A Stranger to Our Legacy- Book One: Human Nature

Chapter Five: The Incarnation

When Tasha woke up, every thing seemed, for once in her life, normal.

She rolled out of her bed, rubbing her eyes tiredly. How long had it been since she'd had a good night's sleep? The girl yawned, stretching out and trying to ignore the throbbing in her leg.

EREEEEEEET!!!!

The alarm made her jump, Tasha fumbling with her phone to turn off the annoying sound. Right, she was supposed to return to school today. It had been about two weeks since she returned to her parents house, quite confused when she couldn't remember leaving or even showing up. But, everything else made sense, right?

Eh, close enough.

She winced in pain , trying again to remember what exactly had happened, yet nothing was there but a familiar emptiness. The girl looked quickly around as a shadow moved out of the corner of her eye, yet found only her drapes swaying in the breeze.

Tasha cracked her neck and grabbed a bundle of clothes from her desk, taking a step forward. Pain shot up her leg, the girl crumpling to the floor with a small yelp. Pulling back the fabric of her pajamas, she froze, covering her mouth in both shock and horror.

Her leg looked like it had gone through a paper shredder, hundreds upon hundreds of cuts all up and down her leg, the sudden movement causing many to split open. Tasha sighed, whimpering and struggling to stand. Limping to the bathroom, she curled up in the tub, turning on the water and scrubbing furiously at the cuts.

"Not again, please not again..." Tasha whispered through tears, pausing as a word seemed to form from the cuts.

R e m e m b e r M e.

Blood trickled down the drain, the running water the only sound in the house.

Limping to her classes was really the easy part. Trying to explain where she'd disappeared off to for almost a month was the problem. Well, that and trying to keep the cuts from soaking blood through her jeans. However, besides that, not much had changed at her high school. The teachers were still there- though she did notice one new man walk in and out of her classroom at one point. The students were, unfortunately, unchanged in their stereotypical teenage behavior and impulsivity.

But this was fine, right?

No, no it was not.

For some reason, there was this impending feeling of fear, even with the simplicity of everyday life. The air seemed to crackle with electricity, the hairs on the back of her neck never sitting flat for the first full week she was back, every sudden movement putting her on edge.

A storm is coming, some very different part of her whispered. Be ready for it to arrive.

Fear was a constant that never went away, coiled in the pit of her very being and waiting for anything to show itself.

Besides, the dreams she was having were not doing anything to calm her down, sleep being another thing that Tasha so desperately wanted to avoid because of them.

Dreams of things that were familiar yet unknown to her, visions of a woman with a visual likeness reaching out a hand for Tash to take- and then shadows rising up and smothering the girl, gasping awake as the pressure failed to leave.

Every night, the same dream over and over. The woman speaking in some foreign tongue and reaching out to help her- and then nothing but everlasting darkness.

The girl curled up in the corner of her bed, tears rolling down her face. But why was she upset? After a few hours, she fell asleep again, unaware of a rather particular presence nearby.