50 Deaths

Chapter Three

I was back. Once again, I was standing in the circle, and death surrounded me. I closed my eyes, since it seemed to have worked last time, but it did nothing. It was just like the night before, but this time I knew it was a dream. I kept trying to tell myself that, but it was no use. I was still scared. So I just stood there, waiting for something to happen. And then, suddenly, a tall man from the circle stepped forward. Nothing else moved, except for him. He walked towards me until he was only a few feet away. He carried a sharp knife, and held it out in front of him. He said nothing, which scared me even more. There was no movement, and I tried to stop my heavy breathing. And then, I was someplace else. I was standing alone in a dark street. It was a cold, dark night, and a shiver ran down my body. I walked down the sidewalk, not sure where I was going. I didn't know if this was still a dream, or if I was magically transported somewhere in real life. It had to be a dream.

Then a dark shadow appeared from the corner of a building. He stepped out from where he was hiding, to where I could see his face. It was the same guy from the circle that had stepped towards me, except he wasn't carrying his knife. He was an extremely tall, muscular man, with eyes a dark brown, that I could still see, even in the night. He remained silent, and looked directly into my eyes. Then he slowly approached me. I turned around and started to run. I didn't know what else to do, so I just ran as fast as my legs would take me. I looked back, and he was chasing me. He pulled out his knife as he continued to run. I turned a corner, and ran until I took another left, then a right, and ran until my chest began to ache. But I didn't stop, I couldn't. He was only a few feet behind me and was thrashing his knife at me. The blade made contact with my swinging arms, and left a deep cut where oozing red blood came running down my fingers.

I screamed in pain, but didn't stop running. And then I fell. I tripped over  a crack in the sidewalk and fell on my stomach in pain. The man kneeled down by my body and flipped me over on my back. He looked me in the eyes and let out a horrible laugh, that sent a shiver down my body, despit the cold weather. Then he raised the knife over my body with two hands and brought it down into my chest. Everything went black.

I was back in the circle. The man was still standing by me. I looked down and saw nothing. No stab wound, or blood, there wasn't even a cut on my arm. The man stepped back into the circle, and then vanished into nowhere. There was now an empty space in the circle.

I thought it was over, I thought I was going to wake up in my bed, but then I heard a voice.

"Choose me, choose me. You have to choose, so just choose me."

I didn't know where it was coming from. It was a deep, scratchy voice, that had almost a whisper tone.  I turned in circles, but there was no source of the voice. The things around me were completely silent and there was nothing else there that could've been the voice. I didn't know what else to do so I just closed my eyes again. I kept them shut for a while, and when I opened them, I was laying in my bed again.

 I sat up and rubbed my eyes. I looked at my alarm clock and it read 4:20. I fell back down on my pillow and decided I would try to go back to sleep. Thoughts raced through my head. What did the unidentified voice even mean? What was I supposed to be choosing? And why did I have to choose? Eventually, I fell back asleep.