Scarlett Romero has spent her entire life as an ordinary citizen; going to school, getting a job and definitely not killing people in the middle of the woods on a Friday night.
Until one Friday night, she does.
All she can remember is acting out of...
The only thing I learned That night was maybe I Should've stayed home.
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Chapter Three "Stranger Danger"
Scarlett's POV:
My steps get slower and slower as the seconds pass. My feet start to drag, limbs heavy with the weight of the past three days. I've missed meals here and there. I would prioritise an extra hour of sleep over breakfast and soft drink over water. But I have never gone three days without either.
Thankfully, there are lanterns holstered onto the wall every couple of metres. They tell me more about where I've been than where I'm going, but I refuse to look back. The hair-raising feeling someone is watching me sticks its claws into my scalp, and I want to keep the fantasy I'm alone alive as long as I can.
I wince, a rough patch of the wall catching on my shirt, pulling at the reopened wounds in my back. Now I don't have the thought of escaping at the forefront of my mind, the fear of infection slithers up my throat.
I shake off the itchy feeling, swallowing the metallic taste at the back of my mouth. Fear isn't something I like to let linger, ploughing through the cause rather than trying to stare it down. I'm not about to change that now.
My eyes flutter, those damned black dots eating at the edges of my vision. I blink them away, focusing on the dip in the opposite wall instead. There's a pure silver door in it, one that looks like a walk-in freezer. Only difference are the pale white lines down the entire thing.
I try to open it. It's locked.
Then I figure if there's one door, there must be more, right? It's a long corridor, and Tolkien doesn't seem like the type to waste space, especially when it comes to my mysterious didn't-kill-me-when-it-was-supposed-to stranger.
Sure enough, another door pops up. It's locked too; this one a small, dull wooden unit with fewer white lines. The third door isn't even a door, but a portiere; a deep purple curtain with gold infused embroidery acting as a door.
Finally, at the fourth door – a plain white with a vine of red roses climbing up the left side – the handle lowers, and I stumble inside. Now without the wall as support, my jelly legs crumble beneath me, knees bruising as they hit the cemented floor.
I groan, leaning my hands in front of me. I was going to search for food first, or one of those water bottles the stranger gave me. Now, all I want to do is take a three-year nap.
I hack against my dry throat, using every last aching muscle in my body to lift my head. For the first time in what feels like weeks, the universe is on my side. The bed right in front of my face could well be an uncomfortable lump of glass, but right now it's my shiny, golden halo.
I pull myself onto the bed with cracked, flaky hands. I collapse, hissing at the growing pain in my back. Out of all my injuries; the bruises, malnutrition, manhandling, my back is the worst. Excluding the attempted murder, of course.
