Casper Holloway's Arc

Chapter 2 of 2

Casper crouched under the low table, still wrapped in the quilt. The figure moved through the rows of plants, sweeping its cold hands over the leaves. The door was across the room. The figure stood in the way. Casper had to reach that door, but the quilt made them slow, and the quilt could not come off. Without it, the dent of their body would show on any soft surface. Casper needed the figure looking somewhere else. One shelf held an odd plant. A thick stem rose from a cracked pot. At its top sat a wide bloom shaped like a hungry mouth, ringed with sharp teeth. Its two orange eyes glowed in the dark. When Casper shifted, the bloom turned and tracked the movement. It was awake. It was watching. And it was close to the path the figure walked. Casper made a plan. They needed the figure to pass right beside that toothy flower. So Casper reached out from under the quilt and knocked the torn zombie bunny off the shelf. The stuffed thing hit the floor near the flower with a soft thud. Its red eyes caught the dim light. The figure turned toward the sound. It stepped closer, slow, reaching for the fallen bunny. Its cold arm swept past the cracked pot. The flower struck. Its jaws snapped shut around the figure's arm and clamped down hard. The teeth held. The figure jerked back, but the flower did not let go. It pulled the other way, rooted deep in its pot. The two locked together, straining, the arm caught fast in the biting bloom. This was the gap Casper needed. They dropped the quilt and vanished. Color left their hands. Sound left their ears. Feeling left their whole body. The dent in the quilt no longer mattered, because Casper was off the cloth and moving across the bare floor, where invisible feet left no shape. Casper crawled fast toward the door. The figure wrenched and twisted behind them, busy with the flower's grip. Casper reached the door. They pushed their small body against it. The gap at the bottom was thin, but Casper was small, and Casper was flat. They squeezed under, unseen, and came out the other side. Behind the door, the figure finally tore its arm free. The flower's jaws snapped at empty air. The figure spun toward the door, but it was too late. Casper was already through. Casper let the invisibility go. Color came back. Sound came back. The cold floor stung their palms. They had made it past the figure. But now they were alone in a new dark room, with no quilt to hide the dent of their body, and only a thin door between them and the thing that hunted them. The door had no latch on this side.