The Endless Night

Chapter 30

There's excruciating pain. My breathing is short and ragged. Somewhere deep inside I know that it wasn't her fault, but my mind won't listen to the truth just now; all it hears is the same dark thought over and over: Nessie, your own sister, just tried to kill you with a knife. I feel my hair sticking to my forehead and realize that I'm sweating profusely. My shirt is sticking to my body, and my jeans feel too tight and constricting. I can't seem to open my eyes.

Desperately trying to regain my senses, I force myself to think and reach for where the knife struck. My left shoulder is covered in sticky blood. It scares me—to know and feel your own body's life support pouring into the grass, knowing that there's a hole in your physical being... I shudder, despite the fact that my whole body feels like it's on fire. The area around the direct wound, however, feels cold as ice, and tight. Tight like someone had wrapped a frozen chain around my shoulder and cinched it. I hear moaning nearby. It's got to be Skylar.

I don't know how it's possible but Nessie hit both of us with the knife. “Nessie?” she whimpers feebly. I know she must be hurt bad for Skylar to sound weak. Suddenly, I get angry. It burns within my whole being forcing the feverish flames to die down. I'm angry because not only am I hurt, but Skylar is too. Strange enough, I'm not mad at Nessie; I'm mad for her. For the fact that she was forced to throw the knife and that it injured Skylar and me. I feel so angry because it's as though two sisters have now been taken from me.

“Have to get up,” I grunt through teeth that are clenched too hard. I don't know why but I can tell that Skylar agrees with me. I don't have any recollection of the next few moments I just remember lying on the ground angry and wanting to get up, next moment I'm on my knees swaying around like a drunk or something and feeling sick to my stomach—my anger nearly forgotten.

My stomach heaves and as weakness takes over, I let the contents of my stomach out. Skylar does the same. Managing to at least squint my eyes open, I carefully crawl away from the two stinking piles on the grass until the smell fades away. I hear Skylar shuffling along behind me.

“Where're th'others?” Skylar's words are slurred, and that's when I really know that she's hurt much worse than I am. I crawl towards where she's flopped down on the grass. I roll her over and try to make out the criticality of her wound.

Her shoulder is scarlet red and detached from her arm. To my horror, I see a small spade-like gardening knife still lodged in her shoulder. Nessie must have been at such an angle that the blade scraped me and skimmed right past to Skylar. The knife has sliced through one of the front muscles in her arm, and I get the sick feeling that it stopped when it hit bone.

I don't have anything to bind her wound with. My own pain is making me dizzy. Sinking to the ground I lay there and stare up at the sky. That's when I realize two very important things. One: the sky is blue; two: it is deadly quiet. The fact that the sky is blue and that I know this means that I'm not in the “shadow world”—that I'm not seeing in “shadow vision” anymore (and hopefully never again). The second fact that everything is deadly quiet is bad. That means that Annie's dad is still gone, Nessie is gone, the shadow man, and probably Annie and the rest of my family are all gone. Who knows where they could be? The house is quiet, so I assume that unless they're dead—they aren't there anymore.

“Skylar...” I choke. It seems as though speaking makes my wound bleed worse. “Skylar...”

She's unconscious. Great. Makes my life so much easier. The shadow man probably thought to carry out this one last trick to get rid of all of us once and for all. How he will cease laughing the moment he realizes that Skylar and I made it. We're both stronger than that.

Just as I feel like there really isn't any hope left and that I will lie here for the rest of my—probably short—life, the strangest thing ever happens.