Devil's meadow

Chapter 15- Burnt wristlet

Within a split second, Crystal grabbed her self together and rushed over to where I was lay. She took one look at me and instantly removed the medicines that had already made its way into my bloodstream.
"Can you walk at all?"
"No. I can even stand on my own two feet."
"Well that's not good nor helpful."
"I know. I can move though, but it'll take a lot of strength out of me."
"Well it's better than staying here and burning to death."
I slowly got up and tried standing with the bite marks still wrapped in cloth. Blaze looked really concerned and rushed over to help me gain my balance. I attempted to walk forward but I almost stumbled over in the process.
"Yeah, no. I can't even move. I can stand but that's basically it."
"How do we get you out then?"
"I can carry him."
"Are you sure?"
"Yes. Now, we really need to go before we actually get stuck in here."
"Oh right."
Blaze walked over and picked me up and put me on his shoulders. I couldn't describe the pain to them both. But to put it bluntly, it felt as though someone was constantly stabbing me in the chest and punching me in the stomach. As Crystal and Blaze rushed out the room, they peeked down the hallway to see flames of orange and red flickering and burning everything in its path, learning nothing but burnt debris. Crystal starting getting really anxious, and as Blaze looked at her, she started breathing heavily.
"Hey. Are you okay?"
"I'm worried about Alex. I have no idea where he went, I don't know if he's even alive and I'm just hoping he didn't get killed."
"I'm sure he's perfectly fine and safe. For now, let's just try and get out."
We tried walking down the hallway where the fire was, but we saw no glimpse of freedom anywhere. Just as we were about to leave, Blaze tripped over, as we both hit the ground, the stitches keeping my blood inside tore open.
"Oh. That hurt. That hurt a lot."
"You two okay?"
"I'm fine."
"Not so much for me."
"What do you mean?"
"Stitches tore open."
"Oh no..."
"I'll be fine. Just try to be careful."
"You're not fine. You're hurt."
"I'm okay. Trust me."
Before I could say anything else, Blaze picked me back up, but something caught my eye. A young looking woman with brown hair was stood in front of us. She looked transparent almost, but she didn't look completely see-through. I wondered if Crystal or Blaze could see it too.
"Do you two....see that?"
"See what?"
"A woman is stood in front of us, maybe she can help."
"Umm, Hunter. No one is there."
"What do you mean. She's right here."
"Are you sure you're okay?"
"I'm perfectly fine. Thank you!"
"You don't seem that way."
"I want to ask her for help."
As I started to stand up she, glanced into the flames and started walking in them. She then very mysteriously, disappeared. I stumbled forward to the point where I was right in front of the flames and I took my hand and moved it in front of my delicate body.
"Hunter! That's not a good idea!"
"Hunter stop!"
Blaze rushed forward, but as he reached my side, I had stuck my hand into the fire, and caught it in a fiery red light of destruction and evil. As I screamed in agony, they could only watch in shock and fear, that I had just burnt my hand off. There was no bleeding, as far as I could tell, but I was  in extreme pain. Blaze took me by the arm and pulled me away from the fire.
"Hunter! What was that all about?!"
"Ow. Ow . Ow. I- there was something there! I swear!"
"You're just being delusional. There was no body there!"
"Yes there was!"
"OKAY. WILL YOU TWO JUST STOP ARGUING! THIS WON'T SLOVE ANYTHING!"
His voice echoed around throughout the corridor and we both stood there in disbelief. He had never retaliated that way before, but he didn't want us to have a fight.
"Hunter. What did you see?"
"Picking sides are we?"
"No! I'm just curious. I think Hunter just hallucinated seeing someone stood there."
"Can we move away from here first? I don't feel comfortable stood here."
"Fine. There's a fire escape round the back. We can go out that way, and talk about it there."
We rushed over to the exit and once we got to safety, Blaze asked the question again.
"What did you see?"
"A woman, just stood there. She looked like she was in her late 20 and the early 30s. She had brown hair and her clothes were slightly ripped. She took on look at the fire and just pranced right into it."
"We didn't see anybody there. Maybe you did hallucinate. Otherwise, we would have seen her there too."
"Wait- I think I just saw my mother."
"What makes you be so sure?"
"She has brown hair, she looks young for her age."
"How old is she really?"
"Um. I think she's 29."
"Oh that is young."
"I wonder if I saw her stood there, because of the stitches being torn."
"Oh f*ck. I needed to do that. How are you holding up?"
"Eh. I've been better. It still hurts, but I can't feel it."
"Probably because it's seeping through the bandages."
"IT'S WHAT?!"
"I'm fine. Though we should probably patch it back up before it really does get bad."
"I think we should also sort out that hand of your's."
"Oh."
The amount of injuries I have now.
Whilst they both took care of me, Blaze had a faint mark on his forehead. It almost looked like a birth mark. But something about it was telling me was wasn't. I looked and Crystal to see that she had faint marks on her face too. They looked like drips coming from her nose and mouth.
Are those stains or-
"You have faint marks round your neck Hunter."
"Uh. I don't."
"How did you die?"
"...."
"If you tell us. We'll tell you how we died too."
"Sui."
"Sui? Sui what?"
"Suicide."
"Oh...well that's not what I expected but thanks for being honest."
"How did you two die then?"
" I was shot in the head."
"Drowned."
"Oh."
"Everyone has a mark to show how they died."
"Huh."
"Mhm. My brother and I drowned."
"My death was a killing spree. Someone in our neighbourhood was committing a drive by shooting. I died instantly."
"Oh I was really depressed. So I decided to end it."
"Did you see a therapist?"
"I did. But they told me to just take medicines."
"And they were?"
"Stupid anti-depressants. I've tried them before they don't work."
"Did you take them before?"
"Yeah. The right way as well. I just...felt the exact same way. It just didn't work they way I thought they would."
"Maybe your body rejected it."
"I agree with Blaze. Your body probably didn't know what it was."
"It honestly didn't taste nice either"
"You didn't bite directly into the pills....did you?"
"Hell no. Eww that's disgusting. I couldn't swallow them. My father tried helping and even he said that he couldn't even do anything to help."
"There. You should be able to move you hand- er- stub around now."
"Stub?!"
"I've re-wrapped the bite marks."
"Thanks. Both of you."
"Don't worry about it. And I'm sorry about the whole mess back at the alter. My mind was in a...different moment in time."
"Nah. That was my fault. I shouldn't have stuck my hand into the flames. That was stupid of me."
"You can really help being delusional Hunter. I get hallucinations too."
"You do?!"
"Yep. But it's not actually bad."
"You like it?!"
"Yeah..why?"
"That's the weirdest thing I've heard you say."
"Get used to it. It'll happen a lot more often then you think."
"He does say weird things quite often."
"Hunter. Really?"
"You said it yourself!"
"Oh the alter. Where are all my colleagues going to go now?"
"Do they all live there?"
"Of course they do. I live there as well. So does Alex, wherever the hell he went off to."
"Maybe he's found a safe place?"
"Idk. He's not great at dealing with common issues. That's why he sticks by me. Jeez he must be so scared."
Round the front of the alter people could be seen rushing out of the entrance in groups. As we all sat there, Crystal suggested making a makeshift camp and staying the night.
"I think we should camp the night here."
"Why?"
"Well, we don't have a choice, we can go back the way everyone else is coming out of but, it'll take all night. We'll be exhausted by morning."
"Okay. We'll camp the night. I'll go get firewood."
As Blaze stood up and ran into the woods, me and Crystal remained silent. We didn't say a word, but we did make eye contact for a few minutes, before we glanced away. The sun was starting to set, and I stood up to focus on it properly. I sighed in relief as I could just about see Alex coming out of the alter. He seemed perfectly fine, but his body movements seemed distraught and panicked. He was looking for his sister. As I stood there, Crystal came towards me. A concerned look flooded her face, and she asked me something about my childhood.
"Did you have any....mental health issues as a kid?"
"Yeah...I did."
"Do you still have them?"
"...yea."
"How did they start?"
"It...was mainly borderline abuse. My brother and I would come home every day from school, but our parents would always hit us with....their own books. My father would always hit us with a belt, usually across the face or back. My mother would hit us with a ruler on the tops of our hands. But we couldn't do anything about it."
"Oh. That sounds extreme. Did they stop in the end?"
"Once my mother left. Yeah, but we feared that he would keep doing it."
"Well we're not going to do that to you. You've already gone through enough as it is."
Blaze came rushing back over, arms full of wood. He plonked them down on the ground and pilled them up.
"That should be enough. Now all we need is something to light it with."
"Like this?"
"You had a lighter on you this entire time?!"
"No. I took it from the king."
"Uh. I'm just not gonna ask."
Blaze took the lighter out my hand and lit the fire. Sparks flickered and danced, and eventually the fire emerged. Smoke started bellowing up into the air, and we all sat around it, warming up ourselves. Blaze looked at me, where I was staring at my wrapped wrist, and looked sorrowful.
"Look. I'm sorry about your arm."
"...."
"Hunter?"
"Mm?"
"Are you okay?"
"I'll be fine. It's just gonna take me a while to get used to not having a hand."
We remained still and silent. But, something seemed...off. It was quiet. Too quiet. A few hours had passed, and Blaze and Crystal had fallen asleep. I tried to sleep, but couldn't. I slowly sat up, and looked into deeply into the fire emerging from the wood.
I'm slowly starting to wish, I hadn't have seen my mother.
I slowly stood up, and watched the my two friends peacefully sleep, but my gaze trailed off for a while. Looking back at the alter, I noticed how the flames had stopped, they must've subsided a while ago. I moved away from them both, I didn't want to wake them up, and lay on the ground to look up into the night sky. The stars where visible and I focused on looking up at them.
A beautiful night. Huh.
I placed my feet on top of each other and looked back and forth and the stars. They glistened and twinkled in all their glory. I looked at my torso, the bandages were stained red, the marks were still bleeding but I think they stopped. And as I looked at my chest, I remembered all the injuries I gained along my journey.
Hoping that the rest of my second life would work out for me, I drifted off to sleep.