When Nicolas awoke, Ash was already awake.

  “About time,” they told him. “I was starting to think you died again.”

  “What time is it?” Nicolas groaned.

  “Almost one. You’re going to sleep past lunch if you don’t get up.” They set a plate on the little table beside the couch where Nicolas had slept. The plate had what looked like some kind of macaroni-type stuff.

  “Thanks,” Nicolas told them, sitting up on the couch, slowly tasting the unknown food. It tasted kind of like spaghetti.

  He felt like he just awoke from a dream, only to find out that everyone else remembered it, and it wasn’t a dream.

  This is real.

  “We better hurry if we want to get there before the rain,” Ash said, putting on a magenta rain-jacket.

  “Where are we going?” Nicolas asked, but remembered seconds later.

  “Your final resting place.”

  “I still don’t know what to make of this,” Nicolas mumbled.

  “Well then that makes two of us,” Ash replied, quoting what Nicolas had said the night before.

  He ate his food as quickly as he could, and once he was done, he put his socks and his shoes back onto his feet, and brushed his fingers through his hair, which was still frizzy with bed-head.

  Nicolas was glad his hair only came to his eyebrows, because he imagined it'd be a lot harder trying to get bed-head tangles out otherwise.

  “Alright,” he said after his hair was the way he thought it was supposed to look. “I think I'm ready.”

  He knew he was ready physically. The “I think” part was because he wasn't sure how mentally ready he was.

  ***

  It wasn’t raining, but the sky was gray with heavy clouds. Puddles scattered across the city as Nicolas and Ash walked along the sidewalk. Everything looked so familiar, and yet there was an intense sense of homesickness that hit Nicolas’ emotionally numb heart. It was like looking at the city he grew up in, only it was a photograph. A copy; like God took a giant Polaroid and snapped a replica of Portland, only to trap Nicolas inside.

  Nicolas followed Ash as they turned right, heading toward the cemetery where they buried Sam’s body; the place Nicolas had stood as the rain dripped down his hair, mixing with his tears and soaking the ground beneath him.

  Nicolas didn’t want to see Sam’s gravestone again, but he followed anyway as they entered the cemetery.

  The clouds were thinning in some places, but getting darker in others. Below them, the grass was soggy, and made squishing sounds as they walked through the grave stones, each with names on them.

  Janice Hope: 1965 - 2008

  Daniel Atwood: 2003 - 2022

  Mike Donald: 1999 - 2020

  Nicolas followed through the cemetery, weaving through the memorials of people he never knew, and never would. Then, they came to a set of two stones, side by side.

  Samuel Starwood: 2006 - 2028

  Nicolas Starwood: 2010 - 2028

  The world seemed to stop moving for a moment. Nicolas’ heart made one big beat, before stalling like an old, manual transmission engine.

  “See?” Ash’s voice barely made it into Nicolas’ ears.

  “I’m dead,” Nicolas breathed, though he didn’t hear his own voice. Here was his tombstone: And six feet under the dirt, lay the dead body of Nicolas Starwood.

  There was another thing written on the stone, something Nicolas didn’t see before in this shocked state.

  Forever rest in Peace.

  The word peace was underlined, and capitalized as if it were a place. Nicolas took a step closer, stepping on his own grave, placing his hand on the hard rock and sliding his fingers along the indented letters.

  Nicolas Starwood: Forever rest in Peace.

  A white noise surrounded Nicolas, and it took him a moment to realize that there was a wave of rain heading toward them.

  “We should find shelter somewhere,” Ash said as a single large drop hit their shoulder. Another large drop landed on Nicolas’ forehead, shattering onto his face.

  This story has been stolen from Royal Road. If you read it on Amazon, please report it

  “Agreed,” Nicolas replied. And as if on cue, the clouds gave out.

  At first, the rain seemed to avoid where they were standing in the cemetery, but their invincibility only lasted a short moment, and the large drops of water began hitting them like hail, echoing a loud applause across the stones that marked the buried dead bodies.

  “This way,” Nicolas grabbed Ash’s wrist, turning away from his own grave and running toward the park across the road, and the gazebo he hid in the day before.

  He was here last night, standing in the downpour without worrying about the water.

  When they made it to the wooden shelter, Nicolas let out a sigh. “I hate rain.” He sat down on one of the benches that went around in a circle.

  “Quit complaining, vampire boy,” Ash pulled the raincoat hood off their head. “It's just water.”

  “Vampire boy?!” Nicolas asked, pretending to be offended. “Where’d that come from?”

  “Vampires don't have reflections,” Ash explained with a smile.

  “So first I'm dead, now I'm a vampire?”

  “Maybe you were bitten by a bat before you died, and it kept you alive somehow.” Even though it was a joke, the theory actually almost made sense—a lot more than the idea that he was a whole different Nicolas.

  But that still didn't explain what the kako were, or how Ash acted like they were a normal part of life.

  The rain came on and off, sometimes pouring down, other times ‘spitting.’ The sky was a mix of gray and silver, the raindrops that fell from the edges of the gazebo seeming to almost sparkle like perfect, smooth beads of glass.

  “So, what now?” Nicolas asked.

  “I’m not sure.”

  They'd proven that, either they were both crazy, or neither of them were, and seeing Sam's grave made him feel like crying again.

  Nicolas wished that it’d been Sam passing through the mirror, into this strange copy of Portland. He wished Sam would’ve been alive again, he wished everything could go back to the way it was.

  He hated their dad's place; but he partially missed that feeling; that small bubble where it felt like maybe everything would be okay.

  But now that bubble had popped, and it was gone forever.

  The ambient sound of rain drops lightly tapping on the wooden roof of the gazebo were the only sounds for a while, until at last, Ash spoke, “I still can’t believe this is really happening.”

  “You’re not the one who just touched his own grave,” Nicolas laughed.

  “True, vampire boy.” They smiled. There were patches of blue appearing along the tree line as the wind blew the clouds across the sky, the rain slowing to an almost full-stop.

  “I need to buy some stuff. Might as well go now in case it starts raining again.”

  “Sounds good,” Nicolas agreed. He followed Ash out of the shelter, where the rain was falling in tiny drops so small that it was almost unnoticeable if they stayed moving. Above, the clouds were a mix of white, silver, and gray.

  "So, how long have these kako things been around?" Nicolas asked.

  "Probably since before humans came to exist," Ash replied. "As far as anyone's aware, they're immortal. There are stories of people killing them, but there's never been any evidence of that."

  “How many of them are there?”

  “Too many to count.” Ash answered these questions like they were obvious.

  They turned left, heading toward the mall where Nicolas and Ash used to spend the weekends.

  “So, what is it you're needing to get?” Nicolas asked, attempting to bring up a conversation.

  “Just some stuff for—” their reply was interrupted as someone ran into them, hard enough to send both Ash and the stranger onto the ground.

  “Watch it!” Ash hissed, though with more surprise than anger.

  “I’m sorry,” the stranger breathed in between gasps of breaths that suggested he’d been running for a while. His hair was longer than Nicolas’, almost fully covering one eye, the black hair dyed red at the tips. Nicolas thought about asking what he was running from, when it became obvious pretty quickly. Up ahead, he could see it. He could feel it.

  A kako.

  The stranger who'd ran into Ash turned to glance at the creature for a second, before continuing to run, frantically trying to get away from the demon.

  It looked human, only, it stared at them with hollow eyes as dark as coal, and six long, skinny tentacles that rose from its back, picking its body off the ground like a spider.

  Panic shot through Nicolas’ chest, blurring the world around him for a moment.

  It wasn't until Ash began running, that Nicolas followed, his heart either completely stopping or beating so fast he couldn't feel it humming in his chest like a helicopter. Ash crossed the street, and Nicolas followed closely behind, turning around to glance at the kako thing, though he couldn’t see it anymore with the buildings now in the way. But the unreal coldness suggested that it was still there, and with those long tentacles, trying to outrun it seemed like a death sentence.

  In the city around them, there were screams as the creature stormed through the street, but it didn't seem to be interested in hurting any of them.

  "There!" Ash shouted, grabbing Nicolas' arm and pulling him toward a railroad station, where a train was slowly starting to speed up as it left. It wasn't moving fast yet, but it was picking up speed quickly. "Hurry!"

  Nicolas was never a fast runner, but Ash was. They held onto his arm, pulling him toward the accelerating train.

  The sound of shattering glass made Nicolas turn his head, and his eyes made contact with the black eyes of the kako, standing on a blue car: Its windshield shattered from where one of the inhuman tentacles had impaled it. Even though the creature didn't have pupils (or if it did, they would be swallowing his whole eye), somehow Nicolas knew it was after him.

  It’s trying to kill me.

  The kako wasn't interested in causing chaos. It had completely ignored the street full of helpless citizens.

  It's after me.

  They ran wildly toward the train, cutting through a patch of grass and heading straight forward as fast as their feet could carry them.

  Then, something else caught Nicolas' attention, just up ahead.

  It was the boy who'd knocked into Ash seconds before the kako appeared.

  He was bolting for the train too; Nicolas could see him on the other side of the patch of green, running even faster than Ash. His T-Shirt, which was black with a light gray skull, made him look like a shadowy blur.

  The train was getting faster, but the black- and red-haired stranger was already at it, jumping onto the accelerating caboose, climbing over the guard rails and placing his feet on the other side. And moments later, Ash was there too. Once on the other side of the rail, they held their arm toward Nicolas.

  "Grab my hand!"

  Nicolas reached his arm out, but if he had to admit, their arms weren't long enough, and the train was already getting further away, outrunning Nicolas.

  "Hurry!"

  Nicolas thought if he ran any faster, he'd trip and face plant onto the railroad track. But he pushed himself past what seemed like his own limits: As it turns out, people's limits become a lot higher when they're being chased by demons.

  Nicolas reached out, his fingers only inches from Ash's as the train continued to accelerate.

  Then, his foot hit something; a medium-sized rock; the same size as the rock Ash had nicknamed Nicolas' gravestone, back at the crowhouse.

  The second his foot hit the stone, an eruption of pain blasted through his foot, and as the train hurtled down the track, and as the kako creature closed in behind them, Nicolas fell.

  Next up on Nicolas of Eirini:

  Nicolas and Ash have a close call with a supernatural creature, meeting a mysterious new boy along the way. But things are different in this strange place, and not everything is as it seems, as they find themselves in a place they aren't supposed to be.

  Meanwhile, Nicolas still questions what these strange monsters want with him.

  Will Nicolas, Ash and their new friend make it to safety? Will things ever feel normal again for Nicolas? Or will the kako find them first?

  Stay tuned, on Nicolas of Eirini, New Chapter every Monday!

  Also available in FULL on Paperback, just search for Nicolas of Eirini by Ellie Wallace on www.amazon.com