Out of the Darkness

153

"It's not her!!" I yelled to myself. I saw an old chopping block on the table with a large wooden handled knife lying on top of it. I snatched it up, just as I heard someone else push through the swinging door. I turned to face her, the demon witch, Lilith. She was still in Anna's form, tears streaming down her face. There was something different to her form now though. She had long cuts on both of her arms, blood staining her clothes. Her shirt was soaked through, as well. She caught my eye, then raised her shirt up over her stomach. I swallowed hard, almost gagging against the bile that rose in my throat. Her stomach was covered with long red strips, jagged on around the edges. It literally looked like someone had started tearing her apart, strip by strip. "Stop it," I groaned, backing away from her. "Help me. Please. Stay with me, Colby. She'll stop hurting me, if you stay." I shook my head, and held up the only weapon that I had. I saw humor flash behind her watery eyes, as she looked at the knife, but it was gone just as quick. "That won't hurt her," fake Anna sobbed. "It's not for you," I said, holding the witch's gaze. I saw the realization of what I was about to do flash in her eyes. She stepped towards me, so fast, but it was too late. I swung the silver blade down, and sliced my arm open in the exact same spot where I knew that it was hurt at, in the real world. The pain enveloped me, as I screamed, and the darkness had me once again. Not Lilith, but actual darkness. I woke up with a start, gasping in air, like my lungs had tried to collapse. Pain seared up my arm, when I moved it to grasp my chest. "Ohhh," I groaned, cradling it. I looked down and saw that the bandages were soaked through, black and red mixing together. I vaguely wondered if it had actually been a dream, or if I had just sliced my arm open. It felt like I had, to be honest. "Colby, you good? What's wrong?" Sam appeared out of nowhere, standing in front of me. "Is it your arm? Is it worse? What is it?" "Wait," I managed to gasp out. He had to give me a damn minute! I was still trying to remember how to breathe correctly, all while my arm felt like it had been ripped open again. Finally, my breathing slowed down and my chest didn't burn quite as badly. My arm still felt like it was on fire, but I was beginning to figure out that, that was just something that I would have to deal with. "I'm okay. I fell asleep, I think. Hit my arm or something. Hurt like hell," I replied. I stared at Sam, hoping that he could read that I needed to talk to him, and now. "I think I want to go to bed. Could you help me? I'm not feeling so great right now." He furrowed his brow, and nodded. "Yeah, no problem. The movie is over anyway. Let's get you upstairs." "I'll help!" Kat exclaimed, jumping up from her seat. Fuck, I had forgotten that I was supposed to tell her about Anna tonight. I really wasn't feeling great, but a promise was a promise. Sam helped me up and pulled one of my arms around his shoulders, with his arm around my waist. Kat did the same on the other side. My body staggered, as we started to move. "You good?" Sam asked, worry all of over his face. I nodded. "Yeah, just a little lightheaded. I don't think that I should've drank tonight." Slowly, but surely, we all finally made it up the stairs and to my room. They helped me sit gently down on the edge of my bed. "Do you need anything?" Katrina asked, her voice filled with sympathy. "Just my water bottle maybe. And something for the pain," I answered. The meds had helped some for a little while. While Kat was preoccupied, I motioned to Sam with my head, then towards Anna's doll that was sitting right behind me on the bed. He grabbed it and stuffed it under the covers quickly. "I think I need to change those bandages too," Sam stated, holding up the gauze and bandages. "Where the hell did you get those from?" I asked. He hadn't even left my room. He cracked a huge grin and pointed to one of my dresser drawers. "I stuck it in  your junk drawer. So that I wouldn't have to keep going back and forth every time it needed to be changed." I hadn't seen him do it, but I guess I wasn't very observant lately. I sucked in a breath when he started to cut the bandages off of my arm. "It's not stuck as badly as before, but it looks like it's bleeding more. Hold on," he replied, peeling the bandage back from my wound. Damn, that stung! "It's opened up more! How did that happen? What did you hit your arm on? The chair couldn't have caused this!" "Yeah," I grunted, squeezing my eyes shut when it pulled the bandage completely off. "I need to talk to you about that." He was silent for a moment, while he cleaned the wound. "Time for the salve. Colby, it doesn't seem to be any better yet. We may need to try going to the emergency room or something, soon. It doesn't look good." "I'm fiiiiine," I hissed, opening my eyes. He had just dropped a glob of salve on my arm, and was spreading it around with his fingertips. Shit still burned like hellfire. "You're not fine, Colby. Look at it. Just look at the wound before I rebandage it. Look!" I glanced down at my arm, and almost gagged. It was split open more than before, black goo streaming out, mixing with the blood and the salve. Beneath that, I could see that inside of my arm was turning grayish with a green tinge. Definitely didn't look good. It was also starting to smell. That was a bad sign. I was surprised they hadn't said anything about the smell yet. I glanced at Kat and saw her staring down at my arm, with her fingers pressed over her lips. She looked scared. "Okay, so I'm not fine," I said, quietly. "But there's nothing that a normal hospital can do. You know that Sam. We'll have to figure something else out." He looked unsure, while he redressed the wound. "We WILL figure something else out, Sam. I'm not going anywhere. I promise." He grinned at me, a little sadly. "Okay," he replied.