Bloody Blossom Tree

Chapter 1: The Night I Died

For little kids, Halloween is a time to dress up in cute/ terrifying costumes and receive candy from strangers. For pre-teens, it's a time to prank their old neighbors, while for teens it's a time to get drunk at outrageous Halloween parties and dress up in ridiculously inappropriate costumes.

For me Halloween is a night my grandma and I spend together. Handing out candy to little kids, watching scary movies, making popcorn balls, and set up decorations for thanksgiving.

I remember her saying one Halloween night when she would take me Trick-or-Treating, "Can you feel it Scarlet? The link between the dead and living is weakest on Halloween. Can you hear the spirits floating around? They come back every Halloween and visit the ones they love." We would also do a....weird ritual....

My grandfather had passed away a few months after I was born, so my grandma would light some of his favorite candles, and place a picture of him around the mantel and start to pray about things that had happen since last year. She would feel as if he was sitting on his old rocking chair next to the fireplace watching her and listening.

We would do all of this every year, except this one.

My grandma had passed away last year due to some weird failure in her blood cells, they would refuse to make more. Then her blood stopped flowing and her heart failed.

Now I was standing at her grave, and holding tightly on my bag so nothing would drop out. I reached inside and pulled out a few wrapped popcorn balls, and placed a few homemade Thanksgiving decorations by her tombstone, then I brought my laptop and started playing 'Scream!' And grabbed a pillow and wrapped it in a ratty towel and placed in on the muddy ground.

Every time something scary would happen, I'd turn the volume down then turn it back up because of the real sounds of the cemetery were making me feel like any moment someone would come up behind me and kill me.

When it started to play the credits, I shut the laptop and checked the time on my cellphone. 11:50 p.m. I started to pack all my stuff. When I was finished placed my arms around the tombstone and started to cry. Suddenly I heard a breathy whisper coming from afar.

It was calling to me and when I turned around I saw the most exquisite tree I had/ will ever see(n).

It was a blossom tree of some sort, but it had Blood Red petals, on a tree whose bark was such a dark place I felt like if I touched the bark it would suck me in like a black hole.

I went over to the tree and before I knew what was happening I pulled on one of the branches, and petals came raining down. When they touched my face, I felt them turning wet.

I wiped my face with my hands and looked down, my hand was full of blood. I felt a jolt of my body and a sharp pain on my head. I was wearing a blood red wedding dress, and a crown make of thorns.

I screamed and started to run but my feet were stuck in place, and the Tree started to form in a black hole. I was pulled inside and was in a church. I couldn't move or see. A veil was covering my face and I was holding the bloody blossoms.

The veil was lifted over my face and saw....someone, he/she had no face. There was skin, but the surface was completely blank. There were a bunch of these people in the pews, and suddenly I became aware of the "groom".

I didn't want to look but some force compelled me to, I looked up into his face and I knew my jaw dropped wide open.

His hair was a dark black, his lips bloody red, and sharp amber eyes. His skin was more white than porcelain. He was tall, but instead of slouching, he was perfectly strait. He opened his lips and started to recite:

"I, Nickolai Vlademeir , take you, Scarlett Stanley , to be my lawfully wedded wife, my constant friend, my faithful partner and my love from this day forward. In the presence of God, our family and friends, I offer you my solemn vow to be your faithful partner in sickness and in health, in good times and in bad, and in joy as well as in sorrow. I promise to love you unconditionally, to support you in your goals, to honor and respect you, to laugh with you and cry with you, and to cherish you for as long as we both shall live.

"I, take you, to be my friend, my lover, the mother of my children and my eternal soul, I will be yours in times of plenty and in times of want, in times of joy and in times of sorrow, in times of failure and in times of triumph. I promise to cherish and respect you, to care and protect you, to comfort and encourage you, and stay with you, for all eternity.

"I take you, my partner in life and my one true love. I will cherish our union and love you more each day than I did the day before. I will trust you and respect you, laugh with you and cry with you, loving you faithfully through good times and bad, regardless of the obstacles we may face together. I give you my hand, my heart, and my love, from this day forward for as long as we both shall live."

I saw everything as a blur, and he gave me a chaste kiss to seal the marriage and I he eard his whisper in my ear.

"esti a mea, my darling." And I somehow knew it meant "you are mine" then something cold was placed on my neck. They were his hands.

Everything faded into a dark oblivion, the last thing I heard was "Îmi pare rău inima mea, dragul meu iartă-mă."

"I'm sorry my heart, my love forgive me."