The Paranormal Side

Chapter 34

                                                                                   **(Autumn's POV)**

Waking was a struggle.

It wasn't like swimming through water to reach the surface. It was a desperate, yet slow movement, like trying to pull your body out of a sucking mud. Even once I was fully conscious, the dark hung on me, continuously trying to pull me back into its depths.

The pain didn't hit me until I opened my eyes.

It was disgusting, the way my eyes peeled open, the way the gunk on my lashes weighed my lids down. My vision was blurred, as if I had had one too many of Brooke's famous Skittle mixes.

But the pain, god, the pain. It was like I had fallen twelve stories and then had a slab of concrete dropped on me. On top of that was the emptiness inside me. I was hollow, no strength at all to my bones.

Immediately, I became light-headed and nauseas, and almost passed out again. It was through sheer will that I managed to keep my eyes open. The pain was fading to an ache, but the emptiness was getting stronger. When had I last eaten? How long have I been unconscious? Why was I in the middle of the forest?

It was raining, storming violently. I had some cover from my position, propped up against a tree, but I was still soaked to the bone, the cold making me shiver.

Trying to remember what exactly happened was impossible. All I could get was flashes. Pain. Brooke's face. Demon eyes. A needle entering my arm.

I flipped my arms over in my lap, studying the delicate skin. Red dots - injection marks - spotted the skin above the largest vein in my arms.

They had drugged me. Multiple times.

Oh god, how long has it been?

I could feel myself starting to panic, so I closed my eyes, forcing myself to take deep, steadying breaths. I am alive. That's all that matters.

My stomach gave a painful clench, and I felt myself wanting to dry-heave. They had to have fed me something, but it must have been the bare minimum for survival. I had never felt a hunger like this.

I was starving.

I opened my eyes, trying to prevent the darkness from taking me under again. It took so long for my vision to re-focus that the panic began to rise again. What if the drug had permanently hurt me? What if I didn't recover?

Just then my sight cleared enough to focus on something lying several feet away from me.

A wolf.

It wasn't moving, and though it was hard to see through the thick sheets of rain, I was quite sure it wasn't breathing. The fur around its neck was colored a dark red. Blood.

It's throat had been slit.

Now I did dry-heave, the force of it threatening to make me black out. Who would slit a wolf's throat? Were they still around?

I looked around me, wary that I was next in line for death, when my eyes caught the message carved into the tree across from me and the dead wolf. From this distance I couldn't make out the words through the rain.

"Son of a bitch," I whispered when the realization hit me that I'd have to get up. This was going to be painful.

I slowly twisted at the waist and got a good grip on the bark above me. Standing was a feat unsurpassed by any physical task I had ever done. It was a mix of straining the weak muscles of my arms and legs, and caused me to let out a lot of embarrassing noises in my pain.