“Don’t open that door or we are both dead.”
I blinked a couple of times. I was in the middle of getting up from my couch to get the door when I thought I heard a noise. Another knock at the door snapped me back to the situation.
I got up and took a step.
“Did you not hear me? You open the door, we both die.”
I stood frozen in place. My eyes crept around my apartment, trying to locate the source of the sound. Another series of raps were at the door, followed by a ring on the doorbell. I turned my head almost imperceptibly towards it.
“Don’t even think about it.”
My heart began drilling at my chest, begging to escape whatever was going on right now. The blood drained from my face.
“What’s happening,” I mouthed almost silently.
“You’re being raided. It’s nothing to worry about, they’ll pass you by so long as you don’t give them a reason to believe that you have the stone.”
I swallowed hard and felt the weight in my pocket.
“But I do have the stone,” I mouthed, feeling violated by this voice.
The knocking at the door immediately became a bashing at the door. The door cracked. Between my body’s fight or flight, it opted for ‘Freeze on the spot.’
“Way to go, now we’re dead for sure.”
“But I couldn’t even hear myself say it!” I said out loud.
The door cracked further.
“Look, we could argue about it, and in the end, you’d realize why you’re wrong, but right now you want to run.”
The door splintered now. I heard a growl from the other end. It was a mix of rage and hunger, and its breathing quickened at having made progress on my door. I stared at it in terror.
“Run. Now.”
My body was suddenly fueled by all the adrenaline it had been neglecting me and my legs pulled my body from the spot. I ran into my room and closed the door behind me and I heard my front door shatter behind me. There was a monstrous yowl and it charged at my bedroom door.
“Great going. Another door will stop it for sure.”
“Shut,” I said, my brain fueling more energy to my thoughts than my speech. My window was open but I couldn’t fit more than my head out its opening. I smacked my head in frustration, trying to kickstart some form of escape. My leg felt warm like the stone had been warming up in my pocket. I pulled it out and stared for a moment. Its deep purple offered no ideas.
“You definitely didn’t want to do that. You were definitely warned to keep me hidden.”
So its deep purple did offer ideas. But not any good ones. I could use it to smash the other side of my window open, then maybe I could crawl through. Before I could take a step toward it, a hole was torn into my bedroom door. A boar’s head was stuck through and it breathed deeply, its deep purple eyes enraged to see me holding the stone. It reached a muscular arm in to turn my handle and I ran to the window.
“Please don’t smash me into the — “
I hit my window with all my might and the window and wall violently shook and exploded outwards, revealing the neighborhood two stories below.
“Woah,” I said, but my explosion was followed by the boar tearing the door off its hinges. It dove toward me and I jumped out the hole in the wall closing my eyes and holding my breath. I put my arms out below me just like I remembered being taught not to do whenever I was falling from a great height.
“Oh, for the love of — “
The street below me exploded into ash and blasted me back up to the apartment building. I landed on my back on a fourth-story balcony. I scrambled over to look over the edge where I saw the boar-man fall into a wide, gaping hole the stone opened in the street below. It squealed as it fell down the pit. I stared in horror, my adrenaline still running wild.
“What just happened?” I asked both myself and the stone.
“It’ll be back.”
I heard a menacing roar from below the wreckage.
“RUN!”