Nevertheless, there I was, wrapping puckered, wrinkly hot dogs that had been long overcooked in the too-hot warming box. Every time the wind blew through the open-air kiosk, the kicked-up smell of meat was almost nauseating. Hours spent in the local football stadium will take that toll. Every so often, the December devil-winds would pick up in a split-second gale, tossing paper plates and plastic eating utensils every which way, and I’d be broken from the robotic repetitions to try and gather the scattered place settings, only to fail miserably. Repeat this cycle from 7 AM to 7 PM. At the very least, I was in an ideal place to watch drunken football spectators be led or, even more amusingly, sometimes dragged past my kiosk.
It must have been about noon. The sun was high, but it was that winter sunlight that provided no warmth. I was relieved of my disgusting hot dog wrapping duties to clean tables around the perimeter. Our uniforms didn’t allow for a jacket, or even a long sleeved-shirt to go under our uniform blouses. I danced from table to table to ward off the biting cold. I was cleaning the outermost table, when shadows appeared from the corners of my eyes. Distracted by these shadows, I looked up. Four people; three men and a woman that didn’t work here were approaching the employees-only boundary line. Civilians were not allowed back here. I waited until they were past the point of no return, and I reluctantly stood to my full height and moved to the gate. “Excuse me, but you cannot go through here. Employees only.” I said, sensing the hesitation in my voice. I hated this matter of confronting people. The one closest to me: the woman, turned towards me, her face obscured by a baseball cap. She had impossibly long blonde hair. Even pulled back and stuffed into the fastener of her hat, her hair nearly reached the floor. “Oh, we know. We want to talk to you.” Her lips curved into a malicious smile. I started to respond, but found that I couldn’t. “Yes, we just want you to travel home safely tonight, dear.” The tallest of the three men said. His face too was covered, but with a odd bandana sort of thing. His body was wrapped in a cowl of the same material, as if he was wearing a home team cloak. I had officially entered self-defense mode, and began backing away towards my booth, praying that someone was coming to my rescue. The shortest of the three men, hunched over to the point of nearly being on all fours, reached out with one, bony hand. He wore a tattered, loose-fitting home team hoodie, the hood pulled up over his face.
“Now, now. Don’t leave, not ssso soon.” He rasped, amusement in his voice. “It’sss as if you’ve---“his sentence cut off, his hand frozen where it had extended. A spilt second later, he struck out of my throat with his extended arm, seizing the chain of my necklace and drawing out the pendant hiding under the collar of my shirt. ‘Well! What is thisss trinket here!” he said in mock-astonishment. He tugged on the chain, brining me closer to the four. They all examined the blue prismatic crystal with a good deal of care. “Hm. This does change a few things, does it not?” The squat man said to his friends. I swallowed hard. I tried looking around. Nobody seemed to notice this encounter. I held tighter to the cold metal bar of the boundary fence. It bit painfully into my stomach. They all seemed to look at each other, then at me squirming in my position. The hunch-backed one flicked the pendant into my face. With a cry of alarm, I staggered back. They snickered to themselves. “That is all, love.” The blonde woman said, her smirk cracking into a twisted grin. With that, they turned away and walked off. I stood in a stupor for a moment or two. As frightening as the encounter was, I couldn’t help but notice some similarities between them and four other malignant beings. My manager’s voice snapped me back to reality. “Hey! Lewis! What’re you doing?” I turned, still slightly spooked from my exchange. I barely managed a question-like squeak. “Come on, girl. Don’t just stand there!” I gulped again, nodding quickly, returning hastily to my work.
The hours came and went, sometimes blustered about in the December air. I eventually forgot about the strange encounter in the afternoon. I did get tired more easily, though. It was quite a challenge pushing the carts of equipment back to storage at the end of the night. My fellow food servers and I trickled out of the stadium gates in ones, twos and threes. The weatherman had forecasted the onset of a massive winter storm tonight, and he was true to his word. The devil-winds came more quickly and lasted even longer. They blew bitterly cold. Those of them that worked alongside good friends huddled together for warmth as they walked. I, on the other hand, held myself tightly, rubbing my exposed arms as I trudged on heavy limbs to the bus. I had relinquished my uniform blouse at the end of my shift. Now I walked in my sleeveless undershirt in the frigid air.
Thankfully, the line for the bus had dissipated, and the heater was on full-blast. I took my seat in the bus’s rear, pulling my uniform cap over my eyes so I could take a nap or something. I didn’t care to see the other employees boarding the bus. They would probably do the same thing I was when they took their seats. In five minutes, the bus was rolling out of the loading platform. The hum of the engines lulled me into a light sleep almost instantly.
You see, we the workers have a special parking lot located off-site. That site, from the stadium, takes about thirty minutes to get to. Fifteen minutes into our trip, I was brutally awakened by the sound of screeching brakes and my head being thrown into the window I was leaning up against. I cried out, looking out at the blue darkness in confusion. The lights on the bus illuminated the road below us. I could see straight down the road we were driving on. The bus was sliding sideways on a murky, dark film: Black ice. Adrenaline shot through my veins. My eyes widened as I saw the road disappear again, the bus swerving back towards the right. Just then, there was a horrible, abrupt thud on the front side of the bus, the whole vehicle shuddering from some unseen impact. The out-of-control bus stopped when the impact was made. I felt myself sucking in short, frantic gasps. It was then that I noticed that none of the other passengers were afraid. They didn’t even look around, and the bus was eerily silent. I immediately feared the worst. I got up from my seat, crawling over the empty seat to my right and into the aisle way. “A-anybody?” I stammered. I peered into the row of seats in front of mine.
Staring back at me were two grinning goblins, their knives raised for combat.
I screamed, jumping back towards the rear of the bus. When I did, the passengers too got up from their seats, weapons clinking together. Fiends, from every Final Fantasy game I had played, rose up from the seats in front of mine. The driver got up, her long blonde hair hanging freely and cascading over her shoulder every which way. The door slid open, and a brunette, dark-skinned woman boarded the bus behind the fiends. My heart dropped when I saw that her lower half wasn’t human—but snake. “But, Barbariccia, it is so small and weak-looking.” Marilith hissed, gesturing towards me with one of her wicked blades. The blonde wind fiend shot her glare. “Of course. It’s not her we want.” She shot back, stalking up the ranks of lesser fiends. “That crystal. We want—no, need it.” She said, gesturing towards me. By now, I was pressed up against the back window, my knees shaking under me. “Now go!” Barbariccia shrieked. “Bring me her eyes!” Marilith commanded at the tail end of Barbariccia’s order.
The goblins closest to me lashed out with their small knives. But, being goblins, they were cannon fodder that could stand up to nothing. I kicked their scrawny bodies away, hampering the advance of the fiends behind them. I threw myself at the back window, madly fumbling with the emergency exit release. The monsters’ assault was gnarled by fiends trying to press up the tiny aisle way, biding me at least some time. Marilith gave a fearsome roar, beginning to move up the aisle herself. ‘Stupid, stupid fiends!” she shouted, obviously impatient . Just as she was midway through the twisted fiends, I finally released the emergency exit and swung out into the icy road. The mechanism also triggered the sprinklers system in the bus. Marilith cried out in anger, as I could only assume that she wouldn’t particularly like water or any such thing. I took off running down the road, angling towards the snow-dusted shoulder so that I could hide faster.
A line of fire surged past me on the left, igniting the bushes on the side of the dark road. They caught instantly in spite of the snow dusted over them (The winter was always dry here.). I skidded to a stop before my flaming barrier, and turned back to where I had just came. The arch-fiends, two for each element from two separate fantasies slowly approached. “That crystal…That Winterdream crystal.” One of them said. I looked from monster to monster. “Give us your eyes, your heart…” The Lich rasped, raising one skeletal arm. “Your hands and your tongue. They’re no use to you now.” Tiamat crooned. I retreated as far as they advanced, until I could feel the flames on the back of my neck. There was no escape, no way to fight back. For all it was worth, I was a mere townsperson caught in the midst of a warrior’s fight. It was over. I squeezed my eyes shut, and hoped that they would seize my heart first and kill me quickly.
The heat of the flames suddenly dissipated, leaving the biting cold on my bare shoulders. The Arch-fiends all screeched together in frustration. The sound of swords leaving sheathes and electricity jumping filled the air. Suddenly, I was blasted back into the snowdrifts by something. I landed roughly, finally opening my eyes again. Five people, their silhouettes moving too quickly in front of the damaged bus’s headlights. The eight arch-fiends were distracted. I took this opportunity, and took off into the snow-covered woods. In my current state, I didn’t care to notice that I was leaving footprints in the thick snow.
I ran. I ran harder and faster than I ever have. I had to get away. My world didn’t have arch-fiends! Buses weren’t filled with monsters! It just wasn’t feasible! I must be dreaming, I must be dreaming! I ran faster, trying to wake up. I never looked back, because I knew that my nightmare would be chasing me. If I didn’t look back, it wouldn’t catch up to me! It wouldn’t! Not even when oddly familiar voices called for me to stop, to wait. I ran and ran until my muscles stopped responding the way they should. They stopped altogether after a while, and I fell into a snow-covered thicket, shuddering from the cold. I looked at my hands. They were grayish blue, the color extending up my arms. I tried to move. Moving always wards away hypothermia. I could not. I tried to scream, but my voice shook from the shivering I couldn’t control.
It seemed like an eternity. The snow fell harder. I started to lose the feeling in my hands and feet. Another eternity passed. It was hard to keep my eyes open. As time passed, I began to be less scared. I felt like I was going to be okay going to sleep in this snowy thicket, which didn’t seem so cold anymore. I closed my eyes, and smiled to myself. Just a little nap, I thought. It would all be okay. I would wake up from this dream in my own bed. As I shut my eyes, a tall, white figure appeared before me, running at me with an unnecessary sense of urgency. Sleep claimed me then.
Fin part One
