The Dark Between Dreams | ✔️

Chapter 6 🔻 Murder of Crows

I didn't think Webb even noticed when I slunk away from his side. I paused on the curb, blocks away, as if on the banks of a rapid river, hesitating and alone.

"Jiè guò!" a child sang as she brushed past me, and I had to quickly side-step out of the way to avoid trampling her. She screeched in victory as she raised a little wooden sword that was painted red high over her head and swung it at other children in mock battle.

"Get it! Get the shadow!" they all squealed as they chased each other, all armed with toy weapons and completely careless of any passersby. There was a clatter when one of them knocked the little girl's sword from her hand. Immediately, the other children targeted their weaponless friend. The girl dashed to hide behind me.

"Help! Hide me!" she pleaded, her eyes huge and watering as she tugged on my scarf.

The children swarmed us, ready to deal the final blow. Ha. Not on my watch. I lifted the young champion above my head with a smirk and set her atop an old carcass of a car, out of their reach.

"Xièxiè!" she said to me before sticking her tongue out at her friends and scurrying away to safety.

"The shadow is escaping!" The hoard of tiny warriors took off in hot pursuit, leaving me in their dust. They were long gone, and so was my brief smile. What must it be like to be a child forever? No child, ghost or otherwise, should spend their youth in a dark place like this.

Adult ghosts poked their heads out of windows and doorways and called for their children in their languages. A rowdy-looking boy dug his heels into the ground. "Five more minutes!" he called back.

A woman tutted at him from the threshold of a home. "You know what happens to unruly children?" she asked with a wag of her finger. "They get snatched away by crows and carried over the wall to feed the monsters."

At that, every child hurried home and leaped into the arms of their guardians and snuggled close. My heart beat at the sight. Just once. For a second, I thought I felt a strange warmth fill my chest and warm my cheeks at the sight of mismatching ghost families.

Then something squawked from above. A crow had just alighted on a windowsill, a story overhead. Only it didn't seem interested in the children, as the woman had warned.

Its beady, black eyes glared right at me.

A chill ran down my spine.

A ghost leaned out from the window and swatted the bird away with a yell. With an indignant rattle, the crow took wing and flew off over the wall.

I shut my eyes and inhaled deeply, absorbing every sound in this strange city. With my eyes closed, I could almost pretend I was back home in Tacoma, window-shopping hand-in-hand with Dominic. I forced my eyelids open. Of course, Dominic was nowhere to be seen, and my hand was empty of his.

But color filled my vision. White, puffy clouds floated in a sky so vibrantly blue my eyes had to adjust while they followed a line of orange birds taking flight from a flowering tree of pink blossoms-all colors that didn't exist in After. It took me a few stupid blinks to realize that I was gawking at a mural instead of a real meadow of wildflowers. I could almost smell the sun-warmed scent of the wind that stirred the feathery wisps of grass, so lifelike I believed I could feel them caress my skin when I reached out to touch the mural.

But I couldn't even feel the gritty surface of the worn brick wall I pressed my palm against. I pulled away from the artwork. Where my hand had lain, I revealed the artist's signature. I traced a finger over the little VS signature tucked away at the edge of the wall, hidden like a secret amongst the wildflowers. Whoever VS was, they made their own light in a world where there was none.