VERBOTEN

Chapter 4

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Veronica:
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I wake by the smell of smoke, and the heat of an incessant blaze stroking my cheeks. I choke at the sensation as my eyes open. But I realize that I am not beside Annabelle nor the wagon I fell asleep by. I am in my home, my castle, laying on the marble floors that slowly begin to rise in temperature. The chandelier is bursting with flames and the windows that surround the room explode from the unbearable heat. I curl into a ball on the floor, shielding my face as the glass from the windows pierce my fingertips.

Then I stand, twirling around madly as the fire that consumes the chandelier above me spreads to the ceiling and then the walls, surrounding me in flames. I don't think, I don't speak, I merely run to the broken windows as the fire races behind me, burning my heels, and as I crawl out the window I hear my name being screeched behind me.

"Veronica!" I turn around, whipping my blood red hair that is becoming enveloped in soot, seeing that that it was my mother who screamed my name.

"Mother!" I yell back to her as I attempt to crawl back through the window to save her, but it is too late. I watch as the fire swallows her into the depths of its red and black arms, burning away her beautiful hair and rich brown eyes. She screams in pain, yelling for it all to be over, and then there is silence and the only thing I hear is the roar of the fire. "No!" I yell. "Mother!" I reach my hands out longingly to her as tears stream down my face. I want nothing more than to race through the fire that has taken her as its meal and save her, but the heat of the flames burns my eyes and I fall from the window and out of my collapsing castle.

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Veronica:
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I rip my eyes open, the dream of my mother on fire still fresh in my mind. My face is wet from sweat and my body convulses from the nightmare as my hands grip the earth, trying to hold on to reality. But all I see is my mother. The fire melting her away, the smell of her burnt flesh, her desperate cries for help. It takes every ounce of power that is left within me to not put my hands to my ears and scream. I need to yell at those painstaking memories until they retreat away into the distance and never return. I don't want this to be the way I remember my mother. I don't want to close my eyes every night knowing that I will see her corpse bursting with flames.

I squeeze my eyes shut as tears escape from my eyes. Mother, I think, I am so sorry. But even with my eyes closed and the feeble prayer to her, I can still smell the way she died, still hear the way she died, and still see the way she died. Her red hair burnt to black, her skin melting off of her bones, and her horrific cry for mercy that was so loud that it silenced the entire Earth. So loud that I felt my heart stop beating. Her scream was a painful cry for it to end, letting everyone know that she was done with the games that were played in this world. And as she had plummeted into the ground, the Earth welcomed her to rest there for all eternity. I could almost hear its faint whisper, "It is done."

My stomach lurches in revulsion as I relive the way she died, how I replay the image over and over in my head. I can feel vomit crawling up my throat, ready to make an escape. I stand up quickly, stumbling out of the pathway of all the women who are still sleeping. I gaze at each of their faces as I walk away. Some were crying, others shaking like I am. I wasn't the only one with nightmares.

The way my mother had died, I can still feel it. The fire at my backside, the glass that stung my fingers, the feeling of blood dripping down my hands, the dirty ash of the fire embedded into my clothes and hair. I haven't been able to wash up after the attack, so I still look the same as when I had escaped the fire, dirty and distraught. My dream wasn't as bad as the real experience of watching her die had been. She had actually tried to escape with me out of the fire but as we were climbing out the windows, my mother hadn't made it. I left her behind.