Thanatophobia (fear of dying)

The Rules of Escape

Things were spinning round and round endlessly, making me dizzy. My stomach lurched.

“What’s going on?” I whispered as the spirals panned out into waves and the world in front of me became still, letting me see clearly again.

My eyes widened and I gasped at the scene that lay before me. Bodies. Everywhere.

It was a dirty, dusty street, corpses all along the sides, down the middle, on the sidewalks, atop of parked cars. I saw drops of blood dribble down a woman’s arm before delicately falling onto the cement.

I chocked back a sob at a baby laying directly in front of me. It was tiny like a newborn, but it was silent, still. It’s face was ashen and the blankets it was covered in were stained with blood.

I closed my eyes shut as hard as I could, tugging at my hair with my hands.

“Please, no” I sobbed, “Please, Please.”

Silence rang out so loud I thought my ears were bleeding. Wind rushed by me, chilling me to the bone as I felt a puff of air on the back of my neck as if someone were standing behind me.

“You did this. It’s your fault,” A cold, clinical voice whispered from behind.

“No,” I murmured as a tear slid down my cheek.

Suddenly an arm wrenched me around to face a face lined with age; the man from S.O.M.E.

“It’s all your fault,” He repeated, this time accusatorily as his eyes narrowed. Before I knew what was happening he pressed the cold steel of a knife against my neck. “Your fault.” He repeated as the blade went deeper and I screamed.

I sat upright in bed instantly, eyes wide, and sweat sticking to my skin. My heart was pounding rapidly.

“Shit,” I gasped as I glanced about the dark room, convinced there was a S.O.M.E. assassin lurking in the shadows.

I bit my lip quickly as I slipped out of my bed, putting a hand to my chest to hear the beating of my heart. Thump, thump, thump. A hundred times as fast as my footsteps across the room.

I flipped the switch in the bathroom and watched as light illuminated my face.

I looked like I’d seen a ghost and when I looked down I noticed that my palms were shaking.

Taking a deep breath, I tried to calm myself down, but I couldn’t shake the feeling that that dream was right. S.O.M.E. would find out and when it did, it would be my fault.

All those deaths, my fault…

I saw a drop of water fall onto the ground and stonily put a hand to my face. I was crying.

I couldn’t stay here any longer. I just couldn’t. Elliot’s ball was only a week away, a couple days before his alphabet was up.

If I stayed much longer it’d be too late.

Trying to steel my resolve, I turned away from the mirror and hurried toward the closet, pulling out the first pair of clothes that my fingers touched.

As silently as possible I stuffed my legs into a pair of yoga pants and slid a black hoddie over my tank top, zipping it up tightly. The nights were still cold.

With a pair of converse dangling from my hands I made my way out into the hallway.

I kept my fingers crossed and my breath held throughout the length of the hallway and as I reached the stairs I prayed to God that they wouldn’t creak. Elliot was too light of a sleeper for his own good.