Never After High

Chapter 4

A/N: Hey, I'm so sorry I'm late on this update! I was busy with school, but I'm finally on my Winter Break, so I'll be posting a lot more since I'll have a whole bunch of time on my hands.

Apple woke to find herself in the midst of a torrential downpour.

Her skin was so cold and numb against the wet pavement that for a moment, she thought she'd been disembodied.

She tossed a curtain of loose curls out of her face, their once vibrant color reduced to a bleary greyish-white. Water spilled into her mouth and nose, never ceasing as she coughed and spluttered, the liquid she spat back out a deep crimpsion. It was the brightest thing for what seemed to be miles, yet perhaps the most terrifying.

Blood.

Someone started screaming in the distance, sending her whirling to her feet, supported by the legs she could hardly feel. The only things she could sense was the watery blood. It pooled below her and splashed onto her skirts as the wind howled and howled, carrying the last shouts of those long gone.

Apple turned, trying desperately to see through the thicket of rain. She could hardly make out the jagged lines ahead, none of which resembled a human. But the screaming never stopped. It hurt to listen to it; a song whose notes bore the story of tragedy, ragged and pained whimpers cutting into her ears like swords.

Her throat burned, water splashing into it and searing like boiling water, burning her tongue and trickling down her windpipe, so hot that it scalded her being. With a broken retch, the water emerged from her lips, the same blood-red color staining the front of her soaked dress.

It was only then that she realized it had been her own scream all along.

"Help!" She sobbed, her hoarse cry just above a whisper, "help!" But nobody came. Bristling and cold, she ventured further into the storm, the icy drops hitting her harder the more she walked, it was like the sky had begun to spill crystalized bullets. Even the wind picked up, spinning and swirling like a tornado.

She was in the heart of it now - the eye of the storm.
Slowly, a looming structure came into view, the tompost towers impossible to see through the slashing of the precipitation.

The entire place was so bleak, a hopeless courtyard of abandoned dreams and lost souls. She swore she could hear the mingled shouts of dying soldiers, calling out for a taste of home before their spirits kissed a final goodbye to the Earth. It was a terrible place to die; with everything coated in a grey tinge, like someone had flipped a switch and made the world black and white.

Yet, as miserable as it was, she knew she'd been here before. There was something eerily familiar about it - about the shouts, too. Like she knew their voices, spoke with them, perhaps...

...And then she knew.

The subtle cracks in the pavement, the ornate benches, the once immaculate flags reduced to shreds... there was no denying it.

Ever After High.

A sob escaped her lips, her mind willing her to be anywhere but here.

She wanted to run deep into the Enchanted Forest like she had on Legacy Day, but she couldn't. Her body carried her up the fractured steps and into the entry hall, where lockers had been strewn around the floor, blood marring the walls despite the onslaught of rain pouring in through the various holes in the roof and walls.

It made her sick to look at. So much destruction and pain in a place that was supposed to create magic and love.

For all she knew, the large red blotch trickling down the stairs could belong to a friend. Or, did belong to one, anyway. Death filled the air with its sickening scent, the metallic tang of blood mingling with it until the word 'massacre' was practically floating in the air for all to see.