A Stroke Of Originality

Patrick opened his eyes to darkness.

“Hello?” he called out.

No one answered, but he could hear squawking in the distance.

“Hello?” he called again.

Still, no one replied.

“I can hear you over there!”

The noise stopped, and Patrick started to worry as his heart kicked into another gear.

“This isn’t funny!” he assured.

Suddenly, something started glowing in the distance. It was followed by other glowing objects. They slowly began getting closer to Patrick, startling him. Walking backward, he could hear snarling coming from the bright objects, but they started blinking, and that’s when he realized they were eyes. Turning around, Patrick went into a full sprint, fleeing away from the prying eyes. He turned around and slowed his pace as he couldn’t see the eyes anymore. While taking his breather, the eyes appeared one by one surrounding him.

“I don’t want any trouble. I just want to know how to get out of here.” Patrick pleaded.

“Look at what we have here, boys.” a voice spoke from the shadows.

“A snack. Ha!” another voice conceded.

“Me? No, I’m terrible food. You don’t want to eat me.” Patrick stated as he held his hands up.

One pair of eyes started coming closer to Patrick, and he could finally get a good look at the creature. A dark body and glowing green eyes. It stood on four legs at about five feet tall.

“Looks like you’re all alone here, human.” The creature said as he got within breathing range of Patrick.

Patrick closed his eyes as his body shook, full of fear.

“Please, I’m just trying to leave.” he pled.

“Oh, is that right? You shouldn’t have come if you just wanted to leave…” The creature stopped and started sniffing around.

Patrick opened his eyes to see what got the attention of the creature. It appeared something got all of their attention as they sniffed around, not paying attention to him anymore. He used this distraction and tried to flee again, but the moment he started running, the creature turned his attention back towards him.

“Oh, where do you think you’re going to my new snack.” The beast snickered.

As Patrick turned around, he ran into something that stopped him in his tracks. He looked and touched about, but couldn’t tell what it was he was feeling. A firm hand touched his shoulder, nearly sending him into shock. Patrick hesitantly looked up and noticed a pair of glowing eyes looking back at him.

“Stand still, I’ll take care of them.” The creature said as he removed his hand.

Although Patrick wanted to run as fast as he could until he couldn’t anymore, his body was frozen solid with fear.

“Natti, leave the human with me or face sudden death.”

“Ha. Ha. Here you go making demands again, Colrath.” She replied. “Now I say there’s ten of us to one of you. With those odds, I think I’ll be calling the shots, and you can either choose to step aside and let us eat or stand in front of us and die.” she snarled.

Colrath looked back and forth between the human and Natti. Finally, he stepped aside and lowered his head.

“About time, you’ve come to your senses,” Natti spoke as she nodded for one of her minions to attack the human.

A beast stepped forward and leaped at Patrick, who nearly fainted with fear. Colrath summoned a massive glowing scythe and cut the beasts head from its body. Natti let out a deafening howl and signaled for her followers to attack Colrath. With grace, Colrath moved quickly between the beasts ending them one by one until they stopped coming. Natti looked around at her fleeing companions and fluttered with anger.

“Colrath, I swear to you. The next time we meet, I will kill you myself!” she fumed as she turned around and joined her companions in fleeing.

A light appeared in the sky, revealing Colraths appearance. Patrick gazed upon him and could’ve sworn he was an angel.

“Look like it’s your time to return.” Colrath smiled.

“Return where?” Patrick questioned.

“You’ll find out when you get there, and trust me. It’s a much better place than this.” He laughed. “Just hold still, would ya?”

Patrick was confused as he watched Colrath spin in scythe in circles.

“Goodbye,” he muttered as he whacked Patrick with the back of his scythe.

“Ma’am! Its a boy!” the doctor said.

The doctor handed the boy over to its mother, who embraced him with open arms.

“What’s his name going to be?” The doc asked.

“Patrick,”