Gateway To Hell (wlw)

Chapter 4 - Memory

14 years ago:

The forest is dark and the trees are marked with various strange symbols. The young girl is panting for air as she runs through the freezing cold night forest. Her feet are naked and bleeding, but she doesn't seem to notice. The pain is buried deep but the adrenaline is so high that she can't hear nor see what she's doing. Her hands are Infront of her, trying to find her way out of it. Her pink dress with white hearts is dirty with soil and her scraped knees are bleeding. Her hands get cut over and over again when she runs through the thorn bushes, trying hard to protecting herself from the spiky long thorns that look like knives sticking out of each twig. Her face gets hit by a tree branch and her feet get caught in a tree root, she falls to the ground and hits her head. She yelps helplessly and crawls back up to her feet.

The forest moves around her, they are singing to her, and children's laughter streams out of every point. She runs, runs like a pray, and breaths heavily in panic. She reaches a well and leans upon it. Sticking her hands down into the cold water and splashes it onto her face. Her heavy breathing turns less ponderous. She throws a look behind her and sees what has been haunting her. She screams out loud, a hoarse deafening scream. The jitter is deep and her face denotes how scared and helpless she is. Her body is shaking and she's unable to move, her feet are stuck in their position just like sinking into sticky soil. The being smiles, a grotesque grin. When it talks it sounds like raucous mumbling, the voice doubles as it talks. It steps forward and the girl snaps out of her hypnosis and she backs a few steps, she backs into the well stumbling, and falls into it. The coldness sweeps over her body, she is pulled deeper and the darkness is overwhelming. She tries to swim but she can't move her body in the tight space. She feels humiliated and stunned by the water. Everything turns dark and the only thing she feels is as her breath slowly disappears into the darkening well.

***

She cries and yells for her mother, the tears are streaming down her face, and she yelp. When her mother runs into her room with her long brown hair in a bun on her head. She turns the switch and the light shines through the room like a wave of lightning. She catches her daughter in her arms and comforts her, wiping away her tears with her thumb. The scared girl tries to talk but she's way too overwhelmed by the monster in her dreams and the feeling of drowning. She is numb and helpless. A little girl that did not know how to handle her wild dreams. What if the monster exists in real life?

Her mother is worried and distressed, maybe it's time to leave? Leave her family so that evil can go away. It's her fault for bringing her daughter these dreams. She can't do anything about them either, the only solution is disappearing. A week later she was gone, with no trace whatsoever. Police declared it an unsolved case of trafficking or a case that she ran away, whom the father never would've thought of. His dear wife would never choose to leave their daughters without some sort of sign. The father himself thought of it as a murder or a kidnapping on his own perfect wife. Ever since then he put pressure on his daughters and locked himself into his own mind of regret and sorrow.