A Terrible Decision

The alarm clock above the bedside rang with the usual deafening song, making a silent snort escape her lips.

Samantha had forgotten to pull the plug so as not to allow that thing to hit her eardrums, the night before. Yes, she used to do it because the lack of practicality with that hellish affair...

Speaking of hell...

The curtains in her room began to creak letting the daylight enter to illuminate the darkness to which she was accustomed.

She snarled in annoyance as a pair of teal eyes peeped and closed on a tall figure, with a pair of glasses and the harder facial expression of a marble statue.

The girl took the pillow with her right hand and turned on her side, allowing a flap of it to cover her ears and eyes.

Despite being well covered and hidden, she managed to sense the man to approach the alarm clock and click on its top to silence it.

And a voice reached her anyway, as if she was speaking directly to her ear and this made her nerves jump.

"Miss, it's time to wake up. I made you the usual coffee and pancakes with slices of strawberry and raspberry, on a bed of maple syrup."

She hated when they spoke as if they were fucking waiters in a five-star restaurant.

"It's Sunday, disappear!" Sam murmured, still covered by the pillow but sure that they had heard the same.

The pillow was gently removed from her head and hands, but still with enough force to drop her onto the mattress with all her weight.

The young woman rose on her elbows, casting a look of pure hatred towards the demon with glasses who had put the soft protection of soft cloth under his arm.

"If I'm not mistaken, you had planned to go for a run this morning after yesterday's dinner."

Samantha frowned, sitting up with her back against the headboard of the bed and ran her fingers through the tangle that had become her caramel hair during the night. She hoped with all herself that the makeup on her eyelashes had not spilled all over her face, but from the spots she could see on her pillow she was not supposed to be a good show.

"Don't throw things and programs in my face that I say just to make myself feel good, damn it..."

She brought her hands to her eyes, to erase embarrassing traces, and at the same time something was resting on her knees hidden by the gray and heavy blankets given the terribly harsh weather of London.

She turned around just in time to observe a flash of red eyes very close to her person but before she could slap him away, he was already retreating to the base of the bed.

In front of her, on a table, the food seemed to emanate a sweet aroma that asked to be bitten despite the thousand and thousand calories that governed. Her mouth watered but she sent it down as if it were a hard pill to swallow. She would not have given any satisfaction to those two.

She looked at them, statues at the foot of the bed as if they were really waiting for her order or comment. There, in their white shirts and black pants.

"You have no intention of leaving, huh?"

As an answer, only that usual cryptic and malicious smile came from both.

It all started four days earlier. It was a Wednesday like any other. Samantha had taken her morning coffee, dressed in the usual uniform with a black skirt and white shirt and had gone to work. Her apartment was located in the center of Westminster, in the small district where about 40 families stayed, but not more, and about 400 meters away from the underground.

She had a car, of course, but she was the kind of woman who preferred to save money by taking an annual subscription for public transport and avoiding, at least during the week, the terrible traffic that filled the streets of London.

By divine grace, that day it had decided not to rain and the brunette cursed the randomness for this.

At the end of the shift at the bank she worked for, she collected her things and said goodbye to all her colleagues. The bank was located in central London and wasn't very close to the tube station but still busy and viable enough to be reached.

Besides, it was also a beautiful day ... until...

Many passersby seemed to stop in front of an alley but, after being vaguely interested, they passed on. Intrigued, she approached and a noise of flapping wings and a loud croaking came to her ears.

It seemed as if a bird was stirring. Maybe he must have got caught in something.

The alley was dark so for this reason many left alone and went on their way but the young woman wasn't put off by this. She loved all animals except flying insects, she just couldn't stand them and thinking that maybe that bird could have stumbled into some trap made her heart squeeze.

She took her cell phone from her pocket and turned on the torch, to allow her to better see in the darkness and there, a few steps away from her, a black crow flapped its wings furiously.

She didn't identify anything that blocked it or forced it to the ground but it seemed irritated by something.

"Hey, shh, shh-" she tried to murmur, trying to get it back to the ground but suddenly, as if the light had momentarily blinded it, with a strong blow, something hit the crow and they both ended up against the wall sliding on the ground.

With a lump in her throat, Sam quickly advanced towards that point and pointed the flashlight at the two animals on the ground.

The crow had bruised wings with rivulets of blood that wet the ground and what appeared to be a bat even had one of the wings pierced.

"What am I doing now?" she asked herself, turning around again. She couldn't run out into the street and yell at someone to rescue beasts but she couldn't even abandon them there. She was sure that some wild cats would eat them at the first opportunity.

Samantha placed the torch away from there and near a garbage bin she managed to find an abandoned cardboard. It was dirty and even slightly wet on the sides but it would have been better than putting the two blood-filled creatures directly on her shirt. Then, she didn't know if they brought disease.

She grabbed it and went back to where they were collapsed and, with the help of a handkerchief, placed them inside the cardboard. Her phone signaled 6 pm and if she hadn't hurried, her area would have been packed with neighbors returning from work. Being seen with two potentially sick animals wouldn't have been an easy topic to avoid.

The journey home was quiet, London had seen oddities far more gradual than a woman carrying a dirty box.

When the bat woke up, it began to scratch the crow that croaked in response and, with a nervous tic, the woman screamed at them to stop. In addition to receiving disturbed looks from the passengers, what surprised her was that the two had started to stare at her and at the same time stopped poking at each other.

She entered the apartment in the most discreet way possible, avoiding to greet or meet someone and placed the box on the ground near the entrance door.

The two creatures watched her movements and suddenly that pair of yellow and red eyes began to upset her a lot.

She returned to them with two pieces of cloth he had made out of an old hole in the sheet and began to treat the crow first.

She passed a piece of wet paper on its wings but as soon as she came into contact with a wound, it croaked. Sam was about to let it fall out of fear that it would prick her with its beak but didn't venture anything like that.

She came to the conclusion that its wing was broken and that she couldn't do much without being practical. She cleaned it as carefully as possible and placed it gently in an empty shoe box along with the cloth, then returned to the bat.

That seemed like waiting for her, resting with its front and rear legs as it stared at her.

She lifted him by its hairy chest but beyond one of its clawless legs and pierced wings she could only put it in a small box surrounded by cloth.

In the end, she decided that she would take the animals to the vet before going to work the next day and they would take care of the situation.

Or so she thought...

When she woke up the next morning, she felt that something was wrong. More a feeling than a real conscience.

Sam got out of bed, carefully, intending to check the two creatures she had placed in the bathroom but when she reached the door that was already open.

She entered and in the makeshift kennels there was no trace of anything but the blood that had been left there.

As she closed the boxes, hoping that the animals had come out of the window and that they hadn't wandered around the house, the unmistakable sound of the gas being solicited was heard in the kitchen.

The blood froze in her veins.

Her ex-boyfriend no longer had the keys to the apartment and her parents would have warned of a possible surprise visit.

She left the bathroom and grabbed the collector's dagger her ex had left at home on the shelf in the hallway. She knew that one day, a weapon at hand would be useful.

The house keys were exactly where she had left them the day before, hung the small mirror above the shelf on the wall in front of its and swallowed loudly when she arrived in front of the door that separated the corridor from the kitchen.

Now the sound of cutlery and a pot on the fire was unmistakable.

What was she supposed to do? Calling the police seemed the obvious choice, but when Sam turned to grab the charging cell phone in the same spot on which the dagger lay, she found only the cable. The cell phone was gone.

She gripped the weapon tightly in her hands. She had goods in the house, things she cared about a lot and didn't want them to be taken away but she had no other choice. Maybe if she started screaming in the corridor that a thief had entered the house someone would have rushed, if only to put him on the run.

She glanced one last time at the kitchen and advanced towards the exit but when she tried to open the door it seemed to be blocked.

Samantha never stopped it. She feared that if she had to run out of the house for any problem, those few moments to look for the keys and open the lock would be fatal.

She raised a hand to grab the keys but failed.

Confused she turned her gaze to where they were supposed to be but found nothing in their place.

She opened her lips but immediately covered her mouth with her free hand to avoid that no sudden sound came out. She was sure she had seen them there moments before.

"Are you looking for these?"

Samantha turned suddenly and there, a few centimeters from her, a man was waving the keys of the door in the palm of his hand, a sharp grin on his fine lips.

The girl pushed against the door, trying to put as much distance as possible between her and the stranger and raised the knife in front of her stomach as if to protect herself.

His abnormally red eyes seemed to pierce her from side to side.

"W-What do you want from me? I have no money in the house, I swear!" she squeaked, letting her anxiety pour over her hands causing the knife to vibrate.

The man looked down at the weapon and raised an eyebrow. "But take a look, the kitten has claws."

He raised his hand to try to grab her but before they realized it, she pushed the knife against it, trying to stop his advance but he stopped the blade as if it were made of rubber. He squeezed it tight and pulled it from her hands with little difficulty, almost making her collide with his chest.

Taken aback by her advancement, Sam managed to escape from under his arms and ran to her room desperately looking for something that could protect her or contact someone.

"Now, now, don't you think the best solution is to play after a good breakfast?"

The man in the corridor was right in front of the door of the room, observing her as a cat observes a trapped mouse.

Not panicking, she felt the cold breeze of the London air pass through the pile of her pajamas. She had the window open, it would have been enough to come closer and scream, someone would surely have arrived ...

But just as she took a step, her back collided with what was surely a well-placed body.

She had checked the room, there was nobody there, there could be absolutely no one! And the man with the mocking grin was right in front of her!

She turned her head so as to observe a serious and square face with a pair of glasses that covered bloody yellow eyes.

Thieves and even madmen. How many were there still in there?

She tried to escape from the newcomer, turning around to reach the window but before she could scream, the man grabbed her by the arm and forced her against him placing a hand in front of her mouth.

She clawed at his arm, trying to hurt him as much as possible but that didn't seem to move in the least. Just as if she were a stupid butterfly in a spider's web.

Tears came to her eyes and she didn't bother to let them run down her cheeks and on his kidnapper's hand.

Distracted and desperate, she could not even notice that the red-eyed accomplice had bent over her and raised the blade right in front of his lips.

"You used so much discretion when you let us in, Miss, let's keep it, okay?"