Through Glass: Episode Four Read Online Free PDF

panting, gasping in frantic breaths
that poured out of me.
    “ Lex!” Travis’s voice was a
yell of panic as it shot through the dark behind me. The fear, the
depth of it, sounding so unfamiliar that I jumped. The painful
tension that had grown through me rocked my joints
painfully.
    My eyes darted away from the now empty
darkness that stood before me as I looked toward the sound, seeing
only darkness before Travis bolted down the aisle toward me, his
eyes wild as he grabbed at me, his hands pressing awkwardly against
my body as if he was checking for injuries or weapons.
    The brightness of Travis’s light
pulsed through my head as I looked at him. The fear on his face was
as bright and apparent as I was sure mine was. The haunted look in
his eyes almost scared me. He looked at me like he had expected me
to be dead, the pale look on his face haunting as he
panted.
    “ Are you okay?” he asked as
he held me in front of him, his chest heaving. “I heard you
scream.”
    Had I screamed? I had felt like I was
going to, but I had never heard the sound.
    Not the sound of a scream.
    “ I heard clicks…” The words
were dead on my tongue, the look on Travis’s face making it clear
he hadn’t heard what I had.
    “ Lex?” he asked, his hands
shaking me a bit as his panic seemed to grow.
    “ I’m all right.” I could
barely get the words out, the fear that still raged through me
closing up my throat.
    The words didn’t seem to calm him,
however; he only swallowed, his Adam’s apple bobbing as he looked
away from me toward the light I still held in my hand.
    “ Your light is
out.”
    The words quaked through me as I
looked down to the now dead disk in my hand, the once warm light
cold against my fingers.
    It had obviously been out a
while.
    My heart thundered painfully as I
slowly turned, the pressurized fear that ruled me growing as I
faced the blackness behind me.
    The space where the shadow had
been.
    The expanse of space stretched before
me with nothing more than the dust covered relics of a once
pristine world.
    A world that, I was sure, was full of
more than just the Tar.

Chapter Three
     
    The fire sparked and flared as it ate
away at the old bookshelves and dining sets that we had
meticulously ripped apart and dragged from different corners of the
department store. The store that had once looked like an old,
untouched, relic; now looked just like everything else in the dark
world.
    Destroyed.
    Travis had carefully placed several
metal filing cabinets in a triangle, moving everything around it
away in the hopes of giving enough of a barrier that the flames
couldn’t spread over the dozens of dust covered mattresses we were
surrounded by. The makeshift fire pit had seemed like it wasn’t
going to be enough after we loaded it with shards of wood and
paper, but the stuff was so dry that it burned down to nothing
before Travis had finished arranging it. We kept loading and
organizing the wood and tinder until it built itself into a blaze,
leaving us with a low, simmering fire. The flames were still high
enough to illuminate everything around us, keeping us
safe.
    Or so was the belief I clung
to.
    I could still see the rolling movement
of the way that thing had moved. I could still feel the ice that
ran down my skin. It was enough to make everything feel dangerous,
not that anything was safe.
    I clung to the gun in my hand as I
stared into the flames, letting the bright red and yellow light
burn through me, my eyes aching. I felt the pain, felt the heat
that seemed so unfamiliar against my skin, but I didn’t look away.
I didn’t move closer to the shadows. I was almost too scared
to.
    Scared of what I would see.
    It was different than being afraid of
what was hidden behind doors, or afraid of monsters that would do
anything to kill you, to take you. This was the fear of the
unknown, and in a world ruled by creatures that were more myth that
anything else, it almost seemed silly.
    Yet it was there.
    I blinked my