CHAPTER 2: THE FLASHBACK
The rest of the week after her dad’s birthday went really quick, and Athena was glad. It had got the disappointment and depression out of the way, but she just couldn’t forget the dream. It had been different, more blood thirsty than ever. Naturally, she had tried to talk to Tom about it, but things would always ‘pop up’, or he’d hush her down and tell her she was worrying about nothing. It was about time that she tried a different approach, but what? Athena needed a place to think, somewhere that she could go and ponder on nothing else but what mattered. It was only a matter of time before Athena knew exactly where to go and it was only another matter of time before she got there. After all, it was only in her beloved back garden. She trotted out the back door and silently closed it behind her. For a few solemn moments she gazed out into her garden, just absorbing the beauty of its sweet, kind nature. Looking around astonishingly at the gorgeous gardens wonders, Athena felt surprised and a little disappointed, that she hadn’t been in the mystical garden voluntarily for some time. It was rather daunting really.
After a long mournful gaze, she persisted in slowly tottering forward, still taking in the natures beautiful glorifying, well, nature! Eventually, Athena managed to draw herself out of the enchanting overgrown back garden and instead to the dark, tan-coloured wood tree house, that nestled in the branches of the rather large oak tree. It was situated at the foot of the garden, slightly to the right. Smiling like a fool at the battered tree-top shack, she lazily clutched at the wood-paving ladder, before pulling herself up. As she clambered up, the memory of her and her dad giggling and grinning, 7 years ago, at the finished cabin, filled her mind. It was a glorious memory; her dad had been clutching a paintbrush that had proudly given the tree house a water tight glaze. Athena herself had been in dungarees, hair a-flow and grinning madly whilst she compared the picture she’d drawn to the one her dad had courageously structured. Then with a white flash that was like a cheesy signal that the memory had ended, Athena had come back to reality and the broken bark that clambered round the tree like peeling, dry, weepy skin. This immediately caused Athena to sorrowfully grimace, and then continue to climb the tree houses welcoming wooded-panels and smiling silver symbol, that had scratched off and faded into the memories. It was long gone now, and her dad had died before Athena had asked him to repaint it. She would have done it herself, but it hadn’t even lasted very long as the paint wasn’t water proof and she couldn’t even remember what it was. Plus it would never the same and it would never have her dad’s subtle touch. So with one last breathless step, she pulled herself into the boxy wooden room. Admirably, she allowed her eyes to wonder around the place. On the back wall was a drawing permanently scratched into the wood, it was a stick girl and boy that Athena had carved on her first ever visitation into the block, it was a bad drawing but at the time she had been six. It was meant to be of her and her dad, she had once covered over all the other doodles with a glaze type cote of clear paint, but that one had remained, by choice of course. Erasing it would be like erasing a million memories at once as well as betraying her dad. Athena lifted up a limp palm and ran her fingers over the sketch, a tear slowly rolled down her cheek. ‘I wish the past could have a future’ she thought.
There was nothing else in there other than a few wooden chippings that had worn away with the tree houses’ age. Athena settled down into a welcoming corner and began to ponder.
“Why was the dream so violent?” she thought aloud. “What had triggered or enabled it to become so blood thirstily gory?” There must have been a reason for the way things were.
Looking for some inspirational things around the tree house to trigger thought, Athena felt hopeless. She clutched the golden, spherical locket, that hung round her neck, “why dad, why?” she questioned to the ceiling of the tree top wonder. Then, all of a sudden, as if an obvious voice had spoken out from the emptiness around her, her mind yelled ‘LOCKET’. ‘Of course’ she thought, wait what? The little voice in her head said ‘use the locket, its past will determine your future’. It was as if the voice had been put there, its thoughts didn’t feel like her own. ‘How?’ she asked it, ‘how? I don’t understand’. But still the hoarse voice repeated the same words; ‘its past will determine your future’.
