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I didn’t consider myself a social justice warrior, but I also needed to take a stand for those who were wronged. Those who were suppressed. It was ingrained within me to fight for the people who couldn’t fight for themselves. This poor, defenseless girl was one of those people.
I didn’t know what I could do, but I knew I had to do something. Anything.
I reached into my pocket to grab my cell phone, grateful that I hadn’t changed into my pajamas. Fortunately, it hadn’t fallen out during my restless sleep. Unfortunately, it was dead.
Cursing mentally, I estimated how long it would take me to run back down the staircase, through the hallway, and to the dorm rooms once more. Someone there would have a phone, of that I had no doubt. The only doubt I had was whether or not someone would be inclined to call. The school couldn’t all be made up of monsters, could it?
My train of thought was cut off by a familiar clicking sound.
Kelly’s hand gripped mine, fingernails digging into my skin. I didn’t mind the pain.
I had once welcomed that exact sensation, after all.
All I could do was watch, helpless and afraid. Confused.
Terrified.
The stomach-churning, hands clenching, face whitening type of fear. The fear you could never articulate unless you had lived through it yourself. The fear that made people understand the distinct difference between empathy and sympathy: you could never really understand something unless you had experienced it.
The room wasn’t large by any means—the size of two classrooms put together. Numerous candles were placed in handles on the walls, bright flames flickering in the cavernous room. The carpeting was blood-red, and the walls were gray slates. Behind Ali, who was facing the professors, was what appeared to be a dark cave. Room was too crude of a term. It was a gaping opening in the wall, the size of a crescent moon, and seemed to be made entirely of darkness.
It was from that darkness that the hand emerged. Black, with veins running down the length of its scaled arm. Claws extended from the fingertips, a russet brown color. The hand itself was the size of Ali’s body.
Ali screamed, a horrified, helpless sound, just as the hand gripped her waist and pulled her into the cave.
It was there and gone in less than a second.
The professors stared a moment longer, the silence deafening, before exiting out of the two doors on either side of the room. Away from the cave.
I stared.
That was all I could do. Stare and gape.
My hands were trembling, and I felt something salty touch my lips. Tears, I realized dumbly. My tears.
Kelly turned her cherubic face toward mine. She, too, had unshed tears in her grassy green eyes.
Voice subdued, she whispered, “They need to feed the monster.”
