Time

She woke up to the glare of a flashlight shining in her face and a hand clamped over her mouth. “Not a word. They’re close, now. And you’re just their type.”

Meher blinked as the ghoulish light of the bedside lamp flickered shut, and the fans clamped down its incessant low drone, her mind a tangle of vines and frothy thoughts. 

The lights had gone out again.

Sighing, she brushed the sticky bangs off her face and kicked the heavy woollen blanket on the floor with a tired thump. Meher refused to sleep, refused to give in to the dark monster urging her to its lulling hum of dreams. She didn't want to hear the voice again, she didn't want those warbling words to drift across flashlight beams and disturb her rare and well-needed sleep. 

Meher didn't want to look into those eyes, that light, that room; she didn't want to feel the guilt trickling in slow drops and pool in her gut. 

Meher wanted to forget, but sleep kept bringing those abject evocations of all that time ago. Minutes passed into long drawn hours, clock ticking in disciplined fumbling, and she almost missed the rustle and whistle of the night in her almost doze. Almost missed, that is.

Clutching the backside of her bedside lamp, armed with a pillow and a sense of ridiculousness, she looked out of the frost-stained glass window, snowflakes tittering across pointed leaves and the amber eyes of a cat nestled in the grass.

they were huge, with big pointed claws and beady eyes, clipping their jaws as they trailed across their Masters-the guardians.