As the Lightning Strikes

Chapter 1

 She looked down at her ruined dress. The material was very stiff, restricting her movements. Her vision was blurry. Her head throbbed something horrible. Her hands were sticky. A cramp made her hiss in pain. She unclenched her left hand. Something clattered to the ground with a metallic echo as it bounced off the stone floor. A few feet away she could see the silhouette of another person. They were unmoving. She moved forward, and placed her hand on their shoulder. She stifled a scream. The person, or body rather, was cool, and going stiff. Their face had been frozen in terror, staring off at the direction of the cause of their end. She backed away quickly, nearly slipping in the not quite dried pool of red. She rushed out of the nearest exit, a door that opened up to a forest road.

She looked from whence she had just come, and saw a very stately mansion built in the clearing of the forest. An eerie silence surrounded her. She had not seen anyone living as she had exited the home, and the trees around her uttered not a sound. Not even the birds were there. Each footstep she took sounded like a bomb thundering through the trees. She seemed to walk for hours. All of her body was numb. A breeze suddenly passed through the leaves, rattling her to her bones. She shuddered and collapsed upon the side of the road.

Her vision flickered white with rage. Her heart beat so fiercely in her chest she thought it would burst through her skin. Her blood was boiling in her veins. She could hear their screams in her mind. He was responsible for this. Her knife trembled in her hand. Her dress was already soaked through with that horrible life source. He was there, hiding in the corner like the coward he was. He looked up at her, his eyes so wide she could see her reflection in his pupils. She lifted her left arm. Thunder rumbled. She let loose a cry that resonated from the deepest depths of her shattered heart. Lightning flashed and stuck.

Tears were streaming down her face. She tried to wipe her eyes, and found her hands were coated in a crusty brown. Bloo-- no! She dared not think the word. Mud. She thought. I must wipe this mud from my hands. With no water near, she spit upon her hands and wiped them on the fabric of her dress.