You're on your way home from the bar, the stars are out and ..

You're on your way home from the bar, the stars are out and so is the moon, but there's some slithers of shadowy cloud that slightly envelope the silhouette of the ghostly moon as you wander underneath the street lamps, subconsciously walking faster in between the weak lamps where the shadow gathers the most. Light gives safety.. but why? Only because it reveals what lurks there. So is it not worse to be in the light? If whatever lurks there is visible, does it not only give us a visual warning before we have to defend ourselves? You look at your watch. 11:53pm, you promised yourself you would leave earlier again but as per usual you get caught up in the atmosphere at the bar with your friends and you missed the last bus home. The grass lining the sidewalk is glistening with rain from earlier in the evening, but those clouds appear to be long gone. It's chilly, the alcohol kept you warm for the first five minutes after leaving but now your thin cotton shirt and jacket aren't really insulating against the frosty moonlight chill. It's at least another ten minutes until you will reach your front door and you're consciously aware that for the majority of that ten minutes the streetlights would cease and the darkness would take over. You pull out your phone... 4%? How did that happen? You think to yourself, you could have sworn it was at least 50% when you checked the time before leaving the bar. Was it the cold? had the battery finally given in? Your thoughts begin racing and you realise that you will also be very limited on how long you could use your phone torch and you were rapidly approaching the end of the road where the street lamps came to a stop, leaving a long rural road with absolutely no light. You quickly switch 'low battery' mode on and pop your phone in your trouser pocket and walk briskly towards the gloom. Even though you've never usually had any anxiety about walking by yourself at night, tonight was different. The cold October air was unmistakable and it was a crisp chill like no other and you didn't want to admit it felt.. 'spooky', but it certainly felt eerie. Summer was definitely a distant memory, the silhouettes of the trees against the moon were half stripped bare of their leaves and it felt natural to expect a bat or two to come flying out from the branches. You tell yourself to stop being stupid and that you're likely still very dr*nk so your reality is distorted. You need to stay focused and keep walking towards your destination, the faster you can get there the better. Plus, it was getting colder and colder it seems. You shiver and pull your jacket closed, trying to generate some warmth by rubbing your upper arms with your hands and blowing out a plume of hot air in front of you under the last street light. 'This is it' you say to yourself, almost psyching yourself up to be able to take the first step into at least half a mile of pitch darkness. Pulling out your phone, you discover it has since dropped to 3%, you take a gulp and hesitantly switch on the torch. It makes a pitiful beam of light on the road in front of you and you realise this entire time not a *single* car has passed you by. This route wasn't a busy one by any means, but it had never been this deserted before midnight. Shrugging it off, you start off walking and realise how intoxicated you still are after being blanketed by darkness. You feel suddenly a lot more disorientated even with the bleak torchlight but manage to regain some composure and continue down the road. it's a fairly straight road, just keep walking and you'll get there in no time, you've driven this road a million times in night and day, walking it can't be *that* bad. Putting one foot in front of the other, you try to keep focused by counting your steps, debating whether you'd actually consider asking a passing car for a lift if one happened to miraculously appear. The air is still, you can hear what sounds like distant crows and even the crack of branches, but put it down to a small animal like a fox or deer. It isn't uncommon to see them around here at night. However after about twenty counted steps this eerie feeling starts to build and no matter how much you try to shove it down you cannot seem to ignore it. The feeling inflates like a balloon and you start to glance around nervously, is this the alcohol again? In response, your pace quickens but you refrain from breaking into a run. I guess you equate that to making the 'fear real', and admitting that there might be something out there, so you end up just walking as fast as possible. The worst part is in the darkness, it's almost impossible to decipher how far you've travelled along the road, so you have no idea how far you have to go yet. It begins as a shuffling in the tree line. The long road is lined with thick forest with only a few farms with long drives away from the roads and you start to swing your phone torch along the tree line. Catching the light you see two white eyes for a split second before they disappear downwards, your eyes widen before you tell yourself it *had* to be a deer and that panicking would be unnecessary. That must've been what you'd been sensing, breathing a sigh of relief you turn your phone torch back to the road in front and carry on walking as fast as possible. Another twenty steps counted, you realise this feeling has not actually subsided. It's glaringly loud in your mind and you realise it's more towards the right hand of the road. It must be a herd of deer, they never usually travel alone, so you must be sensing more of them wandering through the forest trying to find somewhere to settle for the night, however the urge to shine the light over that way became overwhelming and after hearing an extremely loud branch crack on the forest floor in the same direction you reflectively lift up your phone and for a split second you catch another set of eyes, but your heart stops in that moment. They were fire red. Any last morsel of body warmth you may have had left from the walk up to this stage had now swiftly left the building, you literally feel your bl00d run cold. There is no rationalising this, there is no animal on this earth that had eyes like that. You had become frozen for a second as you tried to process this, even though the eyes disappeared, you suddenly get the urge to run. Turning on your heel, your phone torch switches off and your phone powers down, you're left in the dark and as you take your first few strides into the darkness you hear a voice. "Hey.." soft but deep.. a voice comes out from the darkness. You tell yourself you have to be imagining voices now and shake your head in disbelief. "Go away" you say into the darkness, almost in a jokey fashion like someone may do when they are worried their house might be haunted. Shouting into the darkness instills a defensive confidence. Half running and hoping in the right direction, you start to notice red flashes in the trees. So brief they looked like electrical flashes, you couldn't decipher them. Like the northern lights on fire. "That's not very nice of you.." the voice replied in a teasing tone. It didn't sound real, like it was inside your mind. You grasp your head in disbelief. Thinking you've truly gone insane, you trip up and fall in the dark, mildly injuring your ankle as you go, this is when you exclaim in pain as you hit the ground and rub your ankle which is seething with pain. Your head goes a bit white from feeling faint from the pain and then you slowly go to pull yourself up to carry on, remembering the reason why you were running in the first place, but as you look up a red glowing figure appears from the right hand side of the forest line and stands in front of you. She had fire red hair, similar to that of the depictions of medusa, but flames instead of snakes. She appeared to be .. dressed as a nurse? But what kind of nurse has half of the outfit cropped off and a skirt that doesn't even cover 20% of the ass cheek..? Why was she glowing with glassy skin that shone in the darkness? She caused you to pause your breath and you forgot to breathe in for a good few seconds. Was this who you saw in the darkness? Before you had a chance to say a word, she held out her hand to assist you to your feet and you at first refuse. She looks at you directly and her gaze seems to fill you with warmth in a way you can't explain and you almost feel like you slip into a haze. They are deep hazel with a fire behind them and it almost looks as though they're burning behind the irises. Finally taking her hand, she's extremely warm to the touch. When you stand to your feet, you realise the pain in your ankle again and the haze almost shatters until she puts a gentle finger to your lips and bends down to the ground by your feet. Gently holding your injured ankle, somehow, in the darkness, she generates this fire energy from her hands that envelopes the pain with a second of intense heat and then.. the pain was gone. Instantly. Your eyes widen.. "how did you do that?! what is your name.. what are y-you?" you start to stutter. "So you're not even going to say thank you!?" She rolls her auburn eyes back and smirks. "You humans never know how to be grateful, they teach you that good and proper in hell though" the animated look in her eyes grew wide and her smirk bigger. "T-thank you.." you stutter again, completely unable to process what is happening right now, looking down the road trying to wonder which way is which. "My name is Pandora, by the way." She leans forward and kisses your cheek, leaving what can only be described as a fiery hot feeling where her lips had left your skin. You lift your hand to the spot and she laughs. "Sorry about that, I always forget you can feel my inner demon when I touch you at first, its been a while.." She takes your hand and leads you into the darkness. "Lets get you home." She says.