Hope

Chapter Fifteen

“Kathryn!” I hear Harry yell before tackling the creature on its side.

I survey my injured arm. Two black bite marks, framed my purple marks, are pierced into my skin. Sharp jolts of pain run up my arm and I stifle a scream. I hear something gurgle and I whip my head around, afraid that something has happened to Harry.

But the Juga is lying on its back, a knife on the other side of its neck, its throat slit half open.

I scream at the gruesome image, tears rising into my eyes.

“Kathryn! Kathryn! Look at me!” Harry yells, panicked.

“What-I-Are you-” I try to say between stifled sobs.

“Kathryn- oh no,” he whispers, staring at my injured arm. He stands up, pulling me to my feet. “We need to hurry.”

The purple frames grow, to the point where they cover the gab between the two marks.

“Harry, what's going on,” I ask.

“I'm taking you to Pacceaus land. They will welcome you there. I am so sorry. This is my fault, I'm sorry. Please hurry.”

I want to comfort him; tell him that he is wrong and that I attacked the Juga, I provoked it.

But it is his fault. I am in this dark, dangerous forest because of him.

I don't know what will happen next, and I am too afraid to ask, but I do know that it is not good.

After a while the throbbing pain seizes and numbness takes over. I welcome him at first until the numbness spreads throughout my arm.

“Harry, why is my arm numb? I can't feel my arm.” My voice sounds weird, faded.

“It's the venom. It is spreading, we must hurry.” His voice sounds dead.

“What will happen if we don't?” I ask, but I pick up my pace to match his.

He doesn't say anything but I already know the answer.

I gasp, taking several steps back and looking at the tree in front of Harry in terror.

“Kathryn, what is it?” He takes out his knife-still stained with blood- and stands next to me protectively.

“I saw it!” I scream, pointing vigorously at the tree. “The Juga! It was there!” I whip my head around, looking for it.

“Kathryn, there is nothing here,” he says, his voice dead again.

“But I saw it!”

“You think you saw it. You're beginning to hallucinate. Kathryn, please, we have to hurry.” He starts pulling my good arm and I follow, still looking around.

“But I could've sworn...”

Hallucinate? “Is this because of the bite?”

“Yes,” he says.

“What else? What else will happen?” I demand.

He takes a while to answer. “Your hallucinations will get worse. Then unbearable, and finally the venom will spread to your heart...” His voice fades.

“Have you experienced this before?”

“No.”

My heartbeat picks up and my throat tightens.

“I'm sorry. I am very so-”

“Stop that! Stop apologizing!” It makes it more real, the fact that I'm dying.

He doesn't say anything after that.

And then I hear it, so real, so vivid, a bloodcurdling scream that knocks me to my knees. My mom's scream.

I cover my ears, trying so hard to block it, to stop it.

“Stop! Make it stop! Please!” I beg, rocking back and forth on the ground.

“Kathryn it's not real! Kathryn! Listen to me!” Harry shouts, shaking me.

“Kathryn!” my mom screams and I immediately stand up. “Kathryn, help!”

“Mom? MOM?” I scream. “Where are you? MOM?”

“Kathryn, she's not here!” Harry's voice cuts through my mom's desperate screams.

Yes she is! And I have to help her. I will not fail her again. Harry grabs my good arm and I pull away. “Leave me alone! Mom?”

I walk in a circle, searching, searching...

“MOM?”

But all I receive is my voice bouncing back to me.

“Mom...” I fall back to my knees. “Mommy.”

“Kathryn?” Harry kneels before me and grabs my shoulders. “Kathryn, it wasn't real. It wasn't real.”

“It sounded so real, Harry,” I whisper.

He pulls me up and wraps his arms around me.

I don't push him away this time. Instead I stay there in the protection of his arms, holding on to the fact that this was once real. Everything else in my life was blurred but this was real to me. I believed in something, in us. I use that to hold me together rather than to break me apart, which I know it can.

I wish this was a bad dream, a nightmare. But the only difference is that my nightmares were bearable because of Harry, my lifesaver.. Now he is one of the enemies.

But here I am, seeking and finding protection from an enemy. The irony.

“C'mon,” he says, pulling away slightly to look at me. “We have to go.”

I let him pull me forward, leaning on him for strength.

I hear the screams again but, like before, Harry holds me until they are over.

I walk with my eyes closed but I open them when the numbness on my arm fades and a burning sensation takes over.

I stop.

“Kathryn? What's wrong?” Harry asks.

“It burns. It-Ouch!” It feels like fire is burning in my veins, gaining temperature by the second.

“We have to run. Or I can carry you-” He starts but I cut him off with a scream.

Sophia looks at me with a smirk on her face before jabbing a knife into my father's neck.

“NO! NO!” She brings it up again. “STOP!” The knife is buried into my father's neck.

“PLEASE! NOT AGAIN! PLEASE!” I run to her but she disappears at the tips of my fingers and appears again in front of Harry.

“DO SOMETHING!” I scream at him, hoping he can hear me through my father's screams.

“Kathryn-”

“DON'T JUST STAND THERE-!” I am cut off by a burning pain that runs through my whole body, knocking me to the ground.

I scream as the pain makes another round.

Fire. Someone's setting me on fire.

I release another scream but I barely hear it. The fire is taking over my senses. I feel my chest lift as I release another scream.

“Make-s-please-!” I try to say through screams.

Where is Harry? Why isn't he putting out the fire? He should. It hurts.

I stop screaming; I seem to have lost my voice.

The fire doesn't go down, no, it just builds temperature relentlessly. I can't feel my body now all I feel is pain. Fire.

“Please take care of her Rob... She's all I have,” is the last thing I hear before the invisible flames devour me, causing excruciating, relentless pain.