SOMETHING ROAMS THE NIGHT...

FORTY TWO

Haley...

Why did you kill me...

I was running, deeper and deeper into the woods. Branches scraped my face, my arms, but I didn't care. I wanted to get away from it, from the reaper.

Haley...

You can't escape us...

You shall pay for what you'd done...

It was already night, and the only light illuminated from the full moon slightly hidden behind the clouds. The muscles in my thighs began to burn-my pace was getting slower by the second. I couldn't stop. I couldn't let them get me.

Oh, Haley...

Yoohooo...

The reaper wooed, and then laughed mockingly. My heart pounded against my ribs, my lungs starting to hurt with each breath. No. I had to keep running. I couldn't die. Not like this, not like Aunt May, not like Nanna.

Why are you running?

Don't run away from me...

I'm your friend...

Your friend Damon, remember?

"Get out of my head! Stay the hell away from me!" I tried to shout, but there was hardly any more breath in my lungs. "Stop torturing me!"

I saved your life, remember?

Why did you kill me instead, Haley?

Haley, why did you kill me?

The same question, repeating itself, over and over again. I pushed my legs forward, wincing at the pain that lanced through me. 

Don't stop.

Don't. Stop.

"Well, hello, Haley," Damon's low, hateful voice halted me in my tracks. I knew he was right in front of me although I couldn't see him yet. "Missed me?"

Damon emerged from the shadows, that atrocious grin sending waves of goosebumps prickling all over my skin. His dark hair was matted on his forehead, and his eyes were a fiery yellow. And as he got closer, I could see the hole, the blank space in his torso where organs used to be, and his blood-soaked shirt. 

"Stay...away..." I receded into the trees, feeling my back hit a tree trunk. I was trapped, with nowhere to go.

"No," the grin didn't fade. "You killed me in cold blood, so now you're going to pay."

He edged closer to me, arms outstretched, hands curled in a strangling position. I was drowning in his eyes, those mesmerizing pools of yellow. 

"You're going to pay..." he growled, blood dripping steadily from the gaping wound to the ground. He was still bleeding, blood gushing out of his body in copious amounts.

"No," my back was pressed against the rough tree bark, splinters scraping my skin through my T-shirt. "Stay the hell away!"

Damon's fingers began to extend, and his nails were replaced with ghastly claws. He flicked out his long black tongue. 

"You can't get rid of me, Haley," he sneered. "I'm always here, always living inside your head. You can never escape me."

Damon the reaper stood before me on its back legs, the hole in its torso completely healed. My heartbeat tripled in rate. 

No. This couldn't be happening.

Damon was dead, and so were the rest of the reapers.

We were safe, we didn't have to worry. 

This couldn't be happening. 

I saw Damon die, I saw the reapers die.

But how was he still standing before me? How was he not dead?

And, as if the reaper had heard my thoughts, a demoniac laugh escaped its lips.

"Haley, don't you understand?" it hissed savagely at me, leaning closer so that it was nose-to-nose with me.

"I am death."

I woke up screaming.