house was just as cold and dark as the room, the once-beige carpet now a mottled red from the blood of the previous owners, no doubt murdered by the Hopeless that prowl around these parts. We ignore the wooden stairs to the side of us, shattered from a group of Hopeless that had attacked here previously, and head for the locked wooden door, a bit of black slimy liquid staining the otherwise decent condition door. I quickly grab the lock below the door, the key shoved inside of it, and twisted it, ripping the door open with as much speed as I could without causing a racket. As soon as I do, Tobias begins to sprint, and I follow after, for we knew that Hopeless had to be waiting on top of the canopy outside of the entrance to the house.

        No later than a few moments after we exit the safety of the house, under the light of the eternally large and full moon revealing us, we felt the wind chill around us like an arctic miasma, a chorus of voices speaking in a rhythmic fashion, coming from the canopy. "Don't stop, keep running!" I shouted, the freezing winds getting colder with each moment, biting into our flesh as if it were a horde of mosquitoes. As we ran, we saw a crowd of the Hopeless that were creating this frosty chill, their lanky and thin hides having collars of spiky red and white fur around their necks, their revealed flesh being a sea blue, with piercing crystal blue eyes with dilated pupils.