The Blood Serpent

Prologue

"Mrs. Minnie!"

There the voice came again. Husky. Charismatic. Dangerous.

"Lily!"

Again.

"Lily. Please. Help me. I don't know how to stop myself."

Lily Minnie didn't dare turn around. She just kept running, tears streaming down her face as he charged at her with a terrifying unrelent. She knew that his face was criss-crossed with wounds, that blood was slowly replacing his skin, that if she touched the blood once...

"Lily..."

She didn't dare turn around, not once.

--- --- --- --- --- --- ---

Memories rang through her head.

She remembered Charlotte, her headstrong friend, the kindest and purest soul she'd ever met. "You know you have to do it soon."

Lily squeezed her eyes shut. She knew the message from her heart, like a big billboard that said: Your mistake. Your downfall. Your fault.

You have to do (have to do it... do) it... (it soon) have to (do it soon)... She found the echo to be like the lyrics of a particularly repetitive song. It should've been soothing.

It wasn't.

It had been so long since the scene occurred, but, to Lily, it was a movie clip that kept replaying itself over and over. You know you have to do it soon.

At this point in her life, Lily barely remembered Charlotte, but she knew she would never forget the distinct golden eyes. They were so bright, so unnatural, so stunning, so look-at-me-because-you-know-you'll-never-forget-what-I-said-that-midnight.

"I can't." "She isn't ready." "She's only eight."

All. Those. Miserable. Excuses.

She felt a thin, strong finger grasp her shoulder from behind, and pure terror almost killed her on the spot. Lily reached for her phone, with blood splattered across the cracked screen, and saw an unsent text from four hours ago.

Send. Sending... Sent.

Lily felt herself being knocked on the ankle, and she collapsed, in a vicious pain, without resistance. She opened her eyes, using up the last few ounces of her life energy, and saw the skinless, blood-soaked horror of his face.

"Who are you?" she choked.

"Unsend the message right now," he snarled, pinning her to the ground. Lily felt his skinless, saturated fingers grasp around her throat.

She tried to find some humor in the terrifying situation, with a feeble, already-useless hope that he just might snap back to his old, joking self, not the monster he was now.

"I don't think I can in this position," she chuckled nervously. "If you could clean up the blood here, I think I'd be able to Google how to delete that message in time."

She saw his eyes faltering and felt hope rise in her chest.

"I..." he started. "Well, that's true. But too bad... too bad you don't have enough time to tell me your good, pure wishes."

With an unprecedented strength, he pushed her off the skyscraper, a hollow-eyed Charlotte only half a pace behind him. Lily's body tumbled through the air, and she didn't take another breath after hitting the ground.