Heathen Series - Changed

Chapter 25

Stephanie had spent the whole day killing criminals and was finally given permission to go to her room. She walked inside, dazed ad feeling very alone. the day's events replaying itself in her mind over and over again until her legs buckled under her and she was forced to sit on her bed. The rush still flowed through her body, so she couldn't stay down for too long and ended up forcing herself back up to pace up and down; she was ready for the next kill - HER next kill.

She stopped and caught a glimpse of herself in the mirror. Her reflection looked different - evil in a way she had never seen before.

Her hands were coated with blood and her clothes were torn and stained with all the different kinds of bodily fluids. She struggled to tear her eyes away from the mirror until she felt the need to look down at herself to see if it's reflection was true. She looked at her hands and nearly choked at what she saw; she was shaking and couldn't believe it, they were dripping with blood - actually dripping from the blood of the men she killed.

She ran into the bathroom and opened the tap of hot water allowing it to spill over her; hoping that it would wash it all off - burn it off. She scrubbed and scrubbed and scrubbed trying her best to get all the blood off.

***

She slumped over to her bed and dropped her head in her hands; she let it all out, everything that she had held back came pouring out and she no longer had the capability of hiding her pain.

She blacked out a few minutes later going into complete darkness; a darkness that she no longer had the strength to evade.

'What have I done!? Oh God! What have I done!?'

***

'She woke up in a field of white grass that covered the grounds surrounding her.

Where was she?

How did she get here?

All these questions circled her mind, but no answers seemed to appear. She looked around and watched as a bronze path started to build itself in front of her; it reminded her of the story; 'The wizard of Oz', except the yellow path was bronze and ominous.

She was definitely dreaming.

She followed the path into a dense dead forest of pine trees the colour of silver, black and blue. The forest was very welcoming despite being dead. She walked in cautiously and saw how the forest expanded and went from black and silver to a black and metallic blue colour.

The forest felt different now; more distant and dangerously exciting.

It changed again.

She was now in the middle of the forest and away from the bronze path where a big weeping willow grew out from a well. In the middle of the trunk were crystal-shards joined together to form a sort of mirror.

An image of her slaying all those men formed like a movie on a TV screen, she fell to her knees and started heaving, the image changed again and as she looked around she realized that she was standing in a field. This one had bright white grass stained red with the blood of the men she killed but instead of it being the criminals it was her friends that got killed, and she knew that she was the cause of their death. She stared and screamed; what she saw was something that she never ever wanted to happen to them.

Something pulled her into the ground, she had kick out to try and loosen its grip. But the roots entangled her legs and the thorns cut her skin rendering her helpless. The mud drowned her; it's grains smothering the life out of her.

She was neck deep in mud and above her stood the scarecrow and the mannequin with deadly smiles across their faces that began to melt. They reached down and tried to grab her...