Betrayal by Mayandree Michel

against one another. What felt like a blaze against my cheek, was hot enough to scorch metal. If I wasn’t a ghost right now, and had skin, I was certain I would have melted away into the car’s upholstery. My parents seemed totally unaffected, oblivious to the microwave we were sitting in. I turned in the direction of where the heat seemed to originate from as it gradually intensified.
    My eyes fell directly on the mysterious guy that had somehow been in two places at the same time. He stood about four feet away from the car door closest to where I sat. The heat seemed to radiate from his eyes which burned like glowing coals. I've seen eyes like that before, and shuddered remembering. The mysterious guy’s eyes were hungry like the wolves that haunted me every night for the last two weeks of my life. His expression took on a hideous gargoyle’s scowl, but some of the beauty still remained making his face ghastly like a disfigured angel’s face. But the longer I stared at him; his facial features became more twisted. The thick eyebrows that had once framed his handsome face were severely arched forming a unibrow that started at his hair line, and connected at the bridge of his pug nose and flared nostrils. His fleshy lips curled downward at either end, and contorted. His face looked like it hurt to look that revolting, dragon like. He glowered at me, and I gasped.
    Can he actually see me?
    Was he looking through me like a window, and at someone or something else? Instinctively, I turned around and examined what was directly behind me. Nothing, but pedestrians. He was definitely glaring at me with pure evil intentions. I felt the frantic urge to jump out of the car, right through the window, if I had to. He glided towards me as if on wheels, all the while never taking his glowing ruby eyes off me.
    As if on cue, my dad eased the car forward into traffic, directly behind the ambulance. By doing so, the gargoyle faced guy halted. I turned around, and faced him through the back window. His penetrating eyes fastened on mine as he watched our car wedge deeper into the steady flow of traffic. He drifted slowly down the street in the same direction our car headed, but stayed about a car’s length behind. He never broke his unwavering stare.
    Thinking for a split second that it was safe to, I allowed a sigh of relief to escape my lips. Then it happened, and I was proven wrong. Safety couldn’t be more out of reach. A current of fear shook through me as he appeared. Floating right outside the car window, he threw his head back so far that his neck should have snapped, but didn’t. Then he jerked his head forward with his mouth opened wider than any mouth could naturally stretch open. It looked as if his upper lip and lower lip were being pulled apart. He let out a malicious and deafening roar, causing my dad to nearly lose control of our car. My dad wasn’t the only driver who fought to regain control of their vehicle as pretty much every other car on the road swerved in every direction from the shock of the unexpected growl.
    Instantaneously, everyone strolling down the sidewalks as well as those who had returned to their shopping in the shops cupped their hands over their ears to ward of the piercing sound. The roar seemed to go on forever, drowning the residual raucous of the thunder. The earsplitting cry shattered every glass window on the main street into millions of pieces. Whether it was a car or shop window, a traffic light or vintage light post, every piece of glass was cracked or completely busted and blown out. It appeared as if a bomb loaded with enough C4 to wipe out ten city blocks had gone off.
    I braced myself, cringing in acute fear as I turned once again to face the gargoyle faced guy. Suddenly the shadows that hovered on the walls of the buildings directly behind the gruesome guy became indistinct shapes. The shadows seemed to come to life and slid off the building walls. They crept up as slow as molasses,