If there was one thing my mother instilled in me as a child, it was the importance of my ears.

My father was an architect, and when I was young, I loved watching the buildings he designed go up. One day, I thought, I'd build something just like him. Sometimes, if I was really lucky, he'd let me tag along and visit a job site.

Every time, my mom insisted I wear earplugs.

When I got older and started attending rock concerts instead of construction sites, I was that one weird kid with the two neon-yellow hunks of foam stuck in my head. I could come home wasted and covered in bruises from fighting in a mosh pit and my mom wouldn't care. But good lord, I better protect my ears.

Whatever, at least it made her happy.

For some reason—maybe thinking of my mom, because I did love her—I kept up with the habit of it. That was why, at some 30,000 feet above the Atlantic Ocean, it took this poor flight attendant way longer than it should have to get my attention.

"I'm sorry, what?" I pulled the earplugs out of my ears as she tapped me on the shoulder. The roar of the airplane engine filled my head, muting all other sound for a second.

"Excuse me, sir." The flight attendant pushed a strand of blonde hair that had escaped from her bun back behind her ear. "Are you all right?"

My grip on my arm rest tightened, and a bead of sweat rolled down my back. "Yeah, I'm fine, why?" A sinking feeling welled up in my throat like vomit. Something wasn't right.

"It's just..." The young woman paused mid-sentence. She brought her hand up to her face and wiped at her lower lip.

My heart skipped a beat. Oh fuck... what now?

"What?" My hand shook as I ran it over my mouth. I pulled it back to look, and my eyes widened. Sticky, red streaks coated my fingertips.

Something wet slithered over the edge of my lip and rolled down my chin. The dull ache that had been pounding in my jaws for the past few hours flared up with a nauseating pulse. My head spun. "I... I'm sorry." I pushed myself up from my seat.

I have to get out of here.

"Are you all right? Do you need anything?"

"I'm fine." I pushed past her, covering my mouth with my hand.

I felt eyes turning to look at me as I rushed down the aisle. People whispered, and I tasted hot, metallic blood between my teeth. I wanted to cover my ears and close my eyes and disappear and make everything go away. My head pounded like knives were slicing through it.

When I reached the back of the plane, I stumbled into the bathroom and slammed the door. We bumped over a patch of turbulence. My stomach turned as my hands slipped on the smooth walls, trying to find something firm to brace myself. A damp roll of toilet paper tumbled across the floor and hit my shoe.

When the plane sunk back into a smooth pocket, I leaned against the sink, coughed once, and then spat a mouthful of blood out into the basin.

Oh fuck... oh fuck...

Blood clung like a web to the inside of my mouth. I coughed and spat, trying to get it to let go of my gums. Finally, I resolved to pulling the sticky strand out with my hand. With a sickening, gurgling pop like a suction cup, it released. My head spun with nausea, and I gagged. I didn't want to throw up. Not here. Not right now.

I leaned against the sink and panted as the dizziness subsided. Sweat coated my back. I looked at myself in the mirror. My mouth was stained red, and the blue in my irises was piercing in contrast with how bloodshot my eyes were. This could not be happening...

Suddenly, a heavy banging shook the flimsy plastic bathroom door. "Are you okay in there?" the flight attendant's voice called.

"Just a minute," I managed to choke as I shook like an addict.

I ran the faucet. After rinsing the blood from my face and the sink, I checked my phone. Two more hours until we landed. I could make it two hours. As soon as we got to Edinburgh, I'd go to the bar where Clara had said she would meet me, and finally, I'd get help.

/ / /

Four hours later, I found myself wandering the dark, stormy streets of Edinburgh. Miraculously, the flight was only half an hour late. However, by the time I'd gotten off the plane, made it through customs and found a bus that would take me downtown, it was already well into the evening. I was completely exhausted. All my body wanted to do was sleep, but I had no time for that.

The bar Clara had asked me to meet her in was called Red Trout. Following the directions I'd scribbled on the back of a torn sheet of notebook paper, I turned off of Cowgate and down a dim, narrow alleyway. The cobblestone path was worn smooth and slick with rain.

"Excuse me," a man grunted as he and his date brushed past me. The corridor was barely wide enough for two people to walk next to each other.

"Sorry," I said, scooting off to the side. As they passed, the woman's dark eyes met mine for a second and flashed in the light of the street I'd turned off of. A small cut on her upper lip dripped a trickle of blood. She gave me a smirk as her shoulder bumped mine, and her tongue slithered out and licked her lip.

I watched as they reached the mouth where the alley opened back up on to the street. Hooting and laughter echoed from the crowds and trickled its way down to my ears in a distorted whine. Cold rain dripped from my hair onto my face, and a chill ran over me. Once the couple disappeared into the swarming street, I continued down the alley.

After descending at a calf-burning slope for a good twenty feet, I reached the partially dead neon-red sign where "RED OUT" flickered brightly in the misty haze. It reflected off the wet cobblestone path in streaks, and its electric buzz meshed with the drone of the rain in a hypnotic hum.

I took a heavy breath—was this really a good idea? I'd flown all the way across the Atlantic to meet a stranger I'd met online because I was convinced she could help me. Every horror story I'd heard about people not being who they said they were stormed through my mind. I was walking into a trap. I hadn't even told anyone I was going to Scotland. No one would know to look for me when I got kidnapped and locked up in a dungeon three stories under the earth.

My mind raced. Everything spun. I breathed in heavily through my nose. I was being ridiculous. I had to do this. I hadn't spent twelve hundred dollars and eight hours on a plane to turn back and run home.

Not only that... I needed help. I wasn't sure how much longer I could keep going on like this. It wasn't something I could go to the doctor for. What was happening to me... they'd say I was insane.

Clara was my only hope.

After finding her posts online, I'd finally felt like someone else knew what I was going through. Maybe I wasn't the only one who had ever experience... something like this. Maybe I wasn't losing my mind.

Exhaling the last bit of apprehension that clung to my lungs, I pushed the door open.

The sound of hushed voices and the smells of stale beer and spilled liquor greeted me as I entered the small establishment. The interior of the place was distinctly Gothic, but it wasn't tacky or plastic like themed imitations in The States often were. This place was old. It wasn't Gothic simply for the sake of being so, it was the intrinsic style of the original architecture. The ceiling rose higher than I expected looking at it from the outside, and the ribbed vaulting gave the entire place a cave-like feel. I imagined bats making their homes in the dark crevices along the walls.

I made my way across the polished concrete floor to the ornately carved bar. I took a seat on one of the stools and rested my hands on the counter. The heavy oak was damp and swollen with humidity. Sticky rings from years of sweating pints carved crop circles on the grains of the wood.

The couple sitting at the far end glanced at me for a second before going back to sipping scotch and chatting quietly. I could tell they were talking about a concert, and I had to stop myself from listening in. The woman had multiple piercings in her nose and lips, and her eyes were lined heavily in black. A tattoo of a skeletal hand clawed its way out of the denim jacket the man wore and wrapped itself around his neck. When I was a teenager, they would have been exactly the type that I hung around with, but now, I was more of a loner.

I scanned the rest of the room. A few of the square tables that lined the wall were occupied with similarly alternative groups of individuals, but other than that the bar was fairly empty. I didn't see Clara anywhere.

The low pulsing of music pounded through the floor and reverberated through my body, setting me on edge. I pulled out my phone and scrolled through the home screen nervously. I hadn't had service since I'd landed in Scotland, but I was doing it more out of habit than anything else. It made me feel less self-conscious when I was out alone if I was looking through my phone. Other people might think I was just waiting for someone rather than by myself. Ironically enough, this time I actually was.

"Can I get you something?"

Startled, I turned back to face the source of the voice—a woman standing behind the bar. I recognized her. "Clara?"

"Aaron." Her deep red lips turned up at the corners into a smile. "I almost forgot you were coming tonight." She frowned. "Fuck, you look horrible."

"I know."

"Let me get you a drink."

I studied her as she worked behind the bar. Her long, dark hair was pulled neatly behind her back, and thick black lined her eyes like a cat. She was definitely the woman from her profile picture, but for some reason, I'd imagined her differently when we'd been chatting. Younger, maybe. She didn't look old—maybe in her late thirties at most—but there was a maturity to the way she moved and presented herself. She made me feel like a kid, and I was twenty-four.

"Scotch all right?" she asked, turning to me as she grabbed a bottle.

"Sure."

She set a glass down on the counter in front of me and leaned into the bar as she poured me a drink. A tattoo of a bat contrasted the ivory, pale flesh of her chest, and her cleavage looked full in the tight corset she was wearing.

"How was your flight?" She passed the glass to me.

I quickly turned my eyes up to her face, but she didn't seem bothered that I'd been staring. A hint of a smirk tugged at the corner of her lips.

"Not awesome, that's for sure." I took a sip of the scotch. It burned my throat and turned my stomach as it went down, but that was nothing new. I'd been having trouble keeping much of anything down the past few weeks. I'd found that liquids were better than solids, but they still didn't completely agree with me.

"I always hate flying, too," Clara said. Her brown eyes stared into mine, examining me. "So, how bad have you got it?"

I passed my glass back and forth between my hands. "You tell me," I finally replied. Then, I curled my lips back and gave her a huge, toothy grin, showing off the four gaping holes in my skull where my canines had fallen out.