Seven

Chapter One

I could not move. I could feel my body, acutely aware of the pine needles poking into my arms, of the cold air prickling against my exposed calf, of the sharp rock poking me in the back. I tried to move my head to look around, but I was frozen, forced to look at what I wished was starry sky. It was not starry. It was not even the sky. Instead, the silhouette of a face with widened white eyes stared at me.

I couldn't see his – if it was in fact a he – features in detail, but I knew them by heart. I knew that dark purple veins ran away from his eyes. I knew that his lips were pale and lined with blood. I even knew that there was deep gash that ran from his neck to the end of his right shoulder that bleed unrelentingly dark, burgundy blood. I did not know who or what he was, only that he haunted me constantly. When I was a child, I was afraid of his horrific figure, floating inches above my face. I knew better than that now. I had seen his face in my nightmares far too often to be afraid of him anymore. The real fear came with the paralysis that accompanied this demon of a man.

Think, I told myself. Focus. I had to hone in my senses to be able to face the fear of being unable to move. The feeling of being trapped while being in the open clung to me like damp clothes.

And then, as if the voice of an angel spoke over me.

"Jade, I'm right here, just turn your head and look at me."

It was a warm voice, welcoming and inviting like a summer's sunset. An image of sun kissed brown curls and the ocean flickered through my memory. They were there, the images, but briefly. Too briefly for me to be able to grab onto.

The jaw of the bleeding man above me opened as if to speak, or cry out in dying pain. I waited for a noise of any kind to escape those pleading lips, but not a sound came. Instead, a wreath of horrible dark vines began to slowly crawl out of the dark hole that was once a gaping mouth. The vines were covered in thorns that dug into and clung to my skin as the vines squirmed over me, wet and moist.

Now, it was my mouth agape in a scream of pain. I still couldn't move. The vines tightened around me, the thorns digging deeper into my flesh. The thick, clear, sticky liquid that covered them burned the surface of my skin as the slow moving plants moved up my neck and toward my open mouth.

I wanted to scream, "NO! GET OFF ME! LEAVE!" But the only sound I seemed capable of making was the pain induced scream that echoed through the empty forest.

Where was that voice? That comforting voice I had heard moments before.

"Jade, to your right. Look at me."

And there it was, as if on cue. Speaking to me in the whispered tongue of an angel.

I just need to move my head...

Please just let me move my head...

I will move my head...

And suddenly everything erupted into flames. They weren't normal flames though. They were flames kissed by Death himself, tattooed with a black film that danced just as the flames did. They were hotter, darker, and much more dangerous.

The vines recoiled, becoming ash instantly and the bleeding man shook and feel to the ground as what was inside him died. The flames didn't touch me, but their hot energy empowered me. I turned my head to glimpse a child. A child with brown curls, and eyes...eyes like...

My mind trailed off, feeling the power of the flames surge. I breathed in deep and the flames dropped a moment, letting me glimpse the boys finally tailored clothing. When I breathed out, the flames leapt up, reaching for the branches of the pines and acacia that stood much higher than my head, and the boy was consumed by them, disappearing.