Shining Hill

Chapter 4

Annette had a reoccurring dream about a forest. Sometimes she was in it, surrounded by trees, or she was at the edge of it, looking in, or she was in a clearing in the woods. She knew she was waiting for something in the same way you knew a person, or some object, was supposed to represent someone you knew in real life. It was dream logic, nothing made sense in dreams, but it made sense to Annette.

In this one, she was at the edge of a lake, the forest looming up behind her. Annette felt oddly calm as she felt things move around her. Strange things, things that should have never existed, because they were only myths and legends. She could see shadows staring at her from the corner of her eyes, big and small creatures just out of direct sight. A long arm extended from the top of a tree and Annette turned her head to see it was just a branch.

Annette was calm, she didn't mind the company. She was waiting for someone, her bother she believed. Maybe someone else... no, definitely her brother.

He told me to wait by the water.

It was a lazy thought, a thought that seemed to dance solidly outside her mind, in the air, and in the voices that were calling out her name. The creatures scuttled deeper into the shadows at the sound of the voices.

Annette blinked. She recognized one of them.

Zander's voice was panicked as he yelled for her. All the voices were panicked, and Annette's eyebrows furrowed. She turned to the forest, her back to the water, and saw people running towards her, their faces blurred into obscurity, and Zander was in front of them. He was screaming something that Annette couldn't quite hear, only the last part.

"...the fucking water!" Zander yelled, and then something grabbed Annette from behind.

Annette was in the water, but it was too thick to be water. She thrashed around, trying to fight off the person that dragged her deeper into the thick liquid. There were hands on her ankles and hands on her wrists. She couldn't move much, so she struggled harder. Annette tried to hold her breath, but the thrashing was taking a toll on her body and she had to breathe.

That was when she heard a woman's voice in her ear, a voice that was so clear despite being in the liquid.

"They're going to take me, Annette," the woman whispered in her ear.

Annette tried to speak, but the strange liquid flooded into her mouth, the taste of iron forcing itself down her throat. Her vision was dimming, she was choking, she was dying.

"Find me, Annette, before they make me do something horrible," the woman whispered.

Just before Annette's vision turned completely black, the hands pulling her down pushed her up. Annette was moving rapidly towards a hole of light above her, and she reached for it. Her hands broke through the surface of the liquid into the fresh air.

Annette clawed her way through a narrow hole above her and then she was on solid ground, coughing up the foul-tasting liquid from her lungs and spitting it on the floor beneath her. Annette looked at the liquid she had just coughed out and she froze.

When she was in the liquid, it had been too dark to see what she swam in, but now she could see it as it sparkled in the unbelievably bright light above her. Red, a bright red, and it wasn't just on the floor where she had spat. It was everywhere.

Annette looked at her hands. They were covered with blood. She looked at her clothes, which was drenched in it. She looked at the area around her and saw that the thing she had just clawed out of wasn't a lake, but a puddle.

The puddle spread across the rock and dirt floor, rolling in a thick pool to were Annette was. Annette knew she was in a cave, despite her not looking at her surroundings. Her eyes fluttered as her breath came more rapid. Her eyes traced where the spread of the blood had come from as she began to shake violently.