SEVENTH - We are not alone

The first thing Jasmine felt when she woke up was the fresh night air. She sighed and moaned as she felt a sharp pain in her stomach. Her forehead was throbbing and burning with pain, and her memory of what happened to her seemed to be enveloped in a thick brain fog. It was very hard for her to stay awake, and trying to think could send her back into unconsciousness. She felt nauseous and dizzy, lying down in a sticky, cooling sweat on her body. She couldn't open her eyes, not yet, at least not while this terrible dizziness was bugging her, but she was hearing vague voices around her. It felt like she was closed in a cold, wet and dark cocoon, cut off from the world around her, which was so close, and yet she could not see or hear it. It was a disturbing feeling. In time, the voices around her got louder. She started to feel, albeit barely, that someone was holding her hand and that was a pleasant feeling, the most beautiful feeling in this cold emptiness. She tried to squeeze that friendly hand, but she barely managed to make a soft, barely perceptible grip. Like she felt into some well from which she cannot get out. The friendly hand was trying to pull her out of that well.

The voices soon became clearer and soon she heard a very pleasant male voice asking her how she was feeling. She tried to answer to that beautiful voice, but she couldn't move her tongue. And her eyelids were heavier than stones. She could feel her arm now, and she started to feel her legs as well. She was too tired and too weak to feel panic. The hand that was holding hers was now warm and somehow closer.

"How are you feeling? Can you speak?" said the voice. She opened her too heavy eyelids. A young, dark-skinned man, with a shaved head and a beard, was looking at her from above with his dark eyes. It was a wonderful sight after that horrible disappearance into the cold and darkness. She gripped his hand as hard as she could. He looked encouraged.

"She's not so badly hurt, as much as she's in a shock," he said, addressing someone behind him, "I don't know if I should ask her what happened, I don't want to upset her."

"Where am I?" she said, trying to look around. She wasn't lucky enough to wake up in the hospital, not even in bed, and by all accounts, she was still in the same place where she got lost. The forest was still there, dishearteningly dark. It wasn't even dawn. She had hopes that all that happened this day was just a dream. It would be the most logical explanation. Good thing that she wasn't alone. But she wasn't alone before, was she? She tried to get up. The pain in her forehead was unpleasant and nauseating, but the pain in her stomach was almost unbearable.

"Hey, take it easy!" said the owner of the hand still holding hers.

"I have to find Sergei! Now!" cried Jasmine desperately, wondering how much time she had already wasted lying here. The guy with the beard looked over his shoulder, and she saw that there were two more people standing behind the guy with the beard, a very pretty girl with lush, curly, black hair and a very tall, thin, blond guy, rather ascetic in appearance. The visual contrast between the two was almost comical.

"Listen," she said, now desperate, "I have to find him, and now." worst of all, she couldn't remember what had happened to Sergei, or whether, after she saw him last time, he had been able to get out alive. She wasn't even sure if Sergei ever existed or if he was just a figment of her imagination. Before started speaking rapidly, "He saved my life, you know…he, Sergei…he can perceive and understand things much faster than anyone else. That's because he lived so long... I don't know if he's still alive, but maybe he managed to get away, because he has his shell to protect him, so he could...

She paused, realizing that she probably sounded completely insane. She noticed that the black haired girl and the blond boy were staring at each other. To her own surprise, Jasmine heard the girl say: "What did I tell you? Didn't I say I saw that man in shell?!"

It means that Sergei was telling the truth when he claimed that someone looked in their car and saw him, while Jasmine was out in the forest when half a liter of lemonade that she drank at work, made a pressure on her bladder. Unfortunately, it was pitch dark outside at the time, and Sergey had dozed off, so he wasn't sure how the person who saw him looked like, and whether it might have been just his imagination. Very carefully and slowly, she sat up, still feeling a bit dizzy. The sharp pain in her stomach intensified and she pulled her knees towards her body. She had to go back for Sergei, no matter what these people said.

"Hey, take it easy, I stitched up those cuts just 20 minutes ago!" said the guy with the beard, holding her around the shoulders. He draped his leather jacket over her body. "Do you want to bleed again? You need to rest. We'll put you in the van or in the back seat of Mariana's car, whichever is more comfortable to you, and we'll get out of here together to get help. Before that, we definitely have to search the surroundings. We also lost a friend."

"This place has a center," Jasmine began explaining, realizing that very quickly this wouldn't sound good. They will think that she is delusional "something like a vortex. It draws everything into itself. Sergei and I got... too close to the center and it pulled us inside. My watch stopped. I don't know what time it is…" she added. As if on command, the three young people around her each looked at their wristwatches. Mariana checked her phone. It didn't work although she was sure the battery was full. They looked at each other, their expressions revealing utter astonishment. So, Jasmine thought, they hadn't noticed this before.

"But how?" asked the black-haired girl.

"Seriously? This is like every single horror movie cliche!" said the bearded guy.

"Magnetic field? Local Bermuda triangle?" suggested a tall blond guy.

"Let's get you out of here" said the guy with the beard while quickly and efficiently packing all the things into the van "Bentley and I will look for Sergei and Dick, and you two stay in the van and don't move from here."

Jasmine smiled weakly: "Bentley?"

"Actually, EVERYONE calls me Mickey" emphasized Bentley, trying to make as much room as possible in the van so that it could comfortably accommodate the injured girl.

"He's lying, no one calls him Mickey, we all call him Bentley," the other guy laughed, and then he got serious and added "my name is Boris, but everyone calls me Pope, because my last name is Popovic."

"Mariana Stevanovic," said the woman with curly hair. She looked absent-minded, her thoughts were miles away. Jasmine introduced herself briefly. When they set up a makeshift bed in the back of the van, Pope asked her to describe Sergei. She smiled. Mariana is right. He has a shell. They will hardly be able to miss him. She tried to describe Sergei's face. It was kind of a handsome face. When she started to describe his hell and limbs, she became aware the others were exchanging gazes. They didn't say anything but they must've thought that she was, at least, really weird. Pope carefully asked her about the injuries, adding that she doesn't have to tell them if she doesn't want to. She fell silent. She wasn't sure she wanted to relive that in her head, much less explain it to them. If she does, maybe what little of her fragile strength was left, will evaporate in an instant.

"Listen to me, Jasmine," Pope said, "You don't have to tell the whole story, but if there is someone nearby with violent intentions, someone who could physically attack us, I think we should know about it. The more we know, the sooner we will be able to find Dick. And Sergei."

She sighed and leaned against the tree behind her. He was such a realist, probably imagining she was attacked by people. It wasn't like that. Unfortunately. What really happened was so much worse.

She was already worried when they passed the lonely tavern "Stella" near which Jasmine chose to go to pee. Her car hasn't been reliable for a quite some time and she figured that if she failed to start the engine, she would at least have a place nearby where she could ask for help.

If there was a town or village near the tavern, it was very well hidden. There was just seemingly endless road and the dark rows of trees around it, and it was as if there was nothing else nearby. Jasmine felt her skin crawling. Although her companion was unusual, to say the least, she was now happy that he came with her. Despite his monstrous appearance, there was something about Sergei, and she trusted him. She left him sleeping in the passenger seat, unconcerned since there was no one here to see him in here, and they were parked far enough away from the pub. She walked in between the trees, dropped her panties and crouched down in the grass. Although she took a look around, she had uncomfortable feeling that someone was watching her. In the position she was in, she felt extremely vulnerable as in case of danger she wasn't able to run away. She flinched when saw someone running through the trees not far from her. Still close enough was the tavern with its comforting light. But, people get killed in front of their own buildings in the middle of cities, and she was in the middle of nowhere, at night and with her panties around her ankles. The sound, similar to sliding of a snake over a fallen leaves made her hurry up, peed all over her feet, and stand up while pulling her panties up. Ignoring small inconveniences of urine soaked feet, she looked around to see where the sound was coming from. Every instinct in her body was telling her to get out of there. Suddenly she felt something slippery and wet touching her right ankle. Then pain, a bite. Screaming in panic she ran in the direction of her parked car but couldn't help looking back once she thought she got far enough. And then she saw it. It wasn't a snake. It looked like wet and slimy, red snake, but it had no eyes, and it didn't look like any animal or reptilian that ever existed. The thing began to run very fast in her direction. Jasmine screamed and ran towards her car. In a second before she turned away from the snake, she saw something like a human figure not so far away, between the dark trees. Sergei was in car watching her anxiously from the back seat, but she didn't have time to ask him what happened. Not before he starts the car and drives as far away from there as possible. To her relief, car engine turned on immediately and they headed down the road. She was driving faster and faster pushing the gas pedal. Old motor was roaring like crazy.

"Someone saw me," said Sergei.

"What?"

"Someone saw me. A woman. She looked through the window inside the car and saw me, got scared and ran away. I'm sorry. She surprised me. I didn't have time to hide. Sorry."

"It doesn't matter, Sergei. Nothing matters except to get back to the city as soon as possible. There's something wrong with this place.'

"I know." he said "I felt something. This place is like a vortex. It's pulling us into the center. It won't let us go.'

"That's impossible, Sergei. This is just a boring Vojvodina, not the Amazon rainforest or something! People are close, there should be villages nearby. But this forest... I don't even want to go near it anymore!"

"No, Jasmine, we have to go back. Let's go the other way. This path is wrong."

"We can't go back," she shouted angrily. The wound on her thigh from the bite hurt badly. She was still accelerating. Now they were going over a hundred kilometers per hour. On such a deserted and flat road, it didn't seem so fast. It was too slow "I don't have enough gas! If I run out of gas, we'll have to walk here! Oh God!" she nearly screamed, only now realizing how awful their situation actually was.

"I'm sorry Sergei" she added trying to calm down "God, I'm so glad you're here. I know I'm being selfish, because we're obviously in a big trouble, but I'm glad I'm not alone and that you're here. Otherwise I would die of fear."

"No one has told me that for many centuries," he said gently, pulling his head out of his armor, and his face was unusually beautiful "And you're a woman. Just for you being you, I'm ready to die for you.''

This romantic and so over the top statement made her feel even more uneasy. This has to be a dream. She will wake up in a moment, on Saturday morning, safe in her bed, ready to go on a business trip. Sergei with his body in a shell and red, eyeless snake, laying in the grass like some goddamn garden hose, will be just a part of her dream and will disappear soon. But the pain was too real.

"Oh God, that snake bit me!" Sergei, what if it's poisonous? What should I do?"

"Cat I take a look? I practiced medicine. We'll have to stop here somewhere.''

"I am not stopping the car."

"I should take a look."

"Can't stop."

"It will take few seconds."

Jasmine fell silent and stepped on the gas again, ignoring his advice. She just wanted to get away from this place. She was silent for a while, concentrating on driving. Even though she was driving very fast, the dark road seemed to have no end. And the bite began to seriously hurt her and made her lose focus on driving. Reluctantly, she stopped the car in the middle of the road. It wasn't likely that there is any other vehicle nearby, and she didn't want to get too close to the woods. She raised her skirt, to show him the bite wound. There was a line of blood still seeping from it. Sergei approached her from outside and looked at the bite.

"You've got a small piece of skin and tissue torn off." He said "I'm not seeing any signs of the toxins, but I'd better clean it up anyway."

He must've had some bag with him, because he had a small brown glass bottle with some liquid in it. He squeezed several drops straight into the center of the bite. Almost immediately she felt relief and the pain started to rapidly recede.

"What did you use?" she asked, feeling much better.

"Something I always carry with me" he said mysteriously and the brown bottle disappeared in an instant.

When the pain was completely gone, she tried to start the car again but the engine made an unpleasant growl and then it died.

"Not now, not now!" she screamed, slamming her hand on the steering wheel even though she knew it was pointless. She slammed her head furiously into the center of the steering wheel and the car honked. Her companion's expression worried her even more than a dead car.

"We are being sucked into the vortex." he said "The deeper into the vortex, the more it pulls you towards the center. And there's less and less chance of getting out."

"Oh, shut up with that vortex!" she roared at him, furious and desperate, blaming him for everything that had happened to her in the last few hours. All this started when she met him. She turned the key again. The engine gave a mean chuckle and died.

"It's not worth going forward anyway" he said patiently "We have to find how to get to the surface of the vortex. Towards the exit. If you go blindly, you might go further into the deep end. Straight line. A straight line to the surface. Time will tell. In the center, time stands still. Jasmine, listen to me!"

"Shut up, Sergei! Shut up already! I think I'm going crazy!" she screamed starting the engine over and over again. But every time the machine would just give a mean chuckle and then died down. Jasmine leaned back in the seat with her hands over her eyes. "we're stuck here. In the middle of nowhere."

She looked at her wristwatch. The hands on watch weren't moving, it stopped. Sergei looked pensive, his head slightly tucked into his shell. She heard slight tapping on the side window on her side, turned to see and screamed. A face was pressed against the side window, deformed by the pressure on the glass. The face was strange, pale, shapeless and swollen, like a lump of flesh with imprinted eyes, nose and mouth. Jasmine was still shaking, terrified by the blank stare of those eyes that were watching her. Suddenly, the blue, thick lips of the stranger began to stretch into something resembling a smile. There was too much tension in that stretching of the lips, which made the eerie impression that those lips were actually crawling over the face, like a separate part of the body. It was too creepy to call it a smile. Jasmine recoiled in horror as the creature's lips stretched beyond every biologically possible limit of facial muscle stretching, then literally crawled out of the face and spread sideways, making the face extremely grotesque and inhuman. That terrifying smile was now far larger than the face that wore it, stretching absurdly up to eye level, making the face a terrifying caricature. The creature's lower jaw then dropped down and its huge mouth was open, gaping at her like a wet, red cave. The creature had no teeth, at least not in its jaw, if it had a jaw, and she realized with horror where the red, moist, snake-like creature that bit her had come from. The creature's tongue fell out like a rope, wet and red, unwinding to an absurd length. She screamed and quickly locked all the car doors. Sergei was screaming like an animal next to her, which was not comforting at all. The creature's tongue now clung to the glass of her window, slithering across it like a snake, while the sinister mouth behind it expanded into an ever-widening hatch. That lounge thing had teeth, she realized, at the moment when the tip of crawling tongue stuck to the glass, revealing a tiny opening filled with tiny but sharp teeth. In a moment of sheer terror, she realized that the back door of the car was opening and that someone, or something, was getting inside.

She tried to start the engine, aware that even if she would succeed, it might not even help her to make it out of there alive, but the engine wouldn't start anyway. The gear was stuck in reverse and Jasmine reached for it in a panic, but the thing from the back seat grabbed her head and pulled her back. Two purple and red skinny hands, held her head tightly pulling her back. She saw a sharp, steel blade in front of her neck, and realized that that thing was going to decapitate her. Sheer panic made her feel sick and she threw up on one of those bony hands. That seemed to loosen the grip little and confused the attacker giving her a little time. After that everything happened very quickly. Before the blade plunged into her neck, the bony hands suddenly released her, so that her body was thrown to the front and she fell on the floor in front of driver's seat. The blade, however, didn't quite miss and nicked her on the forehead. She felt blood dripping in her eyes. Sergei had somehow managed to jump to the back seat. She turned around and through her blood-stained eyes, saw her companion pressing his large body enclosed in hard shell against something that looked like a spider-like tangle of multiple bony, purple-red human hands, which looked as if the skin had been flayed from them. One of those hands held a blade, probably the very one that had cut her forehead. Feeling nauseous from all blood on her face and painful wound on her forehead, Jasmine looked for something to help Sergei. Instead of the desired weapon, she saw the front passenger door was now gaping open and something black, lithe and slimy like a giant slug was slithering inside. As the thing slid into the seat next to her, Jasmine could see that there were many more dark creatures of various shapes and sizes outside, crowding around her car to get inside and get to her. Looking at that face with a huge mouth, and a tongue that was still stupidly crawling on the glass, Jasmine realized that the creature was stupid, and the others didn't seem like they had any consciousness or intelligence either. They were just blindly attacking the car and trying to get inside, many of them hurting themselves in process. She knew there was no use trying to talk to them. That would be like trying to reason with a pool full of piranhas.

The dark, snail looking thing next to Jasmine slithered over her stomach, exposing it. The sensation was disgusting, slimy and disarmingly hopeless. She started dry hiving but there was nothing to throw up. A bony thing with arms screamed behind her. Very close and reaching for her was also some almost entirely human-like being, except that it was missing the entire top of its head where the brain was supposed to be. He was staring blankly at her, a blade in his hand. A few more creatures she couldn't see well were crowded behind him, pushing to get closer, and Jasmine was thankful that she couldn't see them in the dark. Dark slimy being was slowly covering her, sticking like tar pouring over her body going for her face. She knew it was going to suffocate her. She couldn't escape even though the car's engine finally turned on and was humming readily, because the slimy creature blocked her right hand with its slippery body, and she could hear the others rushing to get into the car. After that, everything happened very quickly.

She was almost out of air when she felt Sergei's hand touching her left arm, handing something to her. Something sharp and cold. Without any mercy she stubbed that thing that was suffocating her. It squeezed her even harder and for a moment she thought she was going to die, then it let her go and slid off her onto the car floor like a big piece of shit. She realized she was holding a large screwdriver. Before she could do anything more, the half-head man swung his arm and cut her now exposed stomach with something sharp. Blood gushed out and Jasmine dropped the screwdriver in shock. The brainless man extended a clawed hand at her, as if he wanted to tear off a piece of her flesh, drooling all over the passenger seat as he did so. He was about to dig his fingers into the wound he had made when something distracted him. He turned around and got out of the car. The slimy mass crawled out after him.

Sergei somehow got out of the car, flipped onto his back and was now spinning helplessly trying to get back to his feet. He looked like easy prey and the attackers left Jasmine behind and went after him. Jasmine reached for the screwdriver, wanting to help Sergei, but when their eyes met, she realized that his helplessness was just a trick. He silently gave her the order to run, and then when he realized that she still hesitated, that she wouldn't leave him, he turned onto his stomach with incredible ease and run off into the woods much faster than it seemed possible. In few seconds he disappeared into the trees, and the dumb, greedy attackers mostly followed him. A few of them, however, did turn back to Jasmine. Realizing in an instant what Sergei wanted to tell her, she retreated back into the car and slammed all the doors around her, put it in gear, released the clutch and finally drove away. Feeling something wet run down her face, blood or tears or both, she hadn't been driving long before she realized with horror that she was running out of gas. The tank must have leaked. She was dizzy from blood loss, her vision blurred, and the wound in her stomach hurt like hell and she was sure she was dying. Someone jumped in front of the car and at that moment, the engine died. That's where her story ends. She told them all slowly and as calmly and gently as she could, but the faces in front of her were horrified.

"I know how it sounds" she said "maybe I'm crazy" she corrected herself "actually I hope I am. If that really happened, there are definitely signs of a struggle in my car."