by Navi' Robins
What was the point of even having a contest if it wasn’t about winning? I understood the whole journey of getting to the win, winning with integrity and sportsmanship, but at the end of the day the goal was getting the big “W.” If winning wasn’t so important then practice wouldn’t matter, sportsmanship and integrity wouldn’t matter. We would just be thrown about doing whatever and not caring about the outcome. But that was not why we were in this contest. We were playing and fighting to win, not to lose. I understood his reason for saying it, but I just didn’t believe in it.
Even though I’d been to Soldier’s Field countless times that year, playing on that field was totally different from watching a game there. Things seemed bigger and more intense, and the view from the field into the stands was breathtaking. I felt like a gladiator in an ancient Roman arena engaged in mortal combat with a formidable adversary. And make no mistakes, our competition came to win. The stadium was almost filled to capacity and the noise from the crowd was insane. I thought our small high school field was loud, it was but a whisper compared to Soldier’s Field.
Both teams were represented equally and every play brought either boos from the opposing side’s fans or cheers. It was very cold that day and the wind coming off Lake Michigan made it worse. This was a hostile environment to play in and it made each play more important to execute because there might not be a second chance.
By the fourth quarter our opposition was up by a touchdown, and Brian’s arm was tired. He had thrown for over four hundred yards and four touchdowns and I could tell by his body language that throwing more passes in the fourth quarter would be a problem for him, but Brian was a true warrior on the field. He never complained or whined; he just played the game. Say what you want about his off-field antics, but when it came to his playing on the field he was a joy to watch. In the huddle I looked at Brian and the rest of the team and said, “I think it’s time to run this ball down their throats.”
Coach had been calling passing plays for the majority of the game, to keep up with the high-powered offense we faced. But just like us, their defense was tired and I could see it…I, on the other hand, felt like a million bucks. The energy from the crowd was feeding me like an IV filled with super juice or something. Some of the team protested, warning me and Brian about how Coach didn’t like us calling our own plays in the huddle or at the line of scrimmage.
“Is the coach out here or are we out here?” I asked.
“We are,” they responded in unison.
“Look at them over there, they are tired and that defensive line has been worn down trying to sack Brian all game. They still have a lot of energy, but we need to give Brian’s arm time to rest for the final minutes of this quarter, we are down a touchdown, and I am not looking forward to going into overtime out here in this godforsaken weather.” They all shook their heads in agreement.
“We came to win, not take second place and walk away saying maybe next year. We have to play like next year isn’t coming, like next time won’t come around. We have to win today, right now!”
Brian looked at me while I was talking, and nodded his head in agreement. I could tell in his eyes he was ready to do whatever I said out there…he trusted me and because he trusted me the rest of the team did as well. We all moved towards the line of scrimmage for the next play and from the look on their faces they were not prepared for what we had in store. Big mistake on their part, very big mistake.
CHAPTER TWELVE
Confetti, horns, music, fireworks, screams of defeat, and tears of triumph. This was just a small portion of the chaos that erupted on the field while the Governor of Illinois handed our coach the state championship trophy. I was standing there with the game ball in hand, voted high school player of the year and MVP of the championship game. I rushed for 110 yards in the final quarter alone and rushed for four touchdowns. Brian didn’t have to throw another ball the entire quarter. Final score wasn’t even close at 58 to 34. The other team was taken by surprise that we would run the ball while we were down a touchdown, and both coaches were open-jawed the entire quarter watching us tear into the defense over and over again.
It was a glorious win and solidified our claim to the top spot in the state and hopefully the nation. We were gods of Olympus that day and no one or anything could bring us down.
It took about two hours after the game for us to get out of Soldier’s Field and on our way home. From the fans and interviews, it was madness and impossible to leave. The team headed back to the school for a meeting with Coach Towers, and Sarah asked if she could tag along with me. I was on cloud nine so it didn’t matter to me because a lot of the students decided to go back to the school to celebrate with us on school grounds. Of course it wasn’t supposed to happen but the school board was okay with it because of the big win today. After the meeting I decided to head straight home to celebrate with the family and also watch our game on TV. My mom set the DVR to record the game on ESPN 2 so we could watch it again later that night. I was anxious to see how I looked on camera and how awesome I was in the fourth quarter.
When I got home Jason and my mom were in the kitchen laughing and joking around. They ordered pizza earlier and it must have just arrived because it was still piping hot. Watching them together brought a smile to my face, and a warm feeling vibrated through my body. This is what a family is supposed to feel like; safe, warm, inviting, and fun. I quietly sat on one of the stools and began to dig into the pizza…boy, was I hungry.
“Great game today, Aiden,” congratulated Jason. “You were incredible out there, and to do all that in the final quarter was something amazing. Where did you get all that extra energy from?”
“I don’t know, really, I just had it and wanted to win, so…I took care of business.”
“Yes, you did,” my mom agreed.
“I saw a few scouts out there today and I can assure you if you apply yourself, the NFL will be waiting with open arms. You could become a hall of famer one day. But it takes work and you have to be focused and consistent with a great work ethic.”
“Yeah, I know. After today’s game I see exactly how focused I have to be because, even though I had a monster fourth quarter, that game wasn’t easy; we just caught them off guard and they were too tired to respond.”
“True,” agreed Jason. “Whatever you need I am here for you, Aiden, just let me know.”
After eating until I was nearly bursting, I looked around and noticed Sarah wasn’t home.
“Mom, where’s Sarah?”
“Oh, she said she got held up but she’s on her way home now. She called me about ten minutes ago letting me know Tony is dropping her off.”
“Tony?”
“Yeah, go figure, huh…By the way, why doesn’t Tony come over anymore?” my mom asked.
“Are you two…umm…what do you guys call it these days…oh, beefing,” said Jason. “They call it beefing now.
“Yeah, are you two beefing?”
An awkward silence followed the question that caused an uneasy feeling to come over the kitchen. I wasn’t even going to try to answer that question with the truth and lying was out of the question so my only option was to pretend the question didn’t exist. And just before things got really weird I heard the front door swing open. It was Sarah and for the first time I was grateful for her presence.
“Mom…Mom, I need to talk to you” Sarah said.
Sarah sounded strange—her voice was anxious and subdued which was very uncharacteristic of a girl so confident and defiant. She sounded scared; worse yet, terrified and unsure. I could hear her voice shaking as she spoke. The first thing that ran through my mind was that Tony did something to her on the way home. If he did anything to my sister, I will kill him, I thought. I turned to face her as she walked towards the kitchen, I needed to get a look at her and her condition. I was scared because whatever it was that shook her up, from the sound of her voice it seemed she would never be the same again.
She had scratches on her fa
ce and a bloody nose. Her shirt was bloody and torn at the sleeves. Her knuckles were bruised from punching something or someone. She looked like she’d been in the toughest fight of her life. Through all the martial arts tournaments we participated in, she never came out of them looking the way she did now and she’d been in some tough scrapes before. My heart started pounding in my chest and I felt a sick and icky feeling build up in my throat. I kept saying to myself “please don’t let this be rape” over and over again. No matter how annoying Sarah was, she was my kid sister and no one had the right to put their hands on her. A fight would be bad, but a sexual assault would be devastating.
“Sarah, what happened to you!” my mom screamed as we both ran over to her.
“Baby, are you okay? Who did this to you? What happened?”
Sarah grabbed my mom and started grasping on her clothes, sobbing uncontrollably.
“Please tell me you are okay…please!” my mom kept pleading.
I started to see tears roll down her eyes while she kept whispering “my baby, my baby.” I was holding Sarah’s hand and looking her over for signs of what kind of assault this was.
“Baby, tell me what happened, please.”
After a long silence that seemed to last forever Sarah loosened her grip from my mom, inhaled, and said that she got into a fight with Jasmine.
“What! Who’s Jasmine?” my mom asked looking over at me for answers.
If anyone in this house knew who Jasmine was it would be me. She was evil, and something bad was living inside her soul, and now since she couldn’t get to me anymore, she decided to attack my sister. Tony, the suits, the police, or God himself was not going to stop me from doing some serious damage to her bodily functions. This was the last straw.
“Why were you two fighting?” my mom continued to probe Sarah.
“She said something very mean and crazy about Jason, and I got so mad that I hit her and then we started fighting. But that’s not what’s wrong. She did something else to me.”
“ What did she do?”
“I don’t know…during the fight, she held me down on the floor and placed two fingers on my forehead and said…
‘AWAKE!’”
An icy chill traveled through my entire body at the sound of the word echoing through the air, but it wasn’t the word that startled me, it was who said it. The word “awake” came out of Jason’s mouth first and then Sarah whispered it. But it wasn’t just the word that turned my blood into ice water; it was also the way Jason said it that was alarming. He always spoke in a very calm and melodic tone but when he said “awake” it was like another person said it. His voice was loud, aggressive, and filled with hate.
“How did you know?” Sarah asked while peeking over my mom’s shoulder to look at Jason.
The scream that came from Sarah’s mouth sent sharp vibrations and more chills up my spine. I noticed my mom tensing up and looking at Sarah, trying to figure out what was wrong with her. There was a look of terror on her face that I’d never seen before, like she was looking at her own death unfold right in front of her, a menacing horror that was just an arm’s length away, but how could this be? She was looking directly at Jason. I slowly turned to see what scared my sister and what I saw was a sight I would never forget for the rest of my life.
Standing where Jason should have been was a dark entity, formless like a smoky mist one second and then taking the form of a faceless cloaked figure the next. I would be lying if I said this entity was foreign to me because it looked exactly like the things that were torturing my father in the dark vision I had on the night of my birthday. But that was a nightmare, this was actually happening and every hair on my body was standing straight up and the nerves on the back of my neck were vibrating so fast that it hurt. Tears began to fill in my eyes from the fear of looking at something so menacing and evil.
There was a creepy and ominous sound coming from the entity and it caused a whirlwind of terror to blow through our kitchen. It sounded like people screaming and wailing from some unseen torture or hellish reality. When the mist took shape again I could make out talons that had to be at least twelve inches long where its hands should of been; they seemed to glow with a neon-white light that made them appear transparent. There seemed to be something alive inside of them, moving like tiny worms of light. I swallowed hard thinking about what those things would do inside the human body if someone was unfortunate enough to get attacked and wounded by this thing’s talons. Suddenly the lights above the island started flickering and exploding one by one, spewing glass shards all over the kitchen. The sound of the lights exploding caused my mom to scream and turn around to see what was shattering in her kitchen. Before that moment my Mom hadn’t turned around to face the island or this “thing” that had invaded our kitchen. She was still on her knees holding Sara in her arms. At the sight of the entity, my mom started shaking uncontrollably while picking Sara up off the floor. Sarah was wailing, asking our mom, “What is that?”
I was expecting to see the look of a fish out of water in my mother’s eyes. A look that would show me she was unfamiliar and unequipped to answer Sarah’s question but to my surprise and horror it appeared she was well aware of what this thing was and just like me; this wasn’t her first time seeing something this horrifying. And it was that look that made me very afraid because I could tell she knew exactly what it was and she was more terrified than either of us. Meaning “we were royally screwed”.
It suddenly began screeching at a pitch so high it caused us to cover our ears to stop the head shattering pain the was now vibrating in our skulls. Sarah was screaming to the top of her lungs and we were all frozen with fear. We were paralyzed by fear, helpless to do anything but stand there in terror as this nameless horror filled our home with demonic sounds that seemed to pour out of its faceless form. The screeching slowly started to lose its volume and pitch until it started making a humming sound and then it spoke. Its voice was the sound of multiple voices in different tones slightly out of timing with each other, trying to speak while inhaling. It was also hissing as it began to form words from the dark void that should have been its face. The sound of it trying to speak was even more terrifying than its appearance.
“I am your ending.”
Those four words sent shards of fear through all of us as we jumped and took a step back.
“I am Lalartu and I have been sent by Alal to feast upon your fear and scatter your flesh until your bones are bare and the walls are weeping red with the stain of your blood.”
“Oh God, no!” my mom screamed and grabbed my arm, pulling me away from the kitchen towards the back door.
“Run,” she grunted at me.
I tried to run, but my legs felt weak and heavy as if something was pulling me down and back, making every step I took seem like I was sliding backwards. The more energy I expelled the harder it was for me to move. It was terrifying because I refused to look back to see if that thing was getting closer. My mom was holding Sarah while pulling my arm but we weren’t moving fast enough and I could tell my mom was feeling the same way I was; anchored and exhausted. But she kept running and when I looked towards the back of the house the hallway seemed so long and the door seemed so small like the back door was a mile away. I was covered in sweat and my mom’s grip on my arm started slipping. But she refused to let go and I suddenly felt her fingernails dig into my arm to get a better grip. I gritted my teeth from the pain but refused to let out one sound. The house was completely dark now and I didn’t want this thing to find me in the darkness.
The pounding of our feet on the hardwood floors seemed to echo throughout the house, giving away our exact location to this evil being apparently sent to murder us. Sarah was still crying in my mom’s arms and my mom was slowing down, so I began pushing her. The added weight of her and the hardship we had trying to move was almost too much to handle. My legs were dripping with sweat and shaking like wooden stilts with too much weight on them. I was afraid my knees were goin
g to shatter from the weight, but I kept pushing; still refusing to look behind me for fear of seeing those talons slashing across the darkness emitting the only light in the black void that was now our home. I suddenly felt light-headed and started choking. The air I inhaled was burning my throat and my insides felt like they were on fire.
“Mom, keep moving,” I pleaded and then suddenly we ran into the back door. It just seemed like the door was over a mile away and now we were slamming up against its hard exterior. What kind of illusions was this evil capable of? I began to realize that if this thing could manipulate our perception of reality, then what else was it capable of? My mom was fighting with the door locks, and from the corner of my eye I saw the glow of the talons moving through the darkness, the glow was beautiful and almost hypnotizing as it floated closer towards my mom’s…
“Mom, move!” I screamed and pushed her head away just before the talons ripped through the back door, shattering wood and metal everywhere. The door was oak with a steel interior for security, and those talons went through that door like a scalpel through flesh. We were all on the floor now, scrambling, trying to get away from the door. The entity was still swiping at it, tearing it to pieces while it hissed and screeched in enjoyment at the destruction it was creating.
“Upstairs! We have to get upstairs to my room and call 911,” my mom said.
It seemed that while the entity was occupied with the door, its spell of illusion on us was gone, so we quietly and quickly made for the stairs. Halfway up the stairs the sounds of the entity screeching and the destruction of our back door stopped. The sudden silence stopped us in our tracks as we tried to listen to where this thing could be. After about five seconds my mom grabbed my arm signaling me to follow her upstairs.
I started moving slowly up the stairs still straining my ears to listen for anything but all I got was silence. My muscles were exhausted from shaking with fear and I could barely keep a firm foothold on the steps in front of me. As I started moving my leg up to reach for the next step the wood bent under my weight and let out a slight but clear squeak as the wood protested at the added weight. I gritted my teeth as the sound of the squeaky step echoed throughout the house. Never before had this step made one peep in all the years we’d been living in this house and tonight, when we were fleeing from a force beyond our comprehension this step decided to betray me. At that moment I vowed if we got out of this alive I would be replacing and burning this squeaky step the first chance I got.