Chapter three: Face your fears
I felt like my head was filled with cement keeping it firmly on the ground, my eyes cracked open slightly before shutting again, my head was pounding and I ached all over. My eyes attempted opening again and this time they stayed open.
All I knew was that I was on the floor, covered in leaves and I felt the soil under my fingernails. I blinked, I saw everything, the leaves on the floor in front of me, every colour felt brighter, every tiny detail enhanced.
As I pushed myself up I looked around, it was dim lighting. It felt damp in the air like it was early in the morning. I pressed my hand on my head and shook myself slight pulling the leaves out of my hair. But something on my arms caught my eye, I screamed.
Covering my arms were swirly ancient thin black lines, like a tattoo, I scrubbed hard at my skin until it was red all over but the lines stayed. I crawled over to my jacket that lay a few feet from me, I pulled it on to hide the lines.
I stood up with help of the nearest tree, I snapped my head upwards I heard a sharp distinctive sound of birds above, I could see them clearly like they were right in front of me. My hand gripped harder on the trunk of the tree and I could feel it snapping and crushing in my grasp, I yanked my hand away and stared at my hands.
I stumbled forward using the tree’s to keep me steady, I couldn’t tell where I was I was walking in circles. But then I stumbled upon familiar ground and I knew I was near Beck’s house. This was it; this was where I almost died. It was the clearing.
My head hurt, a striking pain where all the pushed back memories came flooding back to me as I stared at the green grass, felt the sun beat down through the clouds, the sounds of a stream nearby and saw the butterflies springing to the air from the wild flowers that grew.
****
“Come on were almost there Sam” Erin said to me as she dragged me further into the woods. The light was shining through the trees and I could hear the sound of the stream. A smile formed on my face and I looked over at Erin and she smiled back at me.
I stopped dragging my feet as we ran towards the light, our feet crunching their way through the leaves that then turned to a vibrant green as we pushed our way to the clearing. It was as beautiful as I remembered, the sun shining brightly on us, it was almost a complete circle just grass and wild flowers. Butterflies sprung from their leaves as Erin and I made our way through the grass. It was like something out of a story book.
“Wow” we both said, our hands still clutched onto each other, I looked over and smiled at Erin and she was doing the same.
“So how are things between you and Jessie?” she asked me as we looked around the beautiful place. I smiled at her sadly, and shrugged.
“He doesn’t like me like that Erin, so why bother?” I asked, she looked at me for a moment.
“Boys are idiots, besides you have me, we’ll grow up and have hundreds of cats” she said bumping her side against mine, I rolled my eyes.
“I'm allergic to cats” I said to her.
“Oh yeah, how could I forget your allergic to pussy” she joked, I laughed slightly.
“It just proves you’re not my type” I said holding my hand over my heart. She gave me a wide smile and hit my arm slightly pretending to be hurt by my words.
We laughed together, but something changed, I don’t know what made us stop first, the sight of the man at the edge of the field or the inhuman noise that erupted from him. Erin’s brown eyes were wide and I'm sure my green ones matched.
