During November

Chapter 8 - Blair

Chapter 8: Paralysis

The woman in front of me is beautiful. Her blonde hair rests softly on her pale shoulders, lips parted ever-so slightly, her face peaceful in her slumber.

I consider leaving the room, crawling back into my own bed, but insomnia has befriended me and I need some different company. I reach out slightly, my hand hovering above the woman's shoulder.

"Mummy," I whisper, lightly brushing her shoulder. I don't receive any response.

I stare down at my mother, brown eyes wide and pleading.

I push against her arm, harder this time. "Mum," the beautiful woman stirs awake, tired eyes meet mine in the darkness, a sigh escaping her full lips before they curve into a small smile.

"Hey baby. Can't sleep again?" She breathes, weariness brushing against her words. I nod, barely a movement of my head but my mother opens her arms, pulling me into a sleepy embrace.

I lay there for a moment, darkness enveloping me, my dirty blonde hair spreading across my mum's chest, listening to her steady heartbeat.

Thump.

Thump.

Thump.

Then nothing.

I wait for the comforting sound of the blood pumping through my mum's body, but her heart has gone silent.

I jerk into a sitting position, grabbing the woman's arm and staring wide eyed down at her. An icy feeling slides over my skin, crushing my chest and making it hard to breathe. My mind goes eerily quiet as I stare.

My mother's body has been replaced with that of my own. Smooth blonde hair replaced with matted, dirty hair, warm chocolate eyes, now blank and cold as they stare up at the ceiling. The room itself represents a place of abandonment. The curtains in tatters on the floor, windows broken, lights smashed, the bed stripped of its sheets and the wooden headboard in splinters.

The air in my lungs leaves me in a trembling breath as I stand, wild eyes locked on the girl in the bed.

I try not to stare too long at the bones protruding from her body. The way her clothes, my clothes, hang too loosely on her frail form. The hollowness of her cheeks, the scars etched onto her skin, hair that once was smooth and delicate, now caked in dirt and filth.

The girl laying on the broken bed is a familiar stranger.

I turn around and run out of the bedroom, floorboards creaking dangerously with derelict, the stale air smells of death, stinging my eyes.

I can't stop running. The hallway seems to go on forever, an infinite darkness closing in on me. I can't breathe. I can't scream. My body has gone cold, fingers tingling with pins and needles.

My legs give out, the darkness and stale air blanketing me, the neglected house I once knew as home falling away, replaced with a deep, unsettling blackness, leaving me breathless.

A frigid wind bites at my exposed skin, the source of it invisible in the dark. I try to listen for a sound, anything, but this place is dead silent, not even a whisper of sound licking my senses. A sense of utter isolation settles over me, sending shivers up my spine.

I want to scream, I want to run, but run where and scream what? My breath has left me, my legs have given out. I lay trembling on cold cement, numb and cold, the scream of the wind rushing past my ears an all too familiar sound.

The screams fill my head. Pile on top of each other, crush each other, become one fatal cry. The cry of a brother whose hope was crushed, a mother whose love was too overpowering, a father with too little to lose. The cry of a friend, of a foe. My own cries among them.

The screams bury me in a coffin of heartbreak and pain, in a hole I dug for myself. And I'm there, watching myself get lowered into the ground by strangers, no familiar faces, not a single person there to witness it, just the ghosts of people I've never met who reside alongside me in the graveyard.

My head is spinning, my chest constricting, stars dancing in the edges of my vision. I'm falling. Falling into a state of oblivion and there's no one there to catch me when I fall. Just the grave I have dug for myself in a foreign land.

I wake up to a bitter wind whipping around me and grey clouds holding the promise of rain. Enzo snores lightly as he continues to sleep, his raven hair falling into his face.

My body feels numb. I can't erase the image of myself lying glassy-eyed on that bed. The feeling of my mother's warm arms enveloping me, blood flowing through her veins.

My head pounds and I'm exhausted from my lack of sleep. My cheeks are sticky with last nights tears, stomach growling, reminding me of my ever-impending hunger.

I shuffle out from under the sleeping bag, careful not to wake Enzo, and tiptoe over to another sleeping form a few meters away.

"Adara," I croak, my voice hoarse. She rolls over immediately, her auburn hair shining in the moonlight. She is stunning with her hazel eyes and dark hair, her freckles like stardust on her cheeks. However, her beauty is rarely what catches the attention of strangers.

A scar the length of her forearm runs over the right side of her face, blinding her right eye and leaving one side of her face a gruesome mess of flesh, lips pulled toward the raised skin in a permanent snarl.

She never speaks of how she received the scar, but one can assume.

Adara glares up at me, a question in her eyes. "Now?" She asks me, sitting up, the wind almost drowning out her whisper.

"I can't let them suffer any longer," I keep my eyes locked on hers. She only nods, standing up and pressing her lips together.

"You know the deal."

"I do," my voice is steady, but my hands tremble as I slide the dagger out from underneath my jacket, passing it over to the girl in front me.

The gleam in her eyes as she takes the knife makes me wonder exactly what I'm getting myself into.

•••
Hey, so I know there's only like one or two people reading this, but if you could recommend it to some people, I would deeply appreciate it. I really need the motivation to continue writing.

-Emz