Twice Lived, Twice Loved

Chapter Nine

The raspy voice of the Boogeyman seems to come from all directions as it draws nearer. If it gets to her, she is dead but all of her thrashing amounts to nothing. She cannot get free.

"Who is there?" She calls out in a strangled voice, her heart in her throat. It does not reply, nor does it stop the creepy song it sings in its scratchy voice.

Soon enough, it comes to a stop directly below her. The forest has become as quiet as a tomb. She wonders if she should not have talked, if it might have passed by unaware of her hanging from her legs so high up in the trees. She hears the crackling sound of a twig and hopes so hard that it had indeed passed her by. It is driving her crazy that it can see her but she cannot see it. Time passes and she wants to believe that the creature has gone but she knows better than that.

"Hello?" She finally dares to call out.

"Human." Its voice rasps, startling her.

"Who are you? Let me down this instant!!" She commands, opting for courage.

It begins laughing, and the wet sound reminds her of someone drowning.

"Okay." She hears it say and then she plummets. She screams as the world drops from underneath her. She expects to hit the forest floor but it parts around her form. She is plunging down underground into the depths of darkness towards an unknown destination. Her scream is cut off abruptly when her metal cage jerks to a stop with her and she feels like she will be sick.

There is the sound of someone dropping heavily to the floor. She jerks her face to the side to get a grasp of its location and she freezes when she does. The room is dark and vision is substandard but the creature stands beside the only light source in the room, its entire body illuminated. The creature that is the Boogeyman of humans is aptly named for its hideousness.

It might have been a reptile in another world. But now its torso and head are hugely disproportionate. Its upper body is large and scaly everywhere she can see. It has short stringy legs which end in small stump-like feet. A huge fan shaped tail covers the length of three meters on the floor, coiling and uncoiling against the floor. As it walks, its tail drags on the floor, leaving a light coating of slime. But its most hideous features are not even his tail or the feet that look like grotesque child feet, holding up its upper body inadequately. As her eyes travel back up, she sees that its torso is bare and distended. As she watches, what looks like a hand presses against the front of its belly and retreats. The next instance, she could have sworn that she sees a man's face, jaws wide open in an eternal scream but the face soon retreats. Its stomach quivers as she watches and soft-looking boils well up around it. Its gut roils and moves, looking as if it is boiling where he stands. Bile rises up in her throat and she forces herself to swallow past it. She can already see her end flashing right before her eyes.

Dreadfully, her eyes travel up the torso and she finally fixates on his face. Her eyes widen as their eyes connect.

The boogeyman's face is skeletal, literally. She can see the bones that make up his face beneath strips of skin that stretch to cover its face. It is as if a curse had been struck on him, causing things to boil over and holes to open up on his face. As she watches, she is sure that the mass of his face moves, as if there are little creatures that have decided to make its crevices their final abode. But the truly grotesque thing about his face is not even the skeleton she can see beneath or the rotten pieces of skin covering it. It is his mouth. They are unnaturally wide, spreading from the very edge of the side of his face right beneath his ear all the way to the other side of his face. They are currently hanging open in a grotesque smile as it stares at her, the jaws hanging wide open to reveal rows upon rows of sharp rotten teeth.

"Like what you see?" It asks and her eyes jump to his once again.

"Uhmm..." She begins, already stammering but the creature spins away before she can speak and strides to a pit from which she can see the orange glow of a fire emanating from. It is the only light source of the room. He grabs some twigs and dumps them into the pit and there is a crackling noise followed by little sparks of fire rising up from the pit. He dumps another group of twigs into it and the crackling sound of burning twigs increases. The fire soars and with it, her fear sharpens. It dawns on her that the creature intends to feed on her this night, right this instance.

Unbidden, her body begins rattling in her net of capture as she shakes uncontrollably. No, this is not the way that she had thought that she would go.

"Ex-xccuse me." She says, hoping to get his attention. He had spoken English, perhaps she can reason with him. "Hello." She calls out but he does not respond, just watches the fire grow bigger and bigger, the anticipation on his face making her sick. "Hello, can I have a moment?" She calls out but the creature is hell-bent on ignoring her. If only she were able to negotiate with it...

"We can resolve this amicably, like civilized people. What do you want, money? Fame? I can give you both." She says desperately. The creature pretends as if no one is talking. Suddenly, he launches into another nursery rhyme, efficiently tuning her out and frustration chokes her. Her own helplessness is pathetic. What she would give not to be as pathetic and helpless as she is right now. She is a sitting duck, awaiting death and yet unable to do anything to help herself. She tests her bonds again to be sure but they have not suddenly become slack in the past few minutes. She growls, tears of frustration springing to her eyes. Surely there is still something that she can do.

The fire has been set and the creature turns slowly turns to her, its lips permanently split in a wide, grotesque grin.

"No, no, wait!" She yells, scrambling back, net and all. 

Putting one step slowly in front of another, it makes its way towards her.

"Wait, let's talk this out. Let's strike a deal, okay?" She says. It does not seem to care about her words as it strides to her. Her panicked retreat has only ended up entangling her in the net more and she can only watch as its hand descends and it grabs hold of her around the waist, raising her.

"Let go of me!" She beats at its arm, trying to wrench free but its grip is as hard as iron. With its other hand, the creature yanks the net off her. It comes away in his arms and suddenly she is face to face with it. It is so much bigger than her, its face is about the size of a dinner tray. Its hot breath bathes her face, nearly knocking her out with the force. It is the stench of death intensified.

"Get off me." She rakes a nail down its arm and when that has no effect, she goes for his face but he holds her out of reach. He turns and begins marching her towards the open flame.

"No. Let go of me!" She yells. She feels a sudden burst of heat and startles. When she looks down, the Boogeyman's arm is on fire.

Its rheumy eyes take in his arm which glows with ethereal blue fire eating away at its skin and he looks back at her in what she interprets as shock before he dumps her unceremoniously on the ground to swat at his arm. She falls to the ground in a heap and hurriedly begins crawling away. The branches at her legs dig at her and prevent her from escaping but she bites her lips and ignores the pain. There is no time to attempt to work it out from around her leg. The next moment, she realizes that there is no time at all as the Boogeyman finishes dousing the fire from his skin and grabs a hold of her hair. He yanks her up by the roots and she screeches and claws at his hand. In the darkness, she does not see his second hand coming and it smacks her across the face, setting her world spinning and cutting off her screams.

He lifts her up by her waist once again, and she is limp as he walks her to the edge of a metal cage and yanks open the door. He throws her in, and she lands on the rough floor, scraping her cheek. She jumps back up and crawls to the cell door just as he locks it.

"Let me out, you bastard!" She yells, shaking the doors but they do not budge.

"Let me out!" She watches as he strides to the cell beside hers, and it is then she realizes that there are rows upon rows of cells within the chamber. She falls silent in horror as he opens the cell door and strides in, bending to collect the limp body of a human man. She falls onto her ass and stares as the man puts up no protest other than a weak lifting of his arms. The Boogeyman takes him out and drags him to the openly burning fire.

Highlighted by the fire, she can see the man's features more clearly. He is nearly as skeletal as his captor. The bones of his face are prominent and his lashes form fan-shaped crescents on his cheeks as they flutter open. His eyes take in his captor whose hand descends to lock on the man's throat. His eyes bulge as he visibly panics, attempting to shove at him. He is of course, no match for the creature who easily lifts him and plants him over the fire. Just before the fire licks at him and his screams are all that she can hear, his eyes find hers in the shadows and she is chilled.

On the bare floor, she raises her knees to her chest and wraps her arms around them, wishing she could just vanish into thin air. Her eyes are glued on the morbid show taking place in front of her except that it is not a show at all. She no longer has the luxury of filtering through her dreams. That is a real life person being roasted over the fire and that person was going to be her. His screams are guttural, wrenching, unendurable and she claps her hands over her ears as she finally wrenches her eyes away from them. She does not even notice that she is bleeding once again.

Forcing herself to glance around, she finds what she had known but had hoped so badly that she would not find. Humans.

The room is filled from one end to the other with cells and in about half of the cells, there are the pale bodies of humans that have been captured. Most of them are collapsed on the floor of their cages, but there are few of them that are still able to sit up, their backs resting against the walls of their cells and they look at the horrendous scene before them with bleak expressions. None of them are shocked. How long have they been down here in its lair? How many deaths have they witnessed in this manner?

The man over the fire has finally quieted down and with leaden stomach, she turns to find the creature turning the dark, roasted body around on the fire. Her stomach heaves.

A small part of her mind wonders why his arm does not burn, considering that the creature has half of it into the fire. But only the human burns, and yet, the creature had caught fire when he had held her in its arms. Her mind has no space to ponder that however, because the next instant, the creature drops onto its haunches, a hank of meat that had been a human man once in his arms and opens his great jaw to sink its teeth into the flesh. She scrambles for the corner of the cell and throws up all of the apples in her system.

When she collapses against the wall of the her cell again, she retreats into its darkness, tears falling from her eyes as the sound of the creature's chewing reaches her from the other side of the room.

Why had she left? Why had she deserted her comfortable, easy life and decided to chase answers that are too far above her caliber? She cannot even remember what reason had been good enough to make herself go through this. She would give anything to go back a few days, before all of these, before the nightmares and the questions and the goddamn answers. She curls in on herself in the darkness and tries her best to tune out the noisy eating from the Boogeyman.

Several minutes later, the chewing stops. She looks up to find him empty handed and its thick tail taps on the ground in what resembles contentment. There is nothing left of the man, not even bones.

She has made several mistakes in life, probably offended more people than she can ever keep count of, but she just refuses to let that be her fate. Stripped of flesh and bones to feed a vile creature such as this? No, surely life is not so cruel as to make that fate hers. And why? Because she had dared to chase answers as to why she is being murdered by unknown men in her dreams? First of all, she works on getting the looping branches from around her feet. When she is done, she looks up at him again.

"You have a truly repulsive lair." She hears herself say and her eyes widen as she waits for the creature to attack her in a rage. He does not even appear to have heard her even though she knows that he has perfect hearing.

"I have seen homeless men and gutter rats live in worse places in my world." She says. His tail stops tapping against the floor and she swallows hard.

"But you are way more superior to humans. It is an insult to compare you, and worse, to find you lacking." She says, her eyes glued on him for any movement. Is it her imagination or had his tail tensed?

"I think the king needs to rectify that, don't you agree?" She says but it does not say anything.

She uncurls and slides to be front of her cell so she is talking to him directly.

"The way I see it, you can stay here in the dirt and darkness and gorge on human meat like a savage for eternity." She says and his muscles tense. "I wouldn't know, but I have heard eternity is a very very long time. Or you could aspire to reach higher. Elves same as you attend to the king, stay in the capital, have access to all of the joys of life they may wish to have. Do you know the difference between them and you?" She asks, wrapping her fingers around the bars. "It runs deeper than your looks. It is simply knowledge." She watches him for a reaction, wondering if she is crawling out or digging her own grave deeper with each of her words when he still shows no reaction to her words.

"They have discovered that the way to reach higher is to curry favour from the king and accordingly, they are being rewarded. I bet someone like you is not even allowed to breathe the same air as the king, talk less of drinking and dining with him, being one of his trusted circle, but why can't you?" She asks and his tail uncoils on the floor.

"What you have to do is very simple, give the king a gift. In return, he will be more inclined to grant you a boon. Accumulate enough boons, oh Boogeyman and you could change your hideous face forever." She says and holds her breath, hoping that she has not crossed the line. When he remains still, she lets out a breath. "With enough boons, you could even, become royal." The elves from her dreams are called the Royal elves.

"Now, you may be thinking, what could you possibly have that the King could want? What could you possibly gift the king? Well, the answer to your prayers is right in front of you, me." She cannot believe that he had allowed her to reach this far but she has and so she hurriedly completes her speech.

"With a small insignificant gift such as me, you can make the king look upon you with favour. You may leave the rest up to me. Where I come from, I am one of the best entertainers. I can dance, I can sing, I can play several musical instruments." That is a huge overestimation of her talents but she has gotten this far, she might as well sink her point in. "I will keep the king entertained and-"

In a blink, it is out of his seat and it slams into the door of her cell and she gasps, startled. She jerks away from the door and scrambles back and away from it.

It looks down at her, his rheumy eyes livid as he breathes hard into her cell. How can he be so fast, she had not even seen him move. Did she go too far?

She wisely keeps her mouth shut while it is so close to death but she holds his eyes. She hopes that whatever he sees in them inclines him to show mercy to her from the dredges of his deep dark heart.

As abruptly as he had come, he turns around and stomps away from her. She watches as he shoves a huge piece of rock to the side on the other end of the room and disappears behind it.

She collapses against her cell, her breath exploding out of her. It did not work. She is going to rot in here in this cell like the many other occupants, awaiting death like a human chicken. Despair eats at her heart. What is she to do now?

Ariana will never know what has happened to her. What happens when she never returns? Will Chris tell everyone what he knows? Will they search for her? Even if they do, will they ever find her? She is afraid she knows the answers to her questions. Tears slide from her eyes and onto the floor once again, she cannot give up like this. This tactic did not work but she will come up with another, and another, until something gives. She will fight to her very last breath.

"You must be crazy." She hears someone whisper. She looks to her right to find a woman in the depth of the cell next to hers, the shadows concealing her. She cannot see the woman's features clearly but what she sees tells her that she is in as terrible a shape as the rest of the others. Her stringy brown hair completely covers her face.

"What?" She says, sitting up.

"A little advice? Don't enrage him like that again, not if you want to live long enough inside here to contemplate your last actions." The woman's voice barely reaches her.

"And spend the rest of my days wasting away in here dreading what each day brings? No, I will never do that." She says.

The woman lets out a short laugh before she is overtaken by a fit of coughing.

"So young, so naive. Perhaps you did not get a good look at the man." She says and they both know which man she speaks of. "I met him here. And I've been here for a long, long, while. At least he had a long time to make all of the last wishes he could dream of." She says.

Each of these people have their own stories on how they ended up here. They are all suddenly sharing the same fate due to one mistake or the other.

"How did you end up here?" She asks the woman.

She coughs again, the sound scratching against her throat. "Not important." She says and Elizabeth nods, respecting the other woman's privacy. She should probably provide her name but things like that seem very unimportant suddenly. There is silence for a while.

"How can you speak their language?" The woman suddenly asks.

"What?" She asks, glancing at the woman again.

"Their language. The two of your were speaking it." The woman says and Elizabeth stares. She thought that they had been speaking English.

"I don't know." She says honestly and there is silence again.

She had been speaking in their language? But how? The only language she can speak is English. She cannot even speak French despite her French teacher's greatest attempts to hammer it into her head in high school. She has always been bad at languages.

She concludes that the woman is delusional. She said it that she has been here for quite a while. It is understandable that she begin to confuse reality a little.

Her thoughts circle around to the life she had left behind, the dreams that had led her to this mess, her current dire situation. Round and round her thoughts go, in no definite direction until impossibly, she falls asleep.

###

She is jarred awake by the sound of metal. Her eyes whip open to find the Boogeyman clawing at her door, his fingers going for the lock. Her eyes widen as she scrambles to the very back of the room, looking around for anything she can use as a weapon and finding none.

With horror, she watches as the Boogeyman pops open the lock on her door and pushes it inside. Then he bends at the waist and pushes himself into her cell.