Mythical World - Gordan's Story

Introduction

Gordan’s POV

The pain, I could feel it pulse through my veins as my form remained on the cold, wet ground. Is this how my life would end? As rain poured down on my body, I could see my shredded book pages sink into the mud around me, even my glasses appeared to vanish into the muck with only a small portion being revealed in the open. Blood drenched my outfit and skin from deep wounds that were placed on my arm and shoulder, my cheek had a small, deep gash across it, I could feel the searing pain from the injuries. My vision peared forward towards the furry, large mass in front of me, a mass with two red, glowing eyes that stared down with its sharp teeth bared. My heart continuously pounded in my chest, this was it, at least that’s what it felt like as my vision started to fade. All that I could hear afterwards was the low growling of the beast and eventually, silence.

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Mythical World - Gordan’s Story

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-One Day Earlier-

The early morning sun peered through my window that day, just like any other normal day where the sky was clear and the birds were chirping ever so happily. The light from the sun managed to stir me awake from my slumber, allowing my eyelids to slowly crack open as a groan escaped my lips. My alarm beeped ever so loudly, oh how such a sound frustrated me. I reached my arm out and slammed my hand down on one of the buttons, causing it to cease its annoying noise to only silence. My brown eyes looked about and with a yawn, I stretched out my arms and moved myself into a sitting position on my bed. Next to me, I could feel some shifting and eventually, a yawn from someone else. I glanced over just to see my girlfriend, Angela, who had stayed over for the night to see me off for work. She opened her sky blue eyes to look at me and she emitted a soft chuckle.

“Morning, already? I was just getting comfortable.” she moved her arms out and wrapped them around my waist. I moved my left hand to touch her softly on the head, allowing my fingers to go softly through her black hair. Of course, having her company around did help, even if for only a few days a week, it did offer some form of comfort, after all, my job was sometimes less than pleasant. 

“Well, stay comfortable then, I would hate to wake you any further.” I calmly said. She puffed a cheek out and then tightened her grip around my waist, huffing. Seeing her face like that made me laugh softly, I just couldn’t help it. As expected, once I pushed myself to my feet, she released her grip on my waist and threw a pillow at me playfully, making me grunt and smile as I was pushed forward slightly. 

“Agh! Alright, you do what you wish! I’m going to go and take a shower.” I replied, looking as she moved to her own feet. She moved her hand over and touched her clothes, taking them off of the floor as she walked across the room to prepare herself for the day. I moved to my dresser and threw my work clothes out, luckily, since I was a teacher, my clothes didn’t have to be too special. I just stuck with my usual brown attire with a tie, it was fitting enough for the job. Angela kept her gaze on me as she started to change into her clothes, I moved into the bathroom of my house and started up my shower. Steam slowly formed and, after checking the temperature with my hand, I stepped in. As the hot water ran down my body, I could feel myself relax. I leaned against the wall of the shower and heard Angela’s voice echo through the door. 

“Hey sweetie, I’ll go and get the newspaper, hopefully it’ll give you something to read during break.” 

“Eh? Thank you, go ahead and put it in one of my folders, I’ll check it out.” I replied, combing my hands through my hair which had been coated with shampoo. I heard some shuffling along with the sound of her humming, then the door slammed. I sighed a bit and turned off the shower after rinsing the shampoo out. It only took me a few minutes to place on my clothes and then, I had to be prepared for the day. I grabbed up all of my folders, sorted papers, and exited the bedroom after what felt like an hour. I arrived downstairs to be greeted by a paper bag full of food, my lunch, placed next to my keys and jacket. I glanced over at Angela who had placed herself down on my couch to watch television. She looked back and smiled warmly at me.

“Be safe today, I want you back in one piece. Those high schoolers are animals.” she said to me, crossing her leg over her other leg. 

“No worries, I can handle them, you know that I can.” 

“Then go get em’ sweetie.” she giggled and leaned back to rest herself some more. I grabbed all that I could into my hands and then moved out of the room. The door creaked open as I turned the handle and exited the house. The soft breeze pushed my brown locks about as I ventured towards my car, it was a rather peaceful day up to that point. 

-Thirty Minutes Later-

I quickly ventured into my classroom with haste, I was only a minute late due to traffic, I should have considered myself fortunate. Several teenagers laughed amongst themselves, some not even noticing my arrival. Those who did suddenly went quiet and some formed a worried expression, I could see it all over their faces. I placed my folders down on my desk, causing those who didn’t even notice me to shoot up in their seats. I wiped my forehead and looked around.

“My apologies to keep you waiting, class.” I said, clearing my throat. I gathered up all of their tests and placed them next to me. I gestured to one of my students to help hand them out, which they complied with and walked up, grabbing them all just to begin passing them out. One student tapped their pencil nervously on their desk, something seemed to feel off about the students, but I couldn’t figure it out exactly.

“How was your weekend?” I asked the class, but I only received silence in return until one kid spoke.

“Mr. Willow, Lindsey is gone.” he said, making me look around the class. This was true, she wasn’t present at her desk, but she could have just been sick.

“Ah, I see, so she is absent? Sick?” I asked, taking out the board to mark her down as such. Silence followed, but then, an uproar started among all of the class, startling me. I nearly dropped my pen and I stared at them all. 

“I heard she got attacked by a monster!”

“No, I heard they found her dead!”

“Monsters don’t exist, Jordan!” 

“Who said monsters don’t exist!?”

“Isn’t she just missing?!” The whole class exploded, causing my ears to ring. I kept my posture, but I could feel a sense of worry build inside of me. I glanced over at the empty seat and looked about the class once again.

    “Whoa, class! Hold on, what happened to her?!” I interrupted, trying to calm the situation down the best that I could. This was so sudden, I certainly never did expect this to occur. They were teenagers though, so all of these words could just be rumors, a student tends to miss class every once and awhile, right? The one boy raised his hand and then looked at me in the eyes.

    “You didn’t hear about it Mr. Willow? Lindsey went missing a couple days ago, didn’t you hear it on the news?” 

    “She was shredded and drained of blood, freaky right?! It’s like a zombie movie!” another boy joined in, seeming a bit freaked out.

    “Zombies?! Zombies don’t drink blood, that’s a vampire! They said she was only missing too! So don’t go making rumors like that!” a girl yelled, correcting the boy. This made no sense at all, I suppose I didn’t hear about this due to being occupied the last couple of days with Angela, a party with a friend of mine called Ritchy, and just the fact that I haven’t been around a proper radio station or television. I could feel my stomach twist a little, one of my students, missing? Perhaps I should have read the newspaper earlier. 

“Okay, okay, enough!” I yelled, causing the class to be silenced. I hated to be that person, but the class was getting wound up and I did, unfortunately, have to stay focused. I watched as the tests finished getting handed out. The class all looked at each other, some glanced at their tests and sighed. 

“I understand that the disappearance of one of your peers is quite worrisome, but you must keep your heads up. I’m sure that the law will take care of this issue and she will be found, for now, we must keep focused on the class.” I told them all, I then turned myself around and then grabbed some chalk, writing down the average test scores, future assignments, and more. While my exterior seemed calm and collected, worry continued to bubble up inside of me. What if more of my students started to vanish? As I would soon find out, this would only be the beginning of my worries. 

-Hours Later-

The moment that the school bell rang for the end of the day was the moment that I felt my form go more at ease, finally, I was able to look into the newspaper. I watched as my students all exited the room and listened for the door to close shut. I moved my hand down and then pulled the newspaper out which had still been curled up. The newspaper itself seemed to be of usual going-ons, such as a robbery, some obituaries, and advertisements, but on the back of the newspaper, I found an article. 

    “Lindsey Hite, seems like my students were correct about her missing status.” I mumbled to myself as I read it ever so carefully, just so I didn’t miss out on any details that might be noteworthy. Most of the article spoke about how law enforcement had been searching for her, but the most questionable detail was how short the article actually was, that and how it was on the back of the newspaper and not the front. I felt curiosity jolt my mind awake and I placed the newspaper back into my folder and picked up all of my belongings, I simply had some questioning to do, and I knew who to ask. After collecting everything, I made my way into the hallway, everyone was leaving and fast. I started to follow the students down the stairs and out of the school itself just to stop when I saw a few students surrounding a boy near his car, not far from my own. One of the students I recognized as being Lindsey’s friend, someone who always did hang around with her at lunch. Staring, I made my way towards my car and, once arriving, I unlocked the door. 

    “Listen, I don’t know where she is, for the last time! I haven’t seen her!” the boy yelled, catching my attention as I sat down in my car with my window down slightly. 

    “You’re her boyfriend! Don’t you dare act like you don’t know where she is! You were with her three days ago! I saw you, Jordie!” Lindsey’s friend replied. Well, this was getting interesting, I just couldn’t help myself but listen, maybe it would piece more together?

    “Ugh! Just stop! I’ve told you so many times and you refuse to listen, okay!? Just… stop!” he finally yelled, slamming his door shut. The girls all stood outside of his car, staring him down angrily and he backed up, leaving the parking lot quickly. I watched as the girl slammed her foot down and walked towards her own vehicle with her friends. So, that was Lindsey’s boyfriend? Maybe I could talk to him tomorrow if I ran into him, but for now, I just had to get home. 

-30 Minutes Later-

    I couldn’t stop thinking about everything that I had heard earlier, my mind continued to endlessly form ideas of what could have happened to my student, but I simply couldn’t let that get to me completely. As I pulled into my driveway, Angela’s car was still present, which made me quite happy to say the least. I exited my car and entered my house just to be greeted by the smell of baked cookies and a pleasant sigh from inside the kitchen.

    “Gordan? You’re home, how was work?” Angela yelled from the kitchen.

    “It was okay, just okay.” I sighed, sitting down on my couch with a grunt. I leaned back and went into a lying position. 

    “Are you okay, sweetie? You sound stressed.” 

    “No, well, yes.” I contradicted myself, rubbing my face. I couldn’t really cover it up, I was incredibly stressed out, my mind was racing about this stuff. As a teacher, I had to be concerned about my students, having one missing made me almost feel sick. I could see Angela’s shadow as she entered the room and, not really to my surprise, she crawled onto my form and placed her head down on my chest. Her eyes were closed as she embraced my form with her own.

    “Mind telling me what is stressing you?” she asked, rubbing her hand along my chest and collar bone. She stared into my eyes, I hated to make her feel too worried about me, but I also couldn’t keep this hidden.

    “One of my students is missing right now, a girl named Lindsey Hite, she’s 17 years old.” I told Angela, who quickly gained a saddened expression.

    “Oh my goodness, that’s horrible. I’m sure that the law will find her though.” 

“Are you sure?” 

“Absolutely! Just leave it to them, okay?” Angela smiled, damn that smile. I could feel a smile grow on my own face in response. She was very positive at this moment, I really needed that. I wrapped my arms around her and held her close to me. Angela gave me a soft kiss and then her eyes opened wide, as if she ended up getting spooked. 

“Oh! I forgot to tell you, Ritchy called earlier. He said that he was coming over tonight for a while, he said that you forgot something at his house.” Angela revealed, making my eyes widen, that’s it! Ritchy is a cop, so maybe he would know something more about this?

“Ah, yes, that’s great to hear too. It doesn’t surprise me that I forgot something.” I replied, rubbing my neck. She kissed my cheek and giggled to herself.

“This was about three hours ago, he said that it’d be after you get off of work, so I say he’ll be here in about five to fifteen minutes.” Angela explained, keeping her form on my own. At least I had someone more involved with the search to ask about all of this, this was honestly the best news that I could have heard all day. 

-Ten Minutes Later-

I was beginning to doze off after a few minutes of waiting. Angela’s form remained against my own with her arm wrapped over me. Her eyes were shut and her lips had formed a smile, soothing me. As soon as I closed my eyes, I heard a knock on my door followed by Ritchy’s voice. 

    “Hey, I know that you’re in there!” he said, laughing a bit as he continued to pound on the door. Angela lifted her head and squinted her eyes, then rolled off of me to go and answer the door. I leaned up and looked in her direction, Ritchy entered as soon as she unlocked the door. 

    “Man, you both look very tired! Maybe I should’ve picked a better time to come over.” Ritchy said. He must’ve noticed our rather blank expressions.

    “No, no, we’re alright. Gordan just had a rather stressful day, do you want something to drink?” Angela replied, yawning as she stretched her arms out. Ritchy tapped his chin and nodded, making Angela form a grin.

    “Then go and get it, you have arms and legs, Ritchy.” she teased, making Ritchy rub his face. I chuckled to myself at Angela’s teasing mannerisms and then sat up myself. 

    “Nah, I’m good, thanks.” Ritchy mumbled, then cracked a smile. His eyes then met mine and he walked over to me, gripping my shoulder with his hand tightly. I did jump slightly, his grip was really firm and I wasn’t expecting it, not now at least. 

    “Whoa, tense huh? Are you thinking about something again? You always get so jumpy.” Ritchy placed a hand on his hip, then tapped his foot. I stopped to think for a moment and then nodded.

    “Angela mentioned that I was stressed to you, so perhaps it would be best if I explained better.” I looked directly at the carpet beneath me.

    “Well, if you want to. What’s up?” 

    “I had heard that a girl went missing, one by the name of Lindsey Hite. She is one of my students, the whole school seems to have heard of her disappearance. You might know of this case, right? ” I told him, his expression seemed to go from curious to concerned. Ritchy moved his other hand to my couch and then cleared his throat. Angela walked closer to me and sat back down on the couch, holding my hand in an effort to calm me in a sense. I was thankful for that.

    “Yeah, I had heard about this case, especially where I work. I only know the small details, there’s not enough to really talk about. I wouldn’t worry, just continue working like you have been, I’m sure she’ll be found.” Ritchy replied, yet something felt off about how he replied, he spoke so quickly. 

    “Small details? Mind telling me what those are, Ritchy?”

    “Gordan, I can’t. I cannot tell you any details.”

    “Ritchy-” I stopped myself from talking as Ritchy’s facial expression twisted to become angered, or worried. I formed a frown and then leaned myself back again, Angela’s grip tightened on my hand. Ritchy sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose with his eyes shut. He desired to tell me, I could tell. We all sat in an awkward silence for a few minutes until he finally decided to speak up.

    “Okay, I know that I shouldn’t do this, but I will tell you something. Her relationship partner was the last person she was around before she disappeared. Here’s the issue with this situation, they went to his house and found nothing. This is all that I know, this case isn’t fully my own.” he explained. Hearing this made my heart hurt, but at least they had some sort of idea of where she could have been. I nodded and then looked up at Ritchy, he looked at his watch and then moved his hand into his pocket, taking out another pair of my reading glasses. 

    “Also, here, before I forget to give them to you. I have to get going, I have work tomorrow after all.” he said, holding my reading glasses out for me to take. I moved my arm out and grabbed them, noticing the several cuts on Ritchy’s hand, he must’ve been just as tired as myself. I nodded in understanding and watched as he moved to exit my house, he then left, leaving Angela and I alone. Although I felt as if I should allow this case to go on with the officers, I did have an idea forming in my head, an idea that I would execute tomorrow after the end of school. I did not mind some detective work after all. 

-The Next Day: Afternoon-

Today was the day that I would hopefully get some answers to my missing student issue. As my class ended, I made sure to have everything sorted out early so I could begin my investigating. I slid all of my folders into my bag and followed my students out the door. The hallway became cluttered, but I could see his blonde hair through the crowd as he stood at his locker, it was Jordie. Of course, asking someone about their personal life is quite intrusive, but this is something that had to be done. I moved my way towards him, we immediately caught sight of each other and he rushed to put his books into his backpack. He then placed his backpack onto his back and started to move down the hall, he was rushing around, but why?

    “Jordie!” I yelled, trying my best to reach him as he started to quickly walk away. Okay, it was obvious, the kid was hiding something. No matter what, nobody would have such an expression and would be running so fast by just the sight of me, I’m not even his teacher. I watched him take a turn down the stairs and I sighed, following behind him. The school was becoming more empty.

    “Jordie, I just need to ask you some questions about Lindsey!” I yelled, causing him to stop at the bottom floor. He stared up at me, his eyes were wide and he breathed in, forming a frown.

    “No, for the last time, I don’t know anything! Why is everyone still asking me stuff?!” he replied, his eyes seemed to become more fearful as I moved down the staircase towards him. 

    “Jordie, I have a friend who is an officer, I know that you were the last one seen with Lindsey.” I replied, I could see his hands shaking.

    “No, no, that’s not true, okay?! She-”

    “Jordie, unlike others, I can tell that you are hiding something.” I interrupted him, crossing my arms in reply to his own nervous attitude. From the sweat forming on his face, to the fearful frown, all of it proved something to me in some form. He grabbed his backpack strap tightly in his hand and he closed his eyes, looking down. 

    “You don’t even know me.” Jordie mumbled, continuing to walk away from me. I cleared my throat, crossing my arms.

    “No, but I know Lindsey, she is one of my students.” I said, he then paused, I finally got him. I walked towards him with a frown on my face.

    “Lindsey would talk about you quite often, I remember her talking to me one day about how she met you and that you would do anything for her. I’m not here to accuse you of anything, I just simply want answers. Lindsey was one of my best students and I am worried about her, I will not tell anyone what you say, I just need to get some answers and I can help find her.” I told him quietly, I could see his attitude change to become more relaxed. I guess all of the confrontation managed to bother the lad, that didn’t surprise me at all. He nervously looked around as the last few students managed to walk out the door and he moved closer to me.

    “F-Fine, but I want to talk somewhere private, okay?” he loosened his grip on his backpack. I could understand, talking out loud could draw unneeded attention and start rumors, I’m sure he didn’t desire any more rumors about him. He started to walk back up the stairs, doing so allowed me to unlock the door to my classroom and enter with him behind me. After a few minutes of silence, I locked the door for privacy and looked at him. He looked around, as if he was nervous to speak up, I didn’t blame him at all.

    “You are Mr.Willow, right?” he asked, I nodded and he sat down at a desk nearby. I wanted to be calm with him, I didn’t want him to feel like I was the enemy. He brushed his hair from his face and inhaled, as if preparing himself for what he was going to say.

    “I know where she is, she has been… sick.” he said, his voice cracked as he told me those words. That irked me, she has been missing, not sick, but hearing the first part also made me perk up.

    “I see, is it possible that I can see her?”

    “No! You don’t understand, she’s really sick!”

    “Child! Listen to me, her family is worried sick and so are her friends. The least that you could do is tell me where she is so I can help.” I demanded, catching him off guard. His eyes started to shake and tears started to form in his eyes.

    “I-I-”

    “You know this is true, so why are you keeping this from everyone? I can help smooth this out, I’ve been there for quite a bit of people in my life. Please, let me help you with her, I’m sure that the both of us together can help her, okay?” I told him. Something changed as soon as I said that, his eyes started to calm down greatly and he nodded to me. After a moment of silence, he took out his keys. 

    “Okay, I’ll show you where she is.”