A Pocket Full of Posies (Book 1)

Chapter Twenty-Seven (Part 1)

Once the ringing in my ears has ceased and the blackness has disappeared, the scene I expect isn't the one I find myself in. I don't see my parents, I don't see Annabel. There's no car, no road, nothing. It's all new. I'm in a forest, least I think it is. I see a lot of trees, anyway.

Everything looks big and I'm peering over someone's shoulder as they hold me, so I know this isn't happening in real-time. I know it's another vision. We're being chased. The dark bursts are chasing us. My present self knows I shouldn't be, but my past self is staring at them as they follow us. I want to look at who's carrying me, but my younger self can't take his eyes off the dark energies.

"No! No, no, don't look! Don't look!"

The voice is too muffled for me to figure out its gender. I'm cursing my younger self for not understanding why it's so important not to stare at the dark shapes. We keep running. I don't know if we're running anywhere, or just running away from what's chasing us. Whoever's holding me keeps telling me not to look, and I keep not listening. They push my face into their neck, blocking my view completely. It smells of sweat and aftershave.

I think I'm crying. We keep running, and it feels like we're never going to stop. As I begin to give up hope and question if this entire thing is my mind playing tricks on me, the person holding me removes their hand from my head, and we come to a halt. They swoop me down, and plod me onto the muddy ground.

I'm surrounded by branches. They're scratching my bare skin, and it's making me cry even more, and the person keeps saying sorry and telling me to try and be quiet. I think we're in a bush. Or a low hanging tree. I don't know, it's dark. It's really dark. I'm beginning to sweat as panic eclipses my thoughts, and I don't think it's my younger self suffering. What the hell is happening?

Finally, my apparent saviour crawls into the branches I'm tangled among and crouches down in front of me. I can barely make out any features through the shrubbery and darkness, but his eyes are big and his shaggy hair is sticking up in all directions. He keeps glancing behind him.

"Okay, buddy?" he says shakily, and now that we're deadly still, I desperately try to take in all his features despite the darkness making it near impossible. "Just try to be quiet. It'll stop, I promise. Close your eyes, okay? Just close your eyes."

His face is old, but his voice doesn't sound as jagged as I'd have expected. I want to ask him who he is, and where we are, and what's happened to my family, but I have no power over my younger self. My younger self just keeps crying.

"I won't let anything hurt you, Felix. Okay? Hey, listen, you're safe. I promise." The man pulls me into him, and I smell his aftershave again. "I promise."

I don't know how long we sit there, or how long it takes for me to stop crying, but it all comes to an end eventually. The man pulls himself away from me, puts his finger to his mouth in a hushing motion, then quietly crawls back out of the branches. He returns soon after, with relief plastered on his face. He pulls me out of the shrubbery, picks me up, and we make our way through the forest again. This time, though, we don't run.

As we emerge from out of the trees, I see an all too familiar scene, except now there are no bursts of black or white. My parents car stands motionless, the bumper hanging off the twisted metal of its front. My dad sits in the driver's seat, dead. Annabel lies on the bonnet, dead, and my mother lies on the road, dead.

The man holding me shoves my face into his neck again. I don't think he realises I've already seen it all. We're heading towards the car, and my present self can't understand why. When the man opens one of the back doors, I'm even more confused. He sits me down in one of the seats. I'm staring at my dad in the front. I think I'm starting to cry again.