CHAPTER SEVEN: GIVE ME A BREAK!

Rhea's POV

The next day, I woke up feeling tired. I couldn’t sleep till late into the night because of the excitement I felt. When I finally slept, I kept dreaming about Gods and powers.

As I thought of the events of the last night, I chose the path of denial. I decided that I should just blame my overactive imagination. Accepting myself as crazy was better than the alternative that was believing that mythical beings that should have stayed in just books and films existed in real life.

I could live as a crazy human, but I didn’t want to be a Goddess. I mean, I was the least Goddess like woman among all the ladies I had known in the last two years. I admit, I was pretty enough to be one though.

I laughed at my own joke and rolled my eyes. This was what would happen when you are alone with just your own company for too long. You would talk to yourself and laugh at your own jokes. Not to forget, you would start imagining Goddess friends popping up in your living room too. I was definitely in need of human company. 

I called my old roommate Gabriella on Skype. We gossiped and joked together for hours. She was excited to be back here the next month for our other roommate Gabriella’s wedding. We made plans for her staying in the house for a week before she had to go back to Seattle.

After the call, I felt a little more relaxed. I looked forward to having her back the next month.  Not that I didn't appreciate the company of Morris, but I really needed some human interaction in the house before I started imagining more Goddesses or worse, demons!

I remembered that I was supposed to meet up with Rachel today to discuss the bridesmaid outfit for her wedding. I called her and she insisted for me to dress up well for the meeting since her fiancee and his friend would be joining us. She wanted it to be a double date. 

She had tried several times to set me up with someone and even sent me to blind dates, but it all ended up as epic failures. I didn't know why she bothered anymore when we both knew that it wouldn't work.  But I didn't have the heart to tell her no when she seemed so enthusiastic. So, I agreed to the date even though I had no intention to have a man in my life.

But if my date turned out to be the blue-eyed, mysterious man who plagued my thoughts, maybe I wouldn't mind a second date.  Or a third or a fourth.. I shook my head to get rid of my crazy fantasies. I didn’t need a man in my life whether they had blue eyes or green.

I decided not to put much makeup and just put mascara and lip gloss. I let my hair down. I selected skinny jeans, a white silk camisole and a blazer.  I paired the outfit with nude heels. I thought it was casual and comfy, but still classy. I thought that my appearance should not give out signals to my date that I took much efforts to impress him and meanwhile, it should be good enough that Gabriella wouldn’t accuse me of slacking off. 

We decided on a coffee date since we were meeting in the evening as I had to go to work later. When I reached, the others were already there even though I was not late. I said Hi to Gabriella and her fiancee Martin and turned to the stranger who was supposed to be my date for the evening.

He was a good looking guy with blonde hair and blue eyes though his eyes looked nowhere near as blue as that of my mysterious dream man. Well, I didn’t know where that thought came from. For one thing, he was not ‘my’ stranger. That just didn’t make sense . And I had no business comparing my date to him.

The man extended his hands towards me as he introduced himself to me.

“Hello Rhea, I am Samuel. I have heard a lot about you from Gabriella and I must say, her words didn’t do justice to your beauty,” he said.

I smiled at him politely and shook his hands. My smile faltered when I felt a creepy energy snaking up my hands at the contact. That was strange!

I looked up to see his eyes turning black for a moment. Was it a trick of the lights?

I didn’t know if it was my imagination but he seemed to be looking at me with a calculating expression. I felt awkward and the date hadn’t even started yet. I had a track record of bad dates and I had a feeling that this was going to be the worst. My feelings almost always became correct and I didn’t need any special intuition to tell that this date was not going to end well with the way I was already plotting my escape.

We ordered our coffee, and as we waited, I began drinking water. I turned towards Samuel and choked on the water I was drinking when I saw a demonic creature with horns sitting in his place. My eyes watered and I patted my head, trying to get the water down.

I looked up to see all three of them looking at me with concern.

“I am fine,” I said.

I was relieved to see that Samuel appeared to be human again. I was about to heave a sigh of relief when the demonic creature popped back in his place. I stared wide eyed as like the signal flickering in a TV, the human and demon creature appeared alternatively.

I looked at him in horror and couldn’t look away even as I tried. Finally, I turned to see the others to check if they appeared human to me or not. To my relief, they seemed human just like they were supposed to. But they didn't seem to mind that a demon was sitting with us. So, it was just me who saw it then.

I discretely scanned the restaurant to see if there were any more people who seemed demonic to me, but I found nothing out of the ordinary. I turned back to Samuel and my eyes got wider, which I didn’t think was possible as my eyes were already as big as saucers. Now, the two images seemed to be superimposed and the human appearance seemed to overlap the demonic one. 

Now he was staring at me and I was sure it was not the normal admiring stare I was used to from men. It was creepy, and I wanted to rub my skin to get rid of the feeling of ants crawling around my body at his gaze. 

Then he smirked at me as if we shared an inside joke. It was a horrible sight with two faces overlapping each other. I frowned and avoided looking in his direction.  

The waiter came with our coffee and I downed the scalding coffee without even caring that it burned my mouth. Then I threw down a wad of bills, enough to cover my share of the bill and leave a generous tip. 

“Sorry guys, I have to leave now. I have to be in the club early today,” I squeaked. 

“But we didn’t discuss the bridesmaid outfits at all,” Gabriella said with confusion plastered all over her face.

I couldn't bother with niceties anymore as my only thought was to run away from there.

“Don’t worry, we can do it some other day,” I replied.

“Be guys! It was nice to meet you, Samuel,” I said without looking in his direction.

“I am sure we would be meeting again real soon,” he said cryptically, and I didn’t bother to reply as I hightailed out of there.

Talk about a date from hell!

I actually arrived at the club early and I was so shaken up the entire night. I found myself checking everyone suspiciously to see if they sprouted horns suddenly. To my relief, I didn’t find anybody with horns or tails. I couldn’t tell what was real and what was not.

If something like that happened again, I was sure that I would lose it and run screaming like a banshee.

After I left the bar, I clutched my trusty can of pepper spray but I didn’t know what good it would be against supernatural assailants. Maybe I should start carrying around stakes and garlic. But that was for vampires, what about demons?

I shook my head to get rid of my thoughts. I was getting ahead of myself.  I forgot my theory of acceptance for a moment.  If I accepted that I was just imagining things and stopped reacting, maybe the weird things would stop happening.

As I walked, I jumped at every snap of a twig and scanned every corner. Suddenly, I noticed that the shadows under the street light seemed a little strange. As I stopped and watched, when I should have been running away for my life, the shadows seemed to stretch and solidify into humanoid shapes which made weird hissing sounds. 

Five shadow creatures materialised, and all of them moved towards me with those creepy hissing sounds. I stood rooted in my spot with horror as I watched them get closer to me.

First, weird dark mist seemed to fly from my hands, then I met a mysterious stranger with an otherworldly aura, after that an armour wearing girl claiming to be a Goddess popped up in my house and today, I literally had a date from hell. And now, I was going to be attacked by these shadow creatures?

Oh, give me a break already!