The Past Is Gone

Chapter 1 ~ Flashbacks

I awoke to the taste of blood in my mouth. The metallic taste stung my tongue. I can't see anything further than space five or six feet in front of me. With my blurry vision, I turn my head to look to the left. Next to me, I can smell rotten flesh. As bad as it is right now, I'm glad I can't see much. Everything around me either smells like misery or rotting corpses. It's getting colder by the minute. I can't hear anything, almost like there are plugs in my ears. As I try to feel around me I hear a crunch sound. It sounds like leaves on a brisk fall day. I want to ask who's there but I keep my mouth shut.

I don't recognize any of my surroundings. The last thing I remember before I blacked out was him chasing me down with a gun in his hand. He had two men following me after I escaped him. He must have hired them to track me because next thing I know I'm here. I can feel icicles forming on my eyelids from crying so much. The next emotion courses through me like a waterfall on a mountain.

I simultaneously start coughing and crying, easily being distracted by all the anxiety that fills me. I feel an adrenaline rush that starts to kick in. The surge that overcomes me isn't fear though, it's anger. All I can think about at this point is, why didn't he stop me? Why didn't he care? Then it came to me, What if he had something to do with this? I know I saw two men and I knew that they were probably hired by him but now that I think about it, it became clear. From this point on I will never trust him again.

All I want to do is see Josh. He always tells me that everything will be ok. That's probably why my brother and I get along so well. It's because I know who hurt them. The same person who is hurting me. I calm myself down to assess my situation. It's damp in here and cold. I can't tell what's hurting more, my head or my leg. A sharp pain flys down my leg that tenses my ankles.

Pain is all I can feel throughout my entire body. Every move I make isn't safe because I don't know who's here or as to why I'm here. When I finally decide to risk it and move my body I feel breathing next to me. Is someone else here with me? I can barely hear someone beginning to say something about me.

"Haylee and the others are not conscious yet, we need to move them to the Liquid Nitrogen Freezer before their temperature fluctuates too much to preserve them. Haylee's at 96.4℉, if she reaches 98.3 then he'll kill us! Not to mention the last time this happened but Sarah died 20 minutes before he got here and he was pissed. If that happens to one of them again, we're goners."

There are others? What do they mean preserved? Whatever it is I don't want it! I remember last year's science class, Liquid Nitrogen can kill someone in an hour easily. That's why everyone had to wear gloves, I decided to not wear them because I thought that because it was a lab assignment I didn't need them. It ended up getting spilled onto me. I remember how much it hurt. All I wanted to do was make the pain stop. Instinctively I rub my hands together, feeling the jagged scars that are scattered over the top of my hands.

As I quickly snap back into reality I try to keep quiet with tears streaming down my face. They were not easy to fight back. I reached for my phone to call 911. - God damn it, they took my phone! I instantly withdraw my hand because of the sound of an approaching figure. He leaned forward to see if I was conscious yet. I had to be still. If I wasn't I had no idea of what they might do to me. They soon left me alone in the dark. I began to ponder what would happen next. Would I die down here? Will I ever be able to say goodbye to those I loved and cared for? Were they here too?!

Tiny memories of my life begin to form starting from when I was six years old. As mid-winter broke into our town, a car slid into ours. They were doing 70 miles per hour and had reached a point of black ice. Paramedics took what felt like years to get there. broke my leg bones, left arm, and had a concussion for three months after the accident. My mother suffered severe back trauma while my biological father experienced no major injuries. I had to get surgery on my knee as soon as we got to the Emergency room. I had stretched the patellar tendon and my femur had shattered barely leaving my leg in place. I went into the doctor's office for the operation. Everything went black. I saw my brother for the first time after my surgery on my knee. My brother told me everything was going to be fine and that it would heal over. At that time my brother was my entire world. Soon after that, he died at 14 years old. He had a heart condition called Coronary Artery Disease that was slowly killing him. I'm 15 now and I understand why he kept that from me. It was to keep me safe. Safe from the cruelty that death shown to the world.

I began to cry louder and heavier, tears rolling down my face that was creating a small puddle on the ground. Then I could finally see my face in the reflection of my tear-filled puddle for the first time after the kidnap. I wasn't surprised to see blood dripping down from my ear to my chin due to some sort of blow to my head. I ignore the headache pounding against my skull. I don't have time to deal with it. I could see the heavy bags under my eyes. It was getting harder and harder to keep my eyes open telling me that I needed to rest soon before I'd pass out. My nose was balancing on the fine line of it being broken or just crooked. My lips were cracked like an old wood floor, similar to the one in my childhood home. and my neck was too bruised to even tell I hadn't gotten enough sun this summer to keep myself tan.

Suddenly my vision blurs. I can see nothing but the dark. They must have turned off all the lights unlike before when they had a small, dim one in the corner of the room. I close and rest my eyes because I couldn't see anymore anyway. I can hear someone's footsteps coming up behind me. This figure stood in front of me doing nothing at all. After what seems to be an eternity, I finally hear receding footsteps. As I was shocked in fear I slowly release my tensed muscles. He comes back after about 10 minutes prior to the last time. Screaming at the other men in the room. His voice sounds so much like my brother's, it sounds hoarse and tiresome. The lights flick on and I open my eyes riskily. All I can see is the ceiling tiles I had seen before I slept. I think to myself, here we go again.

Author's Note: I've probably updated this 7 times already. My editor and I have been changing the plot recently. Enjoy!