When We Were Still Human by Vaughn Foster (mobi reader android TXT) 📗

attention back to the girl. Shadows bound her hands and feet, chaining her to the ground as she bit and thrashed.

“Valerie Stevens?” he asked. He walked in a circle around her, though sure to stay out of reach. “You still in there?”

The only response was a series of savage growls. She lunged again and this time managed to nick his thumb.

“Well then…” The man raised his hand, and shadows moved across her mouth to form a muzzle. When he was positive she couldn’t bite, he gently pulled down the corner of her shirt and pressed a claw-like fingernail onto her chest. Directly beneath her right shoulder, he cut a “V” into the skin. The second he finished, it blazed with yellow flames. The wound healed and left the symbol as a permanent mark upon her flesh. The tension in her body released, and she collapsed to the ground. Chains no longer necessary, the man released the shadows and picked her up in one swoop. He nodded his head towards the ground and took two steps before sinking into the swirling darkness.

Interlude

The game had been played for centuries in the space between reality and the aether; the nothingness manifested for a purpose. A four-person chess set lay in the center of the darkness. Red, green, blue, and white marked each of the sides. While the beings that moved the pieces were new to this millennium, their spirits had existed since the fall of man. The three of them had been playing since their births, and their wins were almost evenly divided.

“A1 to B2.” The woman on the blue side moved her queen to take the green rook.

The man on the right, the red side, let out a low whistle before turning to the green player. “She’s got you on the ropes.”

“It matters not,” he replied, moving a pawn forward. “While the Fifth is plagued by a feeling of emptiness, yearning to fill this… famine in her soul, what has stricken her most is fear. That same disease will infect anyone she comes in contact with.”

“You two pay too much focus on the major pieces,” the first man said. “The common ones build the bedrock of the game itself.” He moved a red bishop forward and took one of the woman’s knights. “Three dead.”

“I’m only counting one,” she replied.

“Wait for it.”

“Ahh…” she said, looking beyond the board. “So there are.”

“What are your thoughts of the Fourth?” the red player asked. “It’s beyond any creature, even the Fifth. When it awakes, it will start wars and burn continents to ash.”

“Which will only put the general populace in a state of fear,” the second man muttered absentmindedly before moving a knight.

As they continued to play, each getting the upper hand at some point, none could fully ignore the fourth side of the board.  All the pieces lay untouched. The perfect alignment of the porcelain eerily marked the missing party; marked that she, or maybe it was a ‘he’ by now, had refused to play. The empty seat didn’t bother them, but rather created a sense of relief and gnawing anticipation. As they were all aware, when one of the white pieces finally moved, the real game would commence.

Part II: A Smile Carved in Blood

As she opened herself to the nothing, the nothingness opened itself to her

Chapter 8

A flickering overhead lamp hung precariously over a rusted table. Its feeble offering of a dim glow barely dented the shadowed corners. Boxes of long-forgotten books lined the cracked cinderblock walls up to where the tiny wooden door hung on its hinges. Past the door, a steel stairwell wound up to the dramatically modern library above— a place that had long since forgotten the abandoned storage room. Yet, despite the musty smell and frill of cobwebs, the enclave managed to draw a trickle of weekly traffic.

Three sets of playing cards were laid out, multicolored chips piled by each one. Around the table sat three women in their twenties. Eyes darted in shared attempt to puncture the other’s poker face, but none had spoken in some time. As the hour passed, some piles of chips decreased while others’ only rose— Avia’s especially.

The downbeat crashed, and her fingers moved with the rhythm playing in her head. Card after card, she played the melody with a calm face and even breath. Her golden, olive-brown skin was without a drop of sweat, and her body slouched back with an air of unconcern that only came with particularly long winning streaks.

She slowly laid her hand on the table. The declaration had been no more than a whisper. It wasn’t until she sat back that the others realized the fate they had been delivered.

“That’s game,” Avia repeated. A winner’s grin plastered her face as she steeped in the cloud that rolled across her friends.

“Avia, not again!” Danna slammed her fist on the table.

“What did you expect?” Rachel asked. She sighed in defeat and pushed aside her blonde hair.

“Ladies, ladies, relax,” Avia teased, laughing as she dragged her chips in. “Rachel, you made a lovely attempt. Danna, you gotta work on your poker face. But hey, there’s always next time.”

“I’m not sure I want there to be a next time,” Rachel muttered under her breath.

A wicked smirk flashed across Avia’s face. “I won. If I recall our bet correctly, twenty bucks each.”

“You’re really going to hold us to that?!” Danna whined. Regardless, she reached into her purse and began counting ones.

“Hey, you should be thanking me that I offered the bet instead of chip values,” Avia argued. “If we’d done things that way, you guys would be owing me big time.”

“Yeah, yeah whatever,” Rachel mumbled, handing over the money.

“Can we