Treason

One

Chapter One

The sunlight shines down and I'm suspended in bliss for a moment. Highlighted by the sun's rays, surrounded by vibrant wild flowers and soft grasses, I feel like a fairy in her magical kingdom. Green is everywhere, birds are chirping, and all is right with the world.

My fingers skim the top of the waist tall grass and I find myself feeling giddy. I start to twirl through the grass, my pale blue dress swishing around me. I haven't felt this happy in years.

As if the life of the forest had been drained- all noises halted. The birds stopped singing, the trees leaves ceased rustling. Somehow the good was being evaporated, replaced by something more sinister. The birds start shrieking an ear splitting sound, making me drop to the ground, curling up in a ball. I cover my ears with my hands, trying in vain to block out the horrendous screeches. Through my squinted eye lids, I can see that the rays of sunlight retract, and I'm left in darkness. The birds stop their shrieking only to be replaced by the sound of the wind howling through the branches of oaks. Tiny, hushed whispers echo around me. Telling dreadful, morbid stories to the beautiful trees. Except the trees aren't so pretty anymore, they cast creeping shadows that make me want to run and hide. They've become comrades in battle with the evil wind. Haunting every living soul in these woods.

I can no longer feel the grass around me, I get up to take a step and hear a crunching noise. The grass below me has withered and died, turning brown. As if the meadow I was standing in had shrunk in on itself and was tortured painfully. My dress suddenly felt too heavy. I was suffocating. Wind was rushing all around my ears. Screaming at me. Telling me to run just so it could catch me. I cried out as I saw my dress turn a vivid red, drenched in blood by the wind.

I scream in terror as I see my deceased mother appear before me. Mangy, black hair partially covers her face, casting shadows across her blood smeared body. She's hunched over slightly, and I can unfortunately see that her torso is sliced open, leaving her stomach, intestines, and organs hanging out. Swaying slightly in the wind, most were rotting away and it looked as of her skin had shriveled up and cracked in lots of places. Drawing even more blood to the surface. The bones in her right arm were broken, dangling loosely by her side, bent an unnatural angle. I bent over and retched what felt like were all the contents in my stomach. The vomit left a disgusting acidic taste in my mouth.

With her head cocked to the side, she regarded me through all the chaos. Studying me as if she weren't cut open and looking like she should be extremely, absolutely dead. I stumbled backwards, trying to run away from the monster who wasn't my mother. My mother was beautiful.

Then it hit me like a freight train.

That night 11 years ago. The night my mother had been tortured to near death in front of my six year old eyes. That god awful night. The night I heard my mother sob in agony, whimpers the only sound to be heard as her flesh was cut and bruised. The jarring shouts of glee from the men harming her.

She looked exactly as she did now, just without the guts threatening to spill out. Unwelcome tears ran down my cheeks as I remembered. Remembered why this nightmare continued to plague me in my dreams. Why she kept reappearing. To remind me.

"They will come for you."

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I woke with a scream tearing it's way through my throat. My chest rose and fell rapidly, my lungs trying to gasp in some oxygen.

My mind was in a turmoil, images from the nightmare came back to me and made me quiver. Even though it happens every night.

I can still see my mother standing in front of me and I rush to the toilet to empty my stomach, but find myself in a bit of a predicament.