Samson always liked horror movies.
The best time to watch them was at night and at home alone. He lived off the thrill they provided. Gory video games were entertaining too— the gorier, the better. However, he was absolutely over horror and gore today.
The snake-half-woman monster slithering across the motel parking lot apparently had other ideas for him.
The cool summer breeze blew into the room, tightening his senses. Something similar to the acrid smell of burning plastic burnt the inside of his nose.
"On the bright side, even I can outrun it." Lena joked to his right.
Samson glared at her.
Lena ran slower than molasses. Her sprint was a normal person's jog, but now was not the time for her to make jokes. Understanding that in his expression, she raced to the end of the bed and grabbed his compound bow and the quiver of arrows he had brought up with him.
Lena clutched the grip in her left hand. The green of the riser shimmered in the LED lights in the room.
"Ugh," she complained. "I forgot how much I hate right-handed bows."
Lena grabbed an arrow from the quiver and nocked it into the arrow rest and nocking loop. She pulled back on the string.
Major told them regular mortals couldn't see the monsters, but they could see them, and since they stood in the motel room doorway, the door open and a loaded bow in hand...
Well, he hoped no one would see them.
Lena let go, and the arrow flew. Samson always had better eyesight at long distances, allowing him to be good at archery. Still, with the monster's armor and the absolute chaos in his head, he couldn't register if the arrow hit.
"Shit," Lena swore. "It didn't work."
"Well, maybe you missed?"
His sister sneered at him.
"I didn't miss."
Samson held his hand in front of him, palm up, showing the still slow-moving monster. "Obviously, you did."
She shoved the compound bow into his chest. "Here you go, mister hot shot, you do it."
Samson grabbed the bow and reached for an arrow from the quiver sitting at Lena's feet. His fingers brushed against the cool plastic of the arrow's fletching. His left hand gripped the bow, and everything eddied out of his head, save his target.
Straining his eyes to have a clearer view, he grounded his teeth. Lena was correct; she didn't miss.
Straight between the snake-woman's eyes protruded the arrow's fletching. Lena's shot had been accurate and sunk into its skull, yet the monster remained alive and moving.
The snake monster wrapped its odd, delicate hand around the arrow's fletching and pulled. Slowly coming out, the shaft and a strange emerald green-like blood trailed down the bridge of its nose. The monster let out a deafening roar and chucked the arrow to the ground.
He nocked the arrow, brought the bow up, and then pulled back onto the string. His right thumb hovered above his chin, and the heat of his exhalation tickled his fingers.
The snake-like creature slithered its way across the parking lot, fixating its gaze on him and Lena. She flipped the spear in her right hand downward and let the blade drag behind her, making a noise close to nails on a chalkboard.
Lena's body stiffened at the sound, and Samson fought every urge his body had to tighten his muscles.
He let the string go.
The pole lights and downtown Grand Rapids's light pollution illuminated the parking lot and the arrow. Samson swore it spun in slow motion.
The arrow hit right into the monster's left eye.
It stopped moving, and Samson's breath caught. His left hand moved the bow down, and the monster stirred. Reaching up with its free hand, the monster pulled the arrow from its eye.
"It's still alive." Samson breathed.
"Well, maybe you missed," Lena said in a mocking tone of the words he said to her after her shot.
Samson clenched his jaw, and his hand tightened on the bow. It took all of his self-restraint not to hit his sister with it. They did not need to fight each other right now.
He made a mental note that if they made it out of this alive, he would push her down a flight of stairs or something later.
In unspoken events, the twins raced across the room, gathering their belongings. For some reason, those arrows, which should've been life-ending headshots, didn't work, and the monster continued to advance toward them.
The sound of metal on metal scraping filled the room from the open door. With his backpack slung over his shoulder, Samson stood by the doorway and turned his head to the sound; the woman monster scraped the leaf blade head of her spear across the side of his dad's Porsche.
Samson swallowed, his eyes wide.
If they somehow made this–his parents alive and well– his dad was going to murder him.
Lena walked to his side, wearing her backpack and holding her red Stanley cup in her left hand. Without having to say anything to each other, the twins ran to the balcony's left while the snake monster glided herself up the stairs to their right. Samson still clutched his bow in his left hand. He left the quiver full of arrows back in the room. They turned out to be useless anyway. He could hit the monster with the bow, which provided at least some defense against her.
They passed five doors, took a ninety-degree angle turn to the right, and three doors down revealed the staircase. Samson told himself not to look back. The thing moved as slow as snails, but some sort of primal instinct in him had his head turning.
"Selena! Look out!" Samson yelled.
The monster grabbed his sister by the collar of her shirt.
The slow-moving before must've been for show, to make them underestimate her. It worked. Samson found his sister trapped in the clutches of the monster. Lena's eyes bulged.
Samson halted, his chest squeezing at the sight before him. The monster's hand gripped Lena's shirt and stood over his sister.
The emerald-green blood streaked down the bridge of the monster's nose, and her left eye, with the latter closed shut. The burning plastic smell became more potent, making his eyes waters.
His breathing quavered.
Deep down, Samson knew that if something happened to his parents, he'd live. He'd have Lena and life would go on. But if something happened to Lena, then life wouldn't go on. He'd be completely and entirely alone. He had no life without Lena. It's always been him and her against the world.
The monster smiled at him and sniffed his sister's head. "Children of Apollo." Her voice sounded dry, raspy, and not very feminine. "We've been looking for you for a long time now."
Samson white-knuckled his bow and gritted his teeth. He didn't dare to meet his sister's gaze, not trusting himself not to crumble. He took slow, deep breaths.
"What do you want with us?" Samson said, his voice shaking.
The creature's right eye had an eerie snake-like appearance. Instead of the usual white, it was a striking yellow-gold color with a black horizontal slit in the middle for its pupil.
Its snake eye blinked at him, and its eyelids came together in a left-to-right motion. The sheer inhumanity of it sent shivers down Samson's spine.
"You're the ones the prophecy foretells us about." A forked snake tongue shot out of her mouth.
Prophecy? What prophecy? From the deepness of his mind, a little light brightened, begging him to reach out, to touch it. Samson narrowed his eyes at the monster.
Lena jerked her arm up, connecting her Stanley cup into the monster's face, not giving it the chance to say anything else.
The monster surprisedly released Lena's collar; Lena turned her body to kick it in the abdomen. The snake-like creature skidded back a couple of inches from the impact.
Lena grabbed Samson by the wrist and pulled him along, darting down the stairs. They broke into an all-out sprint to the Porche.
A flash of green flew overhead, and Samson threw himself on the ground. Metal crunched and shattered glass fell on him. He looked up, and the snake monster shot him a predatory smile. It somehow jumped from where they once stood from the balcony, at least thirty feet away, and landed on the car.
His father's Porsche had seen better days, now with the entire car roof caved in and the windows shattered. There was no driving it out. The only option now was to fight, but without a weapon able to kill the creature, the odds they were going to make it out alive were slim.
Samson slowly stood up, eyes not leaving her yellow slit pupil. It lunged with the spear in its right hand, and he instinctively parried with his bow, now clutched in both hands.
Lena let out a small gasp behind him. His bow's upper limb trapped the leaf blade. Samson pulled his bow to the left and disarmed the monster.
Lena raced to the spear, dropping her cup. She stood to his left, feet planted apart, holding the spear in a white-knuckled grasp, and pointed it towards the monster.
Samson studied the creature's face, which once oozed with confidence, now had a watery gaze, and its face paled to a lighter shade of green.
The arrows may not have worked to kill it for whatever reason, but he was willing to bet this spear would.
"My, my resourceful are we?" the monster inquired, something like disbelief laced its tone.
"What do you want with us?" Samson asked, putting in all his strength to prevent his voice from cracking.
The monster's entire body froze into place and glanced at the twins with its right eye in an assessing way.
"I am to bring you to the Slit." The monster's voice dropped.
Samson blinked in a questioning response. A sword sliced through the snake monster's neck, and emerald green blood spattered on his face. Her head rolled off the hood of the car with a loud thunking-like noise.
The monster's headless body fell forward, revealing a furious piercing sapphire stare.
"How many times do I have to save your assess in one day?" Major snarled.
******
I first came up with the idea of Marked when I was 10. Originally, it was a complete Percy Jackson rip-off, but eventually turned into its own unique idea.
Line editing by an editor is expensive, so I am hoping to crowd-fund. Each donation will receive 4 digital artworks to their email address as a thank you.As I know that the money you worked for did not come free, I am not asking for donations for free either.I have HD images of my characters from Marked drawn and will be giving them in tiers:
Tier One - $1-
Get either Selena or Samson KingTier Two - $2- Get both photos of the twins
Tier Three - $3-
Samson King, Selena King, and Major Dawson
Tier Four - $5-
The twins, Major Dawson, and Cathenna and her mystery man
The Goal is: $2,500
Thank you to everyone who has read this book
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