They are coming

"Last thing on my mind?" Natalia almost chuckled. Her mother was sick, her belly was grumbling and half the village she stays was filled with empty houses; houses of people that had died or gone away. Some monster in a myth was the last thing on her mind.

"I am sorry," she waved her hand. "This sounds surreal and unimportant to me. You can house this – key or whatever. I am leaving."

"Last thing on my mind," she scoffed and walked out the door and down the slope.

"You will come back here," Pacificia shouted in the same preachy way that she makes around the village. "I reckon – you will come back here."

As night fell and the sky turned pitch black, she slept on the floor beside her mother, listening to her heaving breathing. "Last thing on my mind," Pacificia's words rang in her head, even though her stomach was grumbling. The wind came through the window by her head, taking with it the smell of slums and hunger.

But that thing – that shadow – or that key, whatever it was called. When she saw those red moving things; emotions she didn't know existed tumbled in her head. "Color? Is that what she called it?" she couldn't recall. But it didn't matter. That thing was special, and she felt special in seeing it first.

"I reckon – you will come back here," she didn't want to remember Pacificia's words.

Most days, she passed her hunger through sleep, and today was no different. But the pain used to wake her in the middle of the night, and when she woke, a small shower was falling outside the doors. "Rain?" she sat up. "Now that's new." Even if rains were not as rare as fruits and flowers, she scarcely saw them. And with every rain, came pain and disease.

Lightning swung through the skies like a white sword. She sat up and hurdled to a ball. She could still hear her mother's moving chest and wheezing breath. "Natalia," she saw her hand move up feebly, trying to grab air.

Now that was even rarer! She called her Norman most of the time, and sometimes, she even called her Vandow; her brother whom she had never seen.

She stood up and walked to her mother. "What is it, ma?" she whispered and grabbed her shivering fingers.

Only the silence of the night and the strumming of raindrops remained. She looked at her with watery grey eyes. "They are coming," each enunciation was lathered in fear.

"They are coming," her grip tightened.

"They are coming," her whole body was shivering.

"They are coming."

"They are coming."

This was not the first time Natalia had seen her mother ramble, but this time, she felt ice run down her spine. "Who is coming?" she clasped her mother's fingers with both her hands and asked.

Maria slowly turned her head and looked straight into her daughter's eyes. "You should leave," she said, and Natalia found her hands drenched in sweat.

"She has gone totally cuckoo," Natalia thought, and the corners of her lips turned down. "I don't have nowhere to go," she lied. She wanted to go anywhere but stay there, she wanted to run away till the calluses under her feet broke and her breath flew away. She wanted to run away till the memory of her sick mother faded, and only her past remained; the good past.

Then suddenly, as in a daze Maria let go of her hand. "They are coming, you should leave." A lightning stroke through the sky.

Natalia was moving back now. "I don't want to leave," she bit her lips.

What happened then, she would not have believed if someone told her. Before her very eyes, Natalia saw Mary, struggling to sit up. "They are coming. Leave," she kept on muttering. And when she was done, when her back was hunched down, she looked straight into her daughter's eyes. "So that's where I got my hair from," for a moment, Natalia could see her mother's head turn red and rise.

It was as if shock waves vibrated through her hair, or was it fire? She didn't know. With every bit of her strength, Maria roared. "Leave," and then she knew; it wasn't red – it was fire.

Fire kissed her skin as black swirls, and yet they were gentle; like a mother's love. A hand of fire caressed her cheeks giving her prickly pain. "Run. Leave," Maria hunched down and cried with her hands cusping her eyes.

Before she knew it, Natalia was stepping back. "I will go and get someone," she cried. And then, she ran.

Outside, the scene was something that she had never seen before. Every – single – person; young, old, men and women was outside. They stood with eyes wide, silent, and stationary, with their gazes fixed on the path ahead.

With the slow drumming of the rain, they came. Their skins were saggy layers of grey and their teeth were black and rotten. They wore tattered pieces of rags, with long cuts and pierces and wounds that looked like they were made from swords and bows, and yet, they were walking. Natalia saw that the one in front had a gaping wound in its stomach with flies buzzing around it.

They were like a disease; putrid and dying.

With their every step, Natalia felt her heartstrings strum with fear. Those things were not like 'him'. 'Him' didn't instill such fear in her. 'Him' was not these things. 'Him' seemed like an enigma; something that didn't belong in this world. These things seemed more human, and that chilled her spine.

"They are coming," her mother's words reverberated in her heart, though she didn't know how her mother knew of their arrival. She didn't know what that shadow was, or how her mother called the flames, but she did know one thing.

She had to run.

She jolted and turned, and all thoughts of her mother ran with her fear. She ran, splashing over rain puddles and covering herself in the dirt. A rat ran between her legs and then turned to two . . . three . . . and then a whole group came.

It was then she saw her, standing in her path.