Darker Than Blood

-III-

[ III - I'll Kill Them All ]

[ Addison's PoV ]

Listen up and listen good cause I will only say this once.

My sister thinks I'm weak. She thinks I'm suffering an unbearable pain that is tearing me up inside. She believes I lie about my feelings to not get hurt again. She thinks that the reason why I act, think, and dress the way I do, is because I still haven't gotten over the fact that our parents are divorced.

She believes I don't want to live anymore. That I don't want to love. She thinks that I will never trust again.

All in all, she thinks I am depressed.

I am NOT depressed.

No, I don't trust. But the reason for that is very easy to explain. If my parents, the ones who are supposed to take care of their daughters, can go to such extreme conclusions, not caring if they hurt their own children, then what is a stranger capable of?

I know how stupid this sounds but... What is Amora capable of? I know I shouldn't say that. I know I should trust her.

But... at the same time, I know I CAN'T. There is only so much a person can take. Only so much a heart can hold before it breaks. I know, that if my heart receives another hit, it will shatter into pieces that will never come together again. I went beyond breaking point once.

I don't want to feel that again.

But right now, that's not what matters. That's not what's on my mind anymore. The only thing that is even being processed at this moment is that one word on the board.

Vervain.

The more I looked at the word, the clearer something in my mind became, along with the start of a dull aching at the back of my head. The bold letters began twisting around the board as distant sounds resurfaced from my memory, the classroom around me becoming blurry. Shuffling, lots of shuffling echoed through my head, and the headache suddenly became worse.

"Careful, careful or their heads might fall off."

"I know what I'm doing, Stefan," another voice mumbled in an annoyed tone.

"Sure you do," the first voice retorted.

My heart started pounding in my chest as I forced my mind to grasp onto the memory, but no matter how much strength or effort I put into the task, the sounds began fading. Brief flashes of the surroundings went through my head, all too dark and blurry to be recognized clearly. Green eyes, a dark alley . . .

Fangs?

It got worse, everything got worse. The pain started to spread to my chest and a dull burning sensation spread through my lungs. Breathing suddenly became quite a task, my lungs straining to get air into them. I could hear murmurs go around the classroom, strange voices, whispers, but all of that barely registered in my mind as I looked at the letters on the board which was slowly turning into something else . . .

Something that made me think I had officially lost my head.

Dirt began appearing on the board, spreading like a sick parasite, and covering the rims of it. The dirt grew denser in the middle of the board, and soon enough, it started moving, as if something was trying to come out from the other side.

My blood ran cold and I felt fear spread through me like it hadn't before. I felt like I was frozen in place, my legs not moving, and the classroom around me disappearing as my eyes focused entirely on the moving dirt.

Slowly, the head of a man started sprouting out from the wall, and he struggled to move outwards, almost as if trying to reach towards me. My lips slightly parted and I tried to force something, anything, out of my mouth, but I was frozen. Unable to move.

'Addison . . .'

My heart came to a stop when I heard the voice, the voices, echo through my mind. There were so many at the same time, each of them pulling me towards the man, who was still struggling to move his chest out of the dirt. As more of him came out, I noticed something that made my world suddenly freeze.

Burned. This man was horribly burned.

His skin was falling off of his arms and face in rough patches, onto the floor. His head slightly lifted itself, giving me a good view of his scarred and terrible face, his eyes a glowing blood red that at times haunted me in my nightmares.

'Addison . . . Aren't you going to help me?'

His voice, scratch that, the voices echoed around the room with a cold intensity, spreading the fear already in my veins into my bones. What was odd about it was, this man wasn't moving his lips. He was talking without moving his lips.

'Aren't you going to come closer? Addison . . . Addison . .'

In the deepest part of my mind, I registered that the one talking to me, and calling me was indeed my sister, and as much as I fought and tried to make that part of my mind resurface, fear overcame it, making me stay frozen in my spot.

'Addison . . . Help me . . . Addison!'

In the corners of my eyes, I noticed Mr. Harris move closer to me, calling me, but I couldn't move. I tried to tell him not to come closer, that the burned man was extremely dangerous, along with hideous, but I didn't have control over anything in my body.

'ADDISON!'

My body miraculously turned to Mr. Harris, about to tell him to move away, but my eyes snapped to something behind him. Him. The man, right behind Mr. Harris, a sick and rotten smile on his face, literally.

'I'll kill them, Addison.... I'll kill them all..'

And then a stinging pain started spreading all throughout my stomach, all of the voices started crying and screaming my name. Something in me snapped, and I felt it. I could suddenly move again, I could breathe without the pain in my lungs, or my head, or my stomach and chest but..

He was still there, that sadistic smile on his face, the blood red eyes staring directly to my soul, the vulnerable version of me I had tried to close off so hard. I felt so weak, I could move but my body wasn't reacting, no matter how hard I tried, it wouldn't budge.

Then I heard something scrape the floor, so loudly it echoed in my ears painfully. My eyes immediately snapped towards the sound, my breath hitching in my throat as I met my sister's worried glance. I didn't realize what I was doing. Everything was a blur until I suddenly felt air whipping around me and the world was a blur. 

It took me some seconds to realize that I was running and that my heart felt like it was pounding in my neck. I was running away from the classroom as fast as possible, trying to get away from the- whatever the hell I had seen in there.

I was scared shitless and even though I couldn't see or hear anything else, my heart was still pounding, and I was still running.

I wasn't stopping. I only had one thing in my mind; Run, Addison. Fucking RUN.