Unreal City Read Online Free PDF

you’d be ready to abandon the laws that dictate your world in lieu of something more exciting or fantastic, but when you’re faced with it, I know from experience you’d give anything to go back to that safety. That ignorant time before the shift became a comfort that I longed for—that I burned for, like a parched throat in the desert.
    I stared as he blinked those eyes that looked so much like gemstones backlit by a flame. “Forgive my glibness. I know I shouldn’t tease,” he apologized.
    My shivering hand drew the light away from him for just a moment, and when I lifted it he was gone. The bottom of my stomach dropped out as I searched frantically around for him in the crevices, until a tickle of whiskers on the back of my neck signaled that he was right behind me. I cried out, the sound bouncing off the walls as I shuffled backward, deeper into the cave. His smile broadened, amused by my reaction.
    “I am a familiar spirit, and I’m here to serve you, Sarah Wilkes.”
    My mouth went dry. “How do you know my name?”
    “I’ve known you for a while, now. I’ve been around almost always, and I’ve heard your name from many mouths,” the familiar said, padding silently closer to me with those terrible eyes glinting from the light of my phone. His eyes hurt to look at, like staring at the sun for too long.
    “You’ve been following me? Why?” I demanded.
    “Why, I’ve just told you. I wish to serve you. Believe me, I mean you no harm. Now please, no more questions until I eat. I’m hungry— starving. I haven’t eaten for months…have some pity.” He looked kind of pathetic, his warped face twisting into a bedraggled expression of longing.
    My brow pinched as I tried to think of what to do. A sympathetic part of me really wanted to give him something, but I was afraid of what might happen if I did.
    “This is a trap, isn’t it? If I give you something, it’s gonna come with some messed up consequences, won’t it?” My voice still trembled, but I had started to regain my composure. Fascination was rapidly eclipsing my fright.
    “No. In fact, if you get me some food, I’ll give you something very special…something wondrous, ” the familiar hissed at me, his toothy jaws opening and making him look more cat-like.
    A strange experience flooded my head as he whispered the words. I had a vision —and I don’t mean that I saw anything with my eyes—but I could see it as clearly as if a film slide had folded over reality for a few seconds. I had knowledge of jewels hidden in the cavern all around me, glinting dully in the feeble light. They were unpolished, but thick and lustrous, and pulsed with their own luminesce. Yet as quickly as the echo of his words faded in my head, they too melted back into nothing.
    “How do I know you’re telling me the truth?” It was easily my biggest concern.
    “Because familiars cannot lie. It’s one of the inborn laws of our existence,” he said, as if this should be quite obvious.
    “There are others…like you? You have laws ? Tell me them….” I coaxed, my fascination heightening.
    “There are eleven others like me, so far as I know. As for laws…I cannot disobey a command from my master. I cannot tell anything that is not asked of me. I cannot take what is not given to me. I cannot enter where I am not invited…the list goes on. Now, please, I beg of you—mercy. Have mercy!” he yowled, pacing back and forth, so very catlike now.
    “What exactly will you give me?” I prodded further, and he hissed at me, his fangs bared and his eyes blazing, sending a shock through my heart.
    “ MERCY.”
    “All right, calm down!” I cried, fear rekindling in my chest. My shivering hands fumbled with the zipper on my bag and I fished frantically around inside until I found the granola bar I’d packed earlier that day for a snack. I tossed it to him gingerly, then my hands flew straight to my necklace and gripped. The familiar sniffed at the foil-wrapped