A/N: This is very different from than anything I’ve ever done before. This was inspired by a drabble that I read called “Sieve” by ReadyMachine on AO3. After reading that I got the idea for this fic and started writing immediately. It’s taken me awhile to get up because it is much different from my other fics, but I hope it’ll be just as good. There will smut in this series per usual, so stay tuned for that lol. Kay, that’s all I got, I will be posting Part 2 of Wrong Loves My Company next. 

Warning: None, I think.

Word Count: 2632

He dropped down from the sky. Like we all do, like we all did. I stood in the darkness hidden by the shadows of the trees. When he landed, he went threw the same bout of emotions just like we all do, like we all did:

Confusion- Looking up at the sky, looking at the Nematon, looking out into the forest, looking at the sky again.

Anger- Screaming endlessly at the sky, realising that where you are, isn’t where you were.

Denial- Sitting on the ground head cupped in your hand as you rock yourself back and forth, telling yourself to wake up. Just wake up!

We call them The Stages. They come in different orders every time. Some people hit denial first, before confusion sets in. Others only experience anger.

But how you react to The After is how you spend your time in The After. It determines if demons, or monsters, or(and only for the very best) Angels take you. But the game is not to let any of them take you, to be smart enough to know that here in the darkness is wrong. That it isn’t natural.

‘Only the weak get taken’ That’s what Ally says all the time.

She was the first person I met in the after. When I fell, she was watching me like I’m watching this boy. It was right after Stage 3(Denial), that I realized it. The inhumanness of this place. That even the trees seemed eerie, and not in an ‘this is a really late hour to be in the woods’ kind of way. When I bolted, she stopped me before I could hit the first row of cedars.

“Don’t run. Don’t make a sound.” She whispered, but somehow her tone was low and even.

She turned slowly, before walking equally as slowly into the darkness. I hesitated for only a moment, but steadily followed her. We seemed to have walked forever, but it could have just been a few minutes until we reached a clearing that overlooked something. It was too inky outside to see. She stopped, I was a few feet behind her, and she bent down to forest floor. The leaves beneath her boot crunched and I saw her body physically tense. She stilled for a long second before moving again. Soundlessly, she moved leaves out of the way. She found what she was looking for, I couldn’t see what, and pulled at it. She stood and turned only slightly looking over her shoulder and motioned me forward. She then faced forward again and dropped, descending into the earth through a square shaped hole in the ground.

My first instinct was to panic, to not trust this random girl from the trees and run. But I didn’t know where I was or what I was up against. So, I followed her.

The boy by the Nematon stood. He whipped his head left and then right. His face was alert, coherent even. I smiled, he was one of us as Ally would say. He stepped forward and began walking straight ahead to the trees in front of him. I moved from my watch, which was just to the right of him, and silently maneuvered through the trees until I was right where he would first enter the forest.

Even in the gloom, I could make out his features. Usually you couldn’t, but somehow I could see his hair poking this way and that, the maroon shirt hugging his body, and the light pants on his hips. But his eyes, I saw his eyes the second he fell. Once he was grounded, they seem to almost illuminate. I was captivated, and a little frightened if I was honest.

He was halfway to me, when I heard it. It was so faint I had to strain my ears to hear it. It was a dulled horn, like the kind they play in movies when a disaster is happening. It wasn’t like I heard with my ears, but in my head. It wasn’t a sound you couldn’t hear first day in The After, it’s something you become accustomed to after many night watching.

It would be here any second to claim him. Ally always says we can’t interfere when someone’s in the clearing. Only once they’ve hit Cedar Row, which is the first row of trees lining the edge of the forest. But, he was almost here and it would take him. This boy wasn’t weak, no way. Ally would murder me if I intercepted.

I looked up at the starless sky just beyond the boy and saw the dark matter emerging from it. Dark matter are blurs that find you and take you. They can be seen even when you’re surrounded in darkness. They’re darker than dark. They’re what we call demons of night.

The boy was oblivious to what was behind him. If I didn’t do something now, they’d take him. But if I did and failed, they’d take both of us. The dark matter touched down and were advancing on the boy. I looked from him to the dark matter and acted.

I ran out to the clearing. He wasn’t that far away, and his eyes widened when he saw me. He was scared I’m sure, but we didn’t have time for scared.

“Run.” I demanded looked over his shoulder.

I didn’t wait from to respond as I pulled on his shirt leading him into the forest. He must of looked back, because suddenly he was keeping pace with me. The trees were confusing at break, but impossible at night.

“Give me your hand.” I shouted as we moved through the trees. He wrapped his hand around my hand that was gripped on his shirt, and I let go of his shirt to take his hand.

He kept pace pretty well, although he stayed a few steps behind me. The groans of the blurs were audible now, loud enough to physically hear them. They reverberated off the trees.

“What the hell is that?” The boy yelled.

“Run.” I called out.

Our goal wasn’t to find the safe place, the goal was to get lost in the trees. Because if you were lost, so were they. The blurs didn’t want to be lost in the forest anymore then we did. But I knew these trees at break, but in the darkness I only knew to find somewhere to hide. I was lost in my own thoughts when the boy’s voice

“What’s is that?!” I looked up to see a looming grey light spreading across the forest in front of us. It was almost like a fog inching closer to us every second.

If you thought, we were safe. Think again. Grey is just as bad as the dark in The After. The grey is where the monsters lurk, where they hid, where they take you. Jasen, a man we rescued on a trek into the grey, said that they cage you up like you’re an animal, performing surgeries on you. They look at your insides like a clock, trying to figure out what makes you tick. Their goal is to make you like them, a monster. So they’d feed you other humans to see if you turn into a wendigo. Or set fire to you to see if you’ll turn to a hellhound. Torturing you until you succumbed or died, and they didn’t care which happened first.

With the grey in front of us and the blurs  behind us, I had nowhere to go but left or right. I knew from where we were in the clearing, and if we’d been running straight, that our safe haven was left so I switched gears turning left, pulling the boy along as I did.

They were gaining on us. The horrid stuttered growls of the blurs and the deafening white noise of the Grey combined to make the most frightening of sounds. I felt the boy’s hand grip tighter in mine, but remained his pace. I was worried that we might not make it. I didn’t have time to stop and survey my surroundings to conclude how far or close we were to our safe haven.

I wasn’t all that sure, that Ally would have the inkling to come looking for me. She was our leader and she had other things to do. She’s put me in charge of grabbing the Fallen, and she wouldn’t think twice if I came back a little late.

“There.” The boy shouted, his finger pointed at something ahead of us.

I shook the thoughts from my head, and followed his finger. Up head, in one of the large trees, was a hole. It was natural hole, something that’s been hollowed out over time in the After. It was our only chance, we had to hide and then when we were safe I could figure it out from there.

The pull of the chaos behind was catching up every second, so I picked up my pace without warning causing the boy to stumble slightly. He regained his balance just as we reached the hole in the tree stump. I stopped outside of it, quickly pushing the boy in first before squeezing in myself.

It was smaller than I would have imagined. The boy and I were sandwiched in chest to chest, our faces so close I could see the sweat trickling down his neck. The frightening sounds of the two advancing parties finally engulfed us. They were everywhere around us. Wails and screeching scratching noises, burned my ears. I’m positive they didn’t know we were here, they must’ve lost sight of us and knew we couldn’t have gone too far without them noticing. I felt the boy’s arms snake around me, and I leaned closer into him. We were both scared, the only difference being I knew what there was to be scared of.

In the midst of it all, I could hear people talking which was strange. I didn’t know there to be other people here.

“You’re supposed to stay on your side, Theo.” A silky smooth voice spoke.

I moved to look through a small sliver in the tree stump. The boy was still holding me and gripped tighter when I moved, making it much hard for me to fully see the figures just beyond the stump. For what I could see it was a girl and a boy. They stood facing opposite each other while the Blurs and the Grey swirled around them. I couldn’t make out any distinctive features, just the long black hair of the girl and the arrogant stance of the boy.

“When have I ever done what I’ve been told?” He chuckled.

The girl’s hair whipped around wildly as the Blurs and Grey searched for us.

“Besides,” this was the boy, Theo, talking. “I was after them first.”

“Maybe, but as soon as you past the birches they were mine.” Said the girl.

“I don’t remember that law being written.” Theo smirked, which I heard more than saw.

Suddenly, the Grey stopped moving, stopped advancing. It quickly snapped back to the girl as she allow it to surround her like a grey flame. I could see more of her now, but still not much. She was wearing what could only be described as a lawing cloth skirt and top. The top merely served to cover up her breast and nothing more. Her face and body were covered in white paint in odd designs all over, kind of like footballs wear. But the thing that both frightened and amazed me were her eyes. They were pure white and glowing, like tiny lights.

The Blurs followed suit, stopping their search of us and surrounding Theo. I wasn’t sure what was happening, they looked like they were about to fight but they both just stood there not saying a word and I feared they were listening for us.

“Leave now.” The girl said. “They are Mori now.”

“The hell they- ARG!” Theo shouted but was halted by a small strip of light at his feet.

The light began to cover the entire forest floor causing Theo to back further away as the light expanded. It was break, it was here we were finally safe. Theo turned without another word retreating away from the bright light, while the girl(Still with no name) simply looked over her shoulder lazily and then disappeared. The Grey seemed to envelope into her until she was completely gone like she’d never been there.

I looked up at the boy, who’d also been peeking through the slivers in the wood. His eyes were narrowed still trying to look for any trace of them.

“We can go.” I said in the silence the loomed around us.

My words startled the boy, which was to be expected. He removed his arm from around me a visible pink flushing his cheeks. “Okay.”

I pulled away from him, wedging myself back through the small opening of the stump. Out in the forest, the break was taking over. The break was like morning, but there was no real sun. But somehow, it still lite the After like any morning. If you made it past the Dark or even the Grey to see the break, you’d think you were still on the other side. But that was far from the truth.

“Can you tell me what the he’ll is going on now?” The boy said from behind me.

I smiled before turning to face him, deflecting his question. “I’m Maisie.”

The boy eyed me skeptically, but after what he’d just seen I wouldn’t trust if he didn’t. He wanted answers, but it wasn’t in my rank to give them to him.

“Let’s get back to SafeHaven and I’ll tell you everything.” I told him, seeing the it wouldn’t be that easy to subdue him.

“No! I want answers now.” He places his arms over his chest, and for a second I was reminded of a small child.

“I can not tell you right here, right now. You’ve trusted me this far, what’s stopping you now?” I wasn’t rude, or mean. Just matter of fact in my response.

He eyed me again, his piercing copper eyes looking over my face then down my body. I wasn’t used to that, we didn’t get many boys like him in the After. I blushed, biting my lip to stifle the grin threatening to protrude. I watched his eyes make their way, quickly, back up my body before stopping on my lips. I was still biting them and stopped almost immediately. He watched them for a few seconds before dropping his head.

“Fine, but as soon as we reach this “SafeHaven” you tell me.” He lifted his head and used air quotes to make his point.

“Cross my heart.” I promised raising one hand and placing the other over my heart, allowing a small smile to show through.

He smile back, and we looked at each other in calmed silence. Before I heard a branch snap in the distance behind me. I turned quickly, backing up slowly until I could feel the boy behind me as I scanned the woods. I pulled the small knife I kept in my boot out, aimed at the ready.

“You’ve had that the whole time!?” The boy exclaimed.

“Shhh.” I hushed him.

A few trees away, I saw a black boot behind a tree. The owner of said boot stepped out into my line of sight, and I was relieved to see-

“Allison?” The boy uttered from behind me.

Ally was off in the distance, but the look of shock was apparent even from this far. I whipped my head between the two of them, not understanding their acquaintance.

“Stiles?” She stuttered disillusioned.