The Broken Crystal

Chapter Five

Dean looked at Crystal there she lay, her upper body leaning on the trunk of a pine tree. She was sleeping, but her face did not look relaxed. It looked haunted. Dean's thoughts went back to their escape. What had happened to her? An involuntary shiver ran down his back as he recalled the way her eyes had turned a glowing yellow and her teeth had been replaced with fangs. It was like his hallucination, only much, much worse.

What would she do when she woke up? Kill him? Like she had tried to do when they escaped? But it couldn't have been her. Crystal wasn't like that, she was nice. Or was she? The girl could've just tricked him into thinking she was good even though it wasn't true. Then again, nothing seemed to be true anymore. Not being able to take it all in, Dean lay his head in his hands, sighing deeply.

Suddenly Crystal stirred. The boy quickly stood up, watching with fear as the teenage girl began to regain consciousness. He sighed in relief when he saw her eyes were no longer yellow and scary, but calm and blue.

Slowly, Crystal straightened her back and leaned forward, looking around at her surroundings with confusion, then amazement. She was in a place she'd never been before. It was green, like Dean's eyes, just even more intense.

All the shapes she'd seen only from her simulations were unusually sharp and so, so real. The colors stung Crystal's eyes more than the white had done at the institution. Wait, was she still there? Or had she managed to escape? She must have! This place looked nothing like her simulations, the trees there had monotone shapes and dull colors, but here they were all different, and every single one was so full of life. Her gaze moved up towards the horizon, the shock blue sky almost blinding her. It was purely beautiful. In the distance she could see the grey mountains, small white skies surrounding them like a halo.

She heard Dean say something, but was too amazed to listen. Her eyes remained locked on the edge of the horizon as she breathed in the fresh summer air. She'd never smelled air like that. So clean, full of this freedom she had been so sure she would never possess.

A sudden wave of pain hit Crystal as someone shook her shoulder. Who else could it be but Dean? Reluctantly, she turned to him. "What is it?"

Before he got to say anything though, Crystal glanced down at her aching arm. It was covered in blood. Her eyes widened as she looked at the rest of her body, dark liquid smeared all over it. The sight quickly made her forget about her previous joy and amazement.

"Dean! Why am I bleeding?" Crystal's eyes widened even more when she realized she had absolutely no clue where she was or how she had gotten here. "And where are we?! How did- how did we escape?" She hadn't noticed she had tried to stand up until she felt the grass on her cheek and the remains of her pain shooting up. "Ow!" Gritting her teeth, she tried again, this time more carefully than before. Dean grasped her arms and helped her to her feet. "You really don't know, do you?" he asked, although he already knew the answer.

"No, I-I don't remember anything! What happened, Dean?"

There were parts of Dean's brain that told him not to trust Crystal. They screamed for him to run as they showed him pictures of a yellow-eyed girl with a gun in her hand. But then he remembered how this girl had saved his life, how she had cared about him when they were both stuck in a hell hole. There was no way he could just walk away from her. So, regardless of what his instincts had been screaming at him, Dean stayed and told Crystal everything.

Crystal's eyes were yellow, was the first thing he noticed. Void of their usual feelings of fear or sadness, only a sparking anger circulating in its deep orbs. They seemed to belong to someone else. And maybe they did.

The girl's body moved so fast it was a blur. Dean wondered where she had learned to handle a gun. Ever since the shooting began, Crystal hadn't missed, not even once.