Am I Alone?

Chapter Two

Bending over (facing away from the rags) I threw up on the cold hard ground. What I had seen had cracked my hard, uncaring exterior and broken into the wimp that was hiding inside. Wiping my mouth on the back of my hand I called out to my mother.

“Mummy!”  I called, holding back sobs. “Mummy, I need you! W-Where are you, Mummy?”

Silence greeted my heartbroken cries, my only audience the dismembered body hidden within the pile of rags.

I was freaking out.

Wait, I had no memory of the past few hours, no one here to help me, and a dead body staring at me from beneath a pile of cloth. I was way beyond freaking out.

“You should be here for me! Mummy you said you’d be here!” I finally broke down and just sobbed, falling to my knees as I tried to comprehend the unspeakable horror of the thing I had just seen. For it was no longer a person- no, now it was a thing. A horrible, mangled, disgusting thing.

After about twenty minutes, I pulled myself together and went for a closer look.

The body was wearing loose black clothing, but no shoes, and had no hair or eyes. Their skin (what was left of it) was hanging off their skeleton in strips, blood dried among the bones.

As I looked at the broken body lying in front of me, tears began to spill from my eyes. This time I made no sound. I just stood and stared at the body as tears marked paths down my grimy face, giving my own silent tribute to the unknown soul.

Their body was cut up, now in more than five pieces, but the cuts were not uniform enough to have been made by a knife. The jagged edges and missing fragments suggested an explosion had done this. But, if there was an explosion, why were the body parts still lying together? And why was the body concealed under so many old rags? It was almost as if the person had been hiding.

But then it hit me. If the body was still here, and the blood still at least partly liquid, this person could not have died long ago. But the rate of decomposition didn’t show a body that had been dead a few hours. No, it showed a body that had been dead for years. Which could only mean one thing… this was someone else’s blood.

Wait. I caught myself. I don’t know this… I’m a fifteen year old girl, who isn’t even taking biology, and here I’m talking a load of nonsense about ‘rate of decomposition’! It’s probably all wrong anyway; I mean, what did I know about dead bodies? Nothing, that’s what.

Leaving the body where it was, I stumbled across the floor, tripping often, getting glass in my foot even more often, but not stopping until I reached a building.

The building was miniature in comparison to others I have seen, and all but one floor had been destroyed, but it was shelter. Besides, all of the bigger buildings were entirely demolished, so there was no safety there. Not that I truly believed it was safe here, but this building at least gave the illusion of safety, which was more than anything else in this empty environment. I curled up in a corner and squeezed my eyes tight shut.

“Alana.” A voice whispered. My eyes flew open. “Alana.”

“W-What? Who’s there?” I stuttered.

 “Alana… come find me, Alana.” It was a girl’s voice, soft and gentle, but somehow seemed to carry a lot of authority.

I had never reacted well to authority.

“No!” I snapped to the invisible person, climbing to my feet. “You want to see me, you come find me!”

“Help me, Alana.” The voice was fading.

“Help yourself!” I yelled to the empty room. There was no reply, so I closed my eyes again, hoping to drift off into an easy, dreamless sleep.

Like I would be so lucky.

I slept for roughly three hours, but it wasn’t a peaceful sleep. When I woke up I was about a metre away from where I had fallen asleep, and I had bruises all over my body from thrashing around.

I still remembered the dream that had interrupted my rest. It was only flashes of images: the body, the trees, the buildings. But over it all was the voice which had called out my name. The girl, who had sounded so sweet, was no longer whispering my name, she was screaming it.

“Alana! Alana!”

I woke up feeling less rested than before.

The strange girl’s voice continued to scream for me, in my head, as I stood up, wandering aimlessly away from the building. I was taking notes in my mind as I walked, but each item was interrupted by her plea for help.

No signs of life (“Alana”); Trees (“Alana”) all dead; body count: (“Alana”) four.

I saw more and more bodies the further away I got from the place I woke up.

Nine… Ten… Eleven…

Each one was in worse shape than the one before.

Twelve… Thirteen… Fourteen…

“Alana!” This cry was very high pitched and very, very real.

Breaking into a run, not caring about the glass on the floor, I headed towards the half-demolished trees on the other side of the empty town centre I was currently in. I don’t know why I ran that way, I couldn’t tell where the voice was coming from, but I hurried towards the trees until I reached them, weak in the knees and breathless. I hesitated at the tree line, reconsidering my insane idea to sprint into their dark depths.

“Help me…” The voice was weak.

Hearing this quite call to me, I dashed into the forest with no more thought of my well-being. All I thought as I rushed through the gaps was the words “got to save her, got to save her.” I don’t know why I was so eager to save this girl, but there was something about her voice, something that stirred up memories…

“Run, Alana!” Lucinda cried from just ahead of me. “Don’t stop for anything! Forget about Nick, he’s as good as dead! We can make it if you just go a little faster!”

Tears prickled at the corner of my eyes, threatening to spill over. I don’t know who Lucinda or Michael were, or when that memory was from, but it made me sad. My run slowed to a joy and then stopped altogether. The cries had stopped. I was following an invisible trail to a girl I didn’t know, because of a memory I didn’t understand. What was wrong with me?

Lucinda. I hadn’t heard that name before, but for some reason it made me falter. This Lucinda person, whoever she was, was important to me. But why? All I thought of when I thought of her was those sentences, but then, ever so slowly, a picture began to form in my mind.

It was a girl, stood in front of a gold-framed mirror, which was above a small marble fireplace. She had red hair, which hung to half way down her back, stunning blue eyes, and full pink lips which were stretched up at the corners in a beautiful smile. She was wearing a long red dress, which hugged her figure in just the right places, and held a small black clutch bag.

In the mirror my face was reflected back. My thin red lips were pulled back in a grin and my emerald eyes were sparkling in the light. My short blond hair hung around my face in a perfect bob.

The picture faded in my mind, leaving me sad and empty inside. Who was this mysterious Lucinda, and why did I not remember her? One thing was for sure… I was missing a part of me. And that part of me was out there somewhere, calling for my help.

“I have lost a dear friend but,” I vowed to myself, “I will get her back.”