Silly Little Games

Chapter Twenty Three

“Leila, stay with us, you’re going to see the medic. You’ve lost a lot of blood”

“Leila stay awake...stay awake”

The voice in my head seemed to blur and muffle until it’d finally faded away. I felt weightless. My eyes had fluttered shut and it was like I was dreaming. Everything was colourful and free again, and I was home. Where all my family was safe and happy and alive, so alive. Brian was there, Donnie and Liddie were there. They were all smiling, and holding their arms open for me. Even Trent was smiling, an unusual sight for him.

I hugged Donnie tight, and he hugged back with a proud smile on his face. He pulled away and wiped the tears from my face, brushing a stray piece of hair away from my face. I tried to stop my tears but they continued to flow, and I smiled through them. “I’m so proud of how strong you’ve been Leila, you’ve made me proud” he smiled. I shook slightly at how cold his voice sounded, but the sun glinted and lit up the room.

I looked at Brian and he hugged me tight, almost suffocating me with his tight grip. I coughed but smiled, looking up at him. His eyes glinted in the way they always would when I was around. But behind them, it seemed empty. Void of life. The fire that once burnt there had been blown out by a harsh winter wind, that claimed souls with every flame it took. Although unchanged in appearance, they didn’t seem alive, like they were glazed with a glass coating. I swallowed and tried to pull away, wriggling out of his grip. “You’re not alive, are you?”

Trent sighed. “You don’t remember do you? All lost souls get sent here, like a limbo between life and death. We’re only here because you kept us here with your memory, besides that we don’t exist” he looked down, shoving his hands into his pockets slightly. It was then that I saw the strangle marks on his neck and tears welled in my eyes. “Everyone here is dead”

“Trent, don’t say that, you’re not d-” I choked on the last word, realising that I most probably had over used it over the last few months. Everyone I loved was here, and now I knew, everyone here was dead. They all had those glass like eyes that were lifeless and reminded me of those you would find in a porcelain doll. He looked away from me so that he didn’t have to answer the question, which let the tears in my eyes roll freely down my cheeks.

“We don’t want you to fight, Leila. We know how you die and we’re trying to prevent it in every way possible” Brian sighed, looking at the floor. “The dead know things the living only wish they could know, purely because we can find out how and when people die”

“I have to fight, I’m sorry” I teared up, looking at the people staring at me. The people I loved. My family. The people who cared when others would just dismiss me as just another lost kid. The people who would help me make the right decisions in my life. It took me a while to adjust to the fact that my near family were actually gone. I didn’t want to face it. “They’ll kill me if I don’t fight, I want to show them – in any way possible – that I am stronger than they estimated me to be”

“Leila, we know that you’re strong. You were picked to go to Victus because of how strong you are: emotionally, physically and mentally.  But we know that against all of the vampires, you don’t stand a chance. Ridley will make it his personal job to make sure you die before you leave the battle. When it comes to the end, a victory will only be announced when all of one side is dead. There is no way you can get out alive. I don’t mean to sound negative, but I don’t want to get your hopes up with lies” Donnie sighed, sitting.

“But we still have a chance. We can’t just give up! They’ll put every human into slavery and every slayer will be executed. It’s better to fight because we know that we might have a chance to be free again than certain death” I replied, looking directly at him. I knew that I was living in a fantasy world where we had a chance to win, because it would never work. There was a feeling, deep down, that something wanted me to win. Something or someone.

“You better be going now” Brian sniffed, holding his hand out to me, but I brushed it away. “If you don’t leave then it’ll mean you have died in reality. You’re only here now because you’re drifting between life and death” he explained. I blinked. I was not ‘drifting between life and death’, or was I? The last thing I remembered was passing out, who knows whether I’d make it this time. I wasn’t exactly in the best of conditions. I knew that the next time, I would be done for.

“I don’t know how to leave here though” I replied honestly. There were no doors and no sign of escape. Unless you could escape with a wish but I left that option in the fairytales.  Liddie stood up and placed a necklace around my neck, turning the gem on the end so it sat in the right way. She didn’t look at me and promptly sat down again. Tears ran down my face at the fact she was too disgusted at what I had become to look at me, she wouldn’t even waste a glance on me, she wouldn’t let her eyes set upon me. I looked at the necklace she had given me, when suddenly there was a loud alarm bell.

“WE NEED TO GET YOU BACK!” Brian yelled over the top of the ringing that was ripping at my eardrums. I covered my ears as everything started to fade away and split into individual ribbons, flying away from around me. The room was now nothing but white light and as I moved my hand away from over my eyes, the walls seemed to appear splattered with blood. I ran my finger through it and cringed as it started burning into my skin. The steam that came off it was a burnt red. I stepped forward only to step into more blood that was sitting in a glistening puddle beneath my feet.

“What the-?” I asked into thin air, but the blood seemed to crawl up my legs, pulling me down and causing me to fall to the floor. My head hit it with a loud crack and I held it with my hand, expecting it to bleed. The blood continued to crawl up me, covering me as it did and burning every inch of my body until it felt like my skin was alight. Then came the flames. They were luminous red that burnt my eyes as I looked at them. They lit the blood like petrol.  I managed to sit up and tried to bat away the flames, to meet the eyes of a medic.

“Leila, sit back, you need rest” he sat me back against the bed. I cringed and looked at my body, noticing that I was perfect but everywhere felt burnt. Every fingertip that touched my skin felt like it was being scorched by flames. I fell into a painful sleep that was haunted by dreams of death and darkness, splattered with blood. I tried to block the images from my mind and thoughts but they were already written into my subconscious. I would always get nightmares about death and blood, ever since I was abandoned that night.

My mind told me fast to put my hands over my ears, so I did, not letting any sound in. The bells rang. Everyone was thrown into a panic and everyone except the medic ran outside, picking up guns and stakes. I looked at the medic with tears streaming down my face, knowing that it had finally started. He looked at me with sorrow in his eyes before running out, the massive first aid bag strapped to his back. I reached out to the door but he locked it tight. All I could do was listen to the gunshots and bells.