Wings

Chapter 9

I see a tiny body lying in a puddle of blood. The blood has circled making a moat around it. I run towards the body praying that it's not my Grace.

"No! No! NO!" I scream.

I fall to my knees and know it's her instantly. I pull her limp body to me. I'm shaking and can't breathe properly. This can't be happening, this should have been me! Grace doesn't deserve this.

I'm holding this girl about thirteen in my arms. She's so young, too young to die. Her blood soaks into my white dress and paints it red.

I'm sobbing loudly clutching Grace to my chest, her dead body. I don't care who hears me. Without Grace, I don't want to live. Her small body is broken, all her bones are in odd positions. She has been battered to death. Her beautiful face smashed so bad that her face is almost unrecognisable but I know her face as much as I know my own and I know this is my Grace. I am helpless, I can't fix her or bring her back to life.

"Please don't be dead," I'm begging. "Please." I scream in her ear over and over. I pat her hair thats suppose to be blonde but is stained red with blood and hug her tightly. She can't be dead, I should have been here for her.

But she is dead and this is all my fault.

I wake up with Isaac in my face shouting my name.

I push him away and look at myself. I think I should see my clothes covered in blood but there's none. I don't know how to act with my dream, I should tell Isaac and Hayden but I can't talk. I keep shaking and tears start to fill up my eyes.

"Alice, what's wrong?" Isaac says seriously and grabs my both arms so I'm focused to look at him.

I shake my head and can't hold in my cry anymore. I'm not sure why I'm crying over this Grace, I can't remember her but when I think of holding that body, I feel an emptiness in my chest and it hurts like physical pain.

"It hurts so much," I shout, grabbing my heart like that's where the pain is coming from. "There is so much pain."

"Alice, you have to breathe," Isaac says. "Calm down and breathe."

I'm swallowing air in gulps like I can't get enough air in my lungs.

Isaac turns to his side and tells Hayden go get me water. I turn and see him beside me but that's the first I've noticed him since I woke up.

Hayden runs to get me water. My breathing starts to slow down and Isaac lets me go.

"A bit better?" Isaac asks. I nod but can't shake the feeling that Grace wasn't just a dream.

Hayden returns with my water and gives me it.

"How did you know to wake me up?" I ask them.

"You were screaming and we thought you were having a nightmare." Hayden says. He looks really worried with a frown on his face.

"So, you want to tell us what's going on?" Isaac says.

I start to explain my dream about Grace and as I'm telling the story. I'm crying so loud that I'm surprised that they can understand me but they do. They nod as I go on and when I finish, Isaac pats my shoulder and gets off the bed.

They both pace about the room and don't say anything.

I wait for what seems like forever when Hayden finally talks, "I think it's obvious that Grace isn't a dream and she is a memory."

I nod because I knew this already as I would never react the way I did if she was fictional.

"I also think you are getting your memory back." Hayden says but doesn't seem too happy about it.

"That's a good thing isn't it?" I say like it's the most obvious thing in the world.

"Maybe," Hayden says. "But there might be things you don't want to remember."