My heart slammed into my ribs repeatedly like it were looking for a brutal escape.

Having slipped in through my front door, the cold of the AC left on all day had created a spur of goosebumps that crawled across my skin. Hair already standing on edge, the house unusually quiet, I set my backpack down by the front door and wondered into the kitchen for a cool snack after a stressful day at school.

The orange walls, usually inviting and a warm welcome home, were dim today. The sun was shining, it was incredibly hot outside and it had been a sweat-fest earlier, but the room itself felt bleak and unmatched to the brightness that awaited just beyond them.

Then, I heard the strangled gasp of someone trying to breathe.

My chest clenched and it was suddenly very difficult to speak. "Mom?" I said.

Entering the kitchen, my feet refused to go any further. It was my mother; she was on the floor, a willowy figure with dark hair splayed around her face in beautiful waves. I would have approached her if it weren't for Grousteus standing above her holding onto something clear, like a shard of glass, ready to pounce. But he wasn't moving either, nor was he bothered to look in my direction.  Instead, he was saying something, whispering a chant under his breath as if he were performing a ritual.

Looking around for something to defend myself and my mother with, I spot the decorative wine bottle my mother saved to put flowers inside. Slipping out the fake flower decor, I choke the wine bottle and start for Grousteus.

Trying to hold my fear down like a wild horse being tamed for the first time, I held up the bottle above my head from behind Grousteus. I steadied my grip and went for the swing down at him. I shouldn't have closed my eyes, even if it was momentarily. When I opened them Grousteus was holding the opposite end of the wine bottle between the palms of his hands and staring at me with bloodshot indigo eyes. Had he not been trying to kill my mother and I; I might have been enamored by the color staring back at me. Instead, they shot me with an alien feeling, an unsettling spur of emotion that flickered memories of a ravenous purple fire.

Twisting his palms so the bottle flipped out of my hands, he began to chant again. This time I could hear him.

"Blood runs deep, flows, follows, pumps through the body. Blood runs life through the veins, through the soul, and magic emblem of the faith of the new world. This body given to the re-birthed, hath slayed by a clot of air trapped in the lung. Breathe in, it stays, painful, un-moving. Moving no more, blood does what blood does..." It was gibberish. He was mad. Crazy mad, the kind of mad a child would see in a villain on television.

The bottle, try as I might, slipped through my sweaty hands and clashed to the floor. Grousteus's breath was hot and smelly on my face and the next second, before I could react, his hand shot out at my throat. I move to dodge his attempts of strangling me but fail to evade his heavy onslaught. He continued to chant nonsense under his soft tongue when his fingers clamped across my throat.

I swung my fist at his face as well as tried to knee, kick, and claw at the bastard. The other hand was at my neck trying to free myself of his rock-solid grasp. Air was hard to pull through a clenched esophagus; my lungs burned, my eyes bulged out from the blood swimming in my brain, my ribs moved frantically, the panic I had tried to tame earlier now rising to meet its maker.

Opening my mouth and looking upward was probably a mistake but I couldn't think straight any longer. I needed air, needed a way to escape the clutches of this madman. But something happened. He let me go; shoving me to the floor like a dirty rag.

My mother stirred, a soft moan escaping her lips. She's alive. I could have cried with relief if my body wasn't so hurried for oxygen.

"Blood meets blood on the last breath of a soulless man escaping a hardened fate that of many hath sworn no mercy..." Grousteus was upon my mother again, picking up the dagger he had set down on the kitchen island. It looked to be made of some sort of mix between crystal and silver, its sharp clean-cut sides glimmered dangerously. Grousteous squatted by my mother as she made small attempts to get away from him, blood spilling gently from the corner of her lip. She gagged slightly when her body was jerked back into place, her small sickly body lay in wait. "Shouldn't have wasted your magic protecting him. You knew we would come and prevail eventually. It was foolish of you to think otherwise."

Regaining my consciousness, I climbed and propped myself up onto the side of the kitchen counter. A boiling in my blood was swooping in. I wasn't athletic, that much was plain, a scrawny little freshman like me didn't have much of a fair fight against a full-grown man like Grousteus. But the fear of standing back and not doing anything, while he slaughtered my mother shameless, kicked me upside the head.

I took a moment to open a drawer and find the largest knife we had. "Grousteus!" I spat out, wishing him to turn onto me instead. He did.

He was crouched down still when he whirled onto me like a praying mantis, his dark robes and chain swinging with him. There was something wrong. There was a pull at the corner of his lips, eyes staring into the very depths of his soul, as he smiled. Revealing a row of sparkly white teeth and razor sharp canines. I hadn't seen this look on him, the shadows usually covered his features. Now, I could see with clarity, he was... mutilated. Alien. Unusually distorted. His ears were halves of what should have been there, looked to have been bitten off. There were long scraggly scars across his face, some small like from a knife and others like the one crawling across his chin and up his jaw from boiling fire. Though his eyes, the indigo color, a deep blueish-purple color had slits for pupils now.

The startling appearance of Grousteus made me waver for a moment, his voice was even more slick as I had previously thought it to be. "What Vince really wants with you, I do not know, but you are getting on my nerves." He spoke slowly. There was no rush to his approach with me. It was a calm and an almost annoyed response that didn't quite fit right with someone who was holding a knife against them. Something about the way he spoke said he knew what he was doing, he wasn't intimidated, and he had everything under control. There was zero fear, not even a hesitation or doubt that this man didn't know what he was doing. It sent chills running down my spine as my hands shook at the thought of facing someone so assured with themselves.

"Let her go." I commanded as Grousteus turned away from me. He didn't seem even remotely bothered. Instead, he turned the dagger in his hand, twirling it around  as if in deep contemplative thought.

"You will die a slow death. I think... a Blood Curse will suffice." Grousteus seemed assured of himself, speaking to my mother with absurd (perhaps even deranged?) confidence. This man was nuts. Curses? What nutcase let this man out of the insane asylum?

"Felix." My mother rasped from the floor, "Run."

I had been too shocked to move. Why couldn't I move? The thought had fled me moments before, the knife that I had in my hand was gone. What did I do with the kitchen knife?

"He's not going anywhere, paralysis is a fickle thing to master. But just one look at the consumption of fear can stump even the most loyal and most brave of soldiers." Grousteus said.

I made an attempt to move, only to find that it was to no avail. My limbs were locked in place, as if hands were clamped onto my joints. I was left to watch as crazy-man Grousteus conjured a purple fire that burned a witches star across my mothers chest-- the very same fire that had been my first introduction to the vast expanse of fear.