BROKEN BEGINNINGS

Chapter 2 - Second Chances

Darkness whips around me, smothering me with the burning tang of smoke and ashes. I'm on my knees, inky blackness all around me. Then--roars.

I look up to see a vicious mob, cloaked in shadows, with glowing white eyes bellowing and wielding pitchforks and torches. I stumble back, but the masses of people get closer. I can hear their cries now:

"Witch!"

"Savage!"

"Murderer!"

"You slaughterer!"

"Go to hell where you belong!"

"You've cursed us!"

My breath goes wild, the world spinning out of control. They know what I've done. They know I killed Sarah. Suddenly, everything goes quiet, my frenzied panting the only sound in the black void.

Two yellow eyes glare at me. But there's four now, no, six. A low growl rattles the world around me, far stronger than any earthquake. A massive, three-headed dog emerges, as tall as a five-story building, with matted black fur and drool dripping from it's maw, pink lips peeling back to reveal teeth like cooking knives.

Leaning down, the beast examines me carefully. The middle head suddenly snapped down around me, devouring my entire body in a single bite. I tumble through the warm, slimy darkness of the monster's mouth, into it's stomach.

Looking up, I see, in horror, Sarah's crumpled corpse, the knife still speared through her chest. But as I watch the corpse, Sarah begins to stand up on wobbly legs. But something isn't right. Her head is slumped at an angle, and her normally sparkling emerald eyes have a glassy look to them, as if belonging to someone who isn't quite alive.

"Hello, sweet Tarese." She hissed, her voice gravelly and low. "So lovely to see my friend, my killer again." Her smile slackens, and she glares at me with an icy cold demeanor. "You killed me. You betrayed me."

"No," I choke. "No, no, no, no, no..."

"Oh, yes," Sarah murmured, a rumbling, mechanical hum swelling around us. "Yes, you did indeed. And I will never, ever forgive you."

I wake up with a scream. I look around. I'm in my own bed, drenched in cold sweat. Blinding sunlight floods through my bedroom window as my alarm clock wails from my nightstand. My eyes still blurred with sleep, I fumble for my clock to turn it off, knocking over the glass of water standing on my night table next to it.

The glass topples and crashes to the floor, shattering into a million pieces on the rough floorboards.

"Shiiit," I groan, leaning over the edge of my bed to fish for my slippers. No way I'm getting out of bed with the knowledge that I'd get bloody feet before seven in the morning.

When I finally hop out of bed, trying to avoid looking at the large kitchen knife crusted with blood stuck in the floor several feet away, I hear a knock echoing from the front door. I don't have a clue who would want to visit me; Sarah was the only person in the village nice enough to hike a mile up a dirt path to a broken-down mansion on top of a hill, housing the biggest outcast in the history of the little town.

When I finally stumble downstairs to answer the door, I feel like something is off. There's not as much dust dancing through the air, and the tang of mothballs isn't quite as strong.

Reaching for the tarnished brass knob, I open the creaking wooden door, the grey paint peeling off to reveal the tan wood underneath.

There, perfectly haloed and standing on my doorstep in the early morning sun, perfectly alive and well, is Sarah.