Forever Yours: It's not like you gave me a choice.

Hello prospective readers. So, what we have here is a story independent from the last. I definitely  reuse a-lot of characters and names from my last story, but the story is different, and I usually try to approach the characters from a different angle (usually). It's a story with all of the fun sex, violence, etc... so it's plot with sex.... not sex with some semblance of a plot. I usually have slow beginnings, but if you stick with me, it'll be entertaining, sarcastic, funny, and ... likely over 20 chapters in a few months. Enjoy!

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        I had spent a good portion of my impressionable life wanting to go to New York City. From the time I was a child to now -- everything seemed like it happened there; movies, celebrities, and televised holiday celebrations. So, the fact I had gone for New Year’s Eve made perfect sense to me and all other concerned parties. What wasn’t adding up was the fact I was stranded out on the streets by myself while the others I’d come with left me without so much as a goodbye. This was supposed to be a cheer-up trip since my mother had passed nearly a month earlier. It had been somewhat of a happy occasion up until I turned around to face a crowd of people I didn’t know cheering on as the ball dropped. After the crowd disbursed, aside from some stragglers, I saw nothing of my friends.

            Naturally it had to begin snowing; why not take this opportune time to make me more miserable than I already was? The anger I felt towards the other parties involved kept me warm as I fumed down the sidewalks. I had relied on a sandwich shop to keep warm while I had my pity party, but two AM came and I had to hightail it out of there. I could also tell the gentleman behind the counter was annoyed that I hadn’t bought anything. I would have, but I left my stuff in the car. Clearly not my car, because I’d have the keys and this would be the ranting and raving of three other individuals. So it left me with no way home, no wallet, no cell phone – heck, I debated asking to borrow someone else’s phone, but paused at the idea of trying to recall a phone number – that was my phone’s job, not mine.

            “Helpless” was a word I was tempted to use at this point. My body was cold, the snow was sticking to me like feathers to tar, and not a decent soul would be around for a good four to five hours. It wasn’t until I spotted a partially cracked door to a church I was passing by that I held the word on my tongue, and in the hope I’d be able to get help, and didn’t let it roll off.

            I stepped up the slippery granite stairs and pressed my fingers against the door to find it colder than myself. I was absolutely desperate at this point to get out of the cold, but as I pushed the door open and the creaking echoed behind it, I realized it’d be best to take this slowly. What if someone else had been in the same predicament as I found myself in? What is to say this person was an upstanding citizen; maybe a rapist or a drug dealer. While I never aired on the side of extreme caution and distrust, my recent betrayal had me questioning all I typically took for granted. Before stepping into the darkness that lay behind the door, I peered my face into the dim-lit church. The longer I stared out into the nothingness, the more I could see as my eyes adjusted to the lack of light. Though, what I found wasn’t anything to write home about; empty hall, empty pews, empty alter, empty… a lit candle? I paused my incessant inner monolog and scanned the rows carefully. I decided it’d be wise to disregard all horror movies I had ever seen and enter further into the dark, creepy church; alone might I add, and walk towards the altar to see if anyone was around. “Hrm,” I sighed and sloshed over to the second pew from the front. Of course I stayed near the end and kept a foot in the aisle—who knows when my newly found deer-like paranoia would be vindicated.

            I snapped my head up, after just realizing I had nodded off, I noticed I was now sitting in a puddle of melted snow. “Great!” The sleet and snow that insisted on clinging to my clothes decided to bear its evil watery claws by soaking my clothes and furthering the miserable existence I knew to be my current situation. Enough was enough. I pulled off my soaked jacket and whipped it into the aisle, “Jesus H Christ.”

“That’s an interesting thing to say here.” A voice commented from behind me, the words weighed down in an accent I couldn’t quite place.

            Though I was sure the original plan was to run at the first sign of trouble, I found my back stiffened and my body frozen—all of the deer in headlights would have been proud. I fought to swallow my heart as it decided to pound in my throat since bursting out of my chest was not an option and answered “Uh, sorry.” I kept my eyes forward and dug my nails into my knees.

 

            “What do you suppose the “H” stands for?” he asked, and I could have sworn I heard a hint of amusement buried in his reprimanding tone.

“Hank?” I pulled out of nowhere. I was still trying to figure out if this was a form of chastising me or a screw was loose.

The owner of the other voice laughed—screw loose, “I’ll let him know.” I decided it’d be best to continue my staring contest with the wall and hope he’d go away. “Did you come here to speak with him?” he inquired after an uncomfortable pause.



            Still pondering the accent, I had almost missed that he had asked me another question, “No, I don’t talk to things like that.”



            “Things?” He seemed baffled by the word and baffled by the “th” sound as his came out as an “S”.



            “God, Unicorns, Santa—those things.” I was betting he was religious and pretty sure that I was coming off as slightly sacrilegious; inner scolding ensued. “You?”



            “I had come to speak with him tonight, but I find that tonight he would prefer I listen.”



            “Oh?” I dug my nails in deeper as I fought the urge to turn around. Why was this conversation taking place and where was it going?

           

            “Oh?”



            “To what?” I felt like I was walking into something.



            “You.”

“I don’t have anything to talk about?”

“Your accent,” he asked, “where is that from?”

“My accent?” it felt like the pot calling the kettle black, “New England.”

“Hmm, it doesn’t sound quite that.” I heard the bench he sat upon creek. Maybe he was switching his position.

“Paak the caa in haavaad yaad?” I was annoyed at this point. “What about yours? You don’t sound like you’re from here.”

“I am not.” His vagueness was clearly an attempt at toying with me, “Here we are, too foreigners alone in a church at night. We both know why I am here, but not you-“

I rolled my eyes, not like he’d be able to see. Picking through his pronunciations was a rather daunting task and I didn’t feel like having a conversation about my recent misfortune, “I am just here to get out of the snow.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yeah, I’m pretty sure.” What did he mean by that? “Why don’t you speak with god now and leave me be?” I turned around to face him, but no one was there. “…OK.” I faced forward and began pondering what just happened.

“Nothing quite says guilt and grief like talking to a complete stranger in an empty church before the sun has come up.” The voice from behind me continued. I chose to ignore it, seeing as how no one was really there. “Who did you lose?” The voice seemed closer, only inches away, and I was sure that I felt a light tug against my shirt--my heart chose now to go back to clawing its way out from my chest.  I quickly placed a hand on the seat in front of me, just then an odd noise rung out as I whirled around in to find—nothing. No one. Not a sign that anyone had been there.



            “Shit.” I stood up and looked behind my seat.



            “I don’t know which is more amusing,” The voice purred from behind me yet again, but this left its owner to have to be in my row. “What you say…” I spun around again but the odd noise sounded off and echoed off the walls. I couldn’t tell which direction it came from. “--or where you are saying it.” I turned abruptly and no one was there.



            “Oh god.” I held my head, leaving my elbows pointing away from me as I tried to comprehend going crazy.



            “You must be feeling quite desperate fraulein, since talking to god is one of the things you don’t do.” The voice echoed from above and I quickly turned my head up oddly hoping to see that it was actually someone. The strange sound followed his words and a hand on my shoulder sent me rushing out into the aisle towards the door. As I approached the entry way before the door a shadow passed by it. It was just a silhouette, but it was enough to steer me in the direction.

            I didn’t want to risk walking into a room with no openings or a closet, so I chose to dive under a bench—or as far under one as I could fit, and childishly watched for feet to approach. I had quickly begun to notice that the church was much too dim to see even three rows away and now that I was thinking outside the deer-box, what was to stop him from walking down the aisle, same as I did, and just getting me?

            A gleam of light distracted me, from the one lucid thought I’d have for the night, under a bench at least 5 rows away. It was as if a light was hitting a piece of metal and it illuminated a warm gold light. I tried to fixate on it, to ignore the painful shaking from the cold and my untimely need to pee. Before any warm fuzzy feelings of safety could persuade me to question what in the building was casting the intense glow, it had disappeared and I reverted back to five-year-old mode-- scanning the dark for feet again.



            It wasn’t until the light reappeared, this time a mere two rows away, then disappeared, and appeared once more in the same place that I figured out it was eyes blinking, yes eyes, now staring back at me. I had no idea what could have eyes like that besides an evil cat or a werewolf, but the thing’s teeth had caught some of the glow illuminating from its eyes and I had realized that they were unmistakably pointed. It laid on the floor there, very still, staring back and I thought if I continued to stare as well, it would be unaware that I knew what it was.

            It was too dark to see any other detail, but I formed an executive decision that if its face was scary, then so was the rest of it. Perhaps it was time to try the flight instinct again? I pulled back away from under the bench, its hand dove across the gap trying to reach me, but the wooden bench behind me blocked my quick escape. I fumbled to stand up but managed in a less than graceful manner. Quickly looking over the rows in the direction of the monster to see only an empty church didn't make me feel as confident about running by as I’d have liked to have been. It brought horror. There was something in the church with me and it was on the ground--out of sight.



            I gathered all of my courage, which wasn’t much, and sprinted back down the aisle, to the door. The noise rang out again and a spontaneous dark cloud filled the aisle. In an instant I felt arms around me and then instantaneously nauseated. The arms let go and I plopped to the floor trying to catch my breath and not be sick. I looked around and found myself back near the alter and in front of me, kneeling, was someone covered in a trench coat with a hood pulled up.

            “Try to take in deep breathes,” the voice instructed while I recalled that I was supposed to be running from it. I felt a hand on my back and I shrugged it away. “I am not going to hurt you.”

            “Yeah?” I spoke between hyperventilating, “then why did you,” I coughed from the dry air, “chase me?” He lifted up his face and found myself winding up to scream before finding a deformed hand covering my mouth. Whatever it was, it was blue, and it had glowing eyes, sharp teeth, three fingers, and…. I was interrupted by an unmistakably stern look.

            “Don’t” he had settled for something between warning and begging me not to. He held on to the sides of my face with just one hand and it was clear he was expecting some sort of agreement to come from me.

            “ahh wohn.” I mumbled under his hand. He let go and rolled off his knees onto his feet which were also strange…and fuzzy. I felt my ability to concentrate slipping as I breathed and I found myself worrying about silly things like if he was  ghost of some sort.

            “Fraulein, you’re breathing too fast.” He tried to sit me up but I felt like a good time for a nap.

           

            I snapped my head up, after just realizing I had nodded off. I was lying on a wooden bench…again. I shot up into a sitting position and quickly looked around for any sign of the evil smirf monster ghost thingy or someone to help me. But there was no one around. I flicked my eyes over to the alter where I remembered a candle being lit, but none of them were.

            “Is this yours?” a voice asked from beside me.

             I nearly jumped out of my skin and stood up. I looked to find a man, in his early fifties, with a black shirt on and a white collar standing in the aisle; a priest. He was holding my coat; drenched, in his hand and sported a look of “poor drug addict/hooker.” “uh, yeah.” I said and I tugged the coat I had on tighter to me. It had then just hit me that if that was my coat in the priest’s hands, then whose was I wearing? I inspected the oversized coat I wore and remembered that that thing had been wearing a coat like it. “I mean no.” I replied and stepped out of the aisle and walked out as easily as I had walked in.

            I hopped down the steps before I stuck my hands in the pockets, looking for some trace of the identity of whom or what that thing was. I instead pulled out a phone with a metallic “X” insignia on it and a folded up piece of paper that read “Things will get better;” An odd thing to write oneself.

            The coat, its mere existence, didn’t prove much—it could have been anyone’s. Maybe someone took pity on me and left it on me. I mean, good people go to churches, so… at least I was convincing enough to myself. To prove a point, I opened the phone and hit the send button. Whoever the phone called last would know whose phone it was.

            “What is it elf?” A gruff voice answered. I didn’t reply. I, instead, had a flashback to pointed ears on the creature and stared off into space as my happy falsehood of it being a dream was possibly harder to believe.

            “Kurt, it’s too early for this.” I didn’t respond. “Kurt?” I heard him say something to someone else, “Stay put.” I hung up immediately and put the phone back in my pocket. Perhaps it wasn’t such a hot idea after all.

            “Elf?” I pondered aloud, more like a demon.