Truth or Dare... and Die

Chapter 7

Every step serves as a terrible reminder that I've lost my safety net, my comfort zone, and I am now entirely on my own. However, with the absence of my once ever-present friend, the fiends formerly close behind us seem to have lost my trail, and I am fervently hoping it is a good sign and not a death sentence.

The one thing that repeatedly runs through my head chases down old demons and troubles almost as frightening as the dangers I am facing tonight.

Why didn't he stop me? He always said before he would fight for me and never let me go, but he just... he didn't even try.... What does that mean?How could he just give up like it was nothing, like everything we've been through was just another story to be told?

I know if I let myself think for the slightest moment, I will end up in a catatonic state of tears, shock, and memories, which is the last thing I need right now. All I can focus on is getting back home, back to my warm bed where I will wake up and realize that everything I'm experiencing is just a particularly bad hallucinogenic episode. I will take my medicine and Cody will be at my front door with a bowl of soup and his charmingly rude jokes, making me feel more like myself again.

However... such is not the case. I pinch myself to no avail, trying every trick I've been taught to get my episodes under control, and nothing is helping. Perhaps I've totally lost my senses, but something about this night just feels... off. I have to admit that it almost feels too real, and not at all imaginary or preposterous.

Unfortunately, for once, I'm wishing with all my heart that I am crazy, and it's all in my head. For the first time in my life, I'm almost begging to not be in my right mind, if it would make everything that's gone wrong alright again...

I've been so preoccupied with running that I haven't even been paying attention to my surroundings, which I only now realize as I plow headfirst into a heavy moving object, one that emits a terrified "OW!" as our figures tumble down a slight decline in the landscape.

My first instinctive fear being that I've come across a brutally insane oaf, I spin onto my feet as quickly as possible, but not before Charity's equally shaken voice cries out to me, "Niah?! Niah, please, if that's you, please don't leave me here. There's a monster out there, and he's after you, he's after us all! It's not just those crazy men, it's-"

As suddenly as I had run into poor Charity, her voice is cut off in a gurgling shriek. Next I hear a silent thud, and that's all the warning I need. Now it's time to GET OUT OF HERE.

Running as quickly as my blood-blistered feet can handle, I hear a sickeningly satisfied whisper proclaim in the near distance "Two down, two left to go. Truth or dare? Dare or truth? It's time to play, little one."