Ghosts of the Future

Sanctuary

Saira's POV

There's too much noise in this school.

I can barely concentrate on my English homework with everyone yelling and shouting. I consider calling Gabe, a normally-silent spirit that lurks within the school, to help me shut everyone up, but I dismiss the idea. Gabe doesn't like to be bothered. Also, he hates me.

I want to leave, but I can't. My adoptive parents expect me to ace all my classes so I can go off to a good college and they'll be rid of me. Like I truly bother them all that much. All they're worried about is that I'll die and make them look bad.

As soon as I think that, my scars start to itch. I rub my wrists together, a nervous habit, and look down at my English, which swims before the memories flashing across my eyes.

A fire blazing high. A boy's smile. A blue sky dotted with fluffy clouds. A book, a dark book full of blood and ink and pain and secrets.

The images flash off when a tray hits my table. I look up into the face of Max Sello, and inwardly groan. Can I not be left alone to my pain and misery for five minutes?

Max has his buddies behind him. All of them are big and strong football players, but none of them scare me. Not after the things I've seen, the things I've done. Right now, I'd be glad for pain that isn't within my own mind.

"That was a stupid thing you did this morning in the hallway, Saira," Max says, leaning towards me. I stare at him, hatred boiling in my chest. But not hatred for him: hatred for myself, for drawing attention. Almost everyone is looking at me and Max, and I hate it. I hate the limelight.

"Stupider than you and your goons? I highly doubt that," my mouth says. I mentally kick myself as Max's eyes narrow. Suddenly, his hand reaches out and grasps my throat.

Faster than I thought possible, I flip over the table and onto Max's back, dragging his arm with him. He yells as he topples, letting go of my neck in the process. I flip neatly to land on the floor, barely winded.

Max glares up at me, and I snort. "Use your strength wisely, moron. And don't ever touch me again. Because I can make you hurt in even worse ways," I hiss at him. Then, without looking around, I grab my homework and march out of the lunchroom.

---------------

The woods are my sanctuary. I feel more focused here, near the ruins of a burned cabin.

I remember this place well, since I had only left it two months ago. I had murdered a boy in cold blood here, then burned down the cabin to hide the evidence. Exactly what most people thought I did to my own house, four years ago, when I was fourteen.

The English homework isn't getting done. I know that I won't be able to do anything for a while, since my body will be busy bleeding. But, still, I put my homework in my red folder, then draw my pocket knife out of my pocket.

The multiple blades are stained red. So is the skin under my fingernails. And the skin at the base of my spine and back. My life runs with blood, and I'm tired of it.

One of the blades digs into my skin, and I squeeze my eyes shut. The tears don't come for a while, not until the blade bites into my bone. Then, the torrent unleashes, along with the memories I keep holed up inside the darkest part of my mind.

My brother laughing, his fawn hair spread around his head in a halo. Sis standing next to her fiance, grinning like the world was just given to her. My mother sitting next to my father on the couch, both of them smiling as I watch on.

More, darker images. Blood staining the ground, spilling from a bullet hole in a small girl's chest. A boy glaring at me, covering his chest, where a bullet punctured his lung. Screams from dozens of people as they spill onto the street, yelping and fainting in horror at the sight of a body dribbling scarlet liquid.

The images come faster, faster, faster, each darker than the last, until the final image burns like a brand into my mind:

A burning house. It's always that. A house wreathed and drenched in scarlet, gold, and sunset. Blazing as high and bright as the sun, covering the entire sky. Turning the night to day.

People shout. Scream. Yell. I can't hear it. I can only watch as firefighters blend fire and water. Red and blue flash around me as I'm loaded into an ambulance. I feel no fear, no pain, no fright. They protected me, those demons inside my house. They protected me, because their lord ordered them to. I know it.

The image fades, replaced by a splendid blackness. I want to believe that I'm dead, finally, but I know better. The pain in my wrists is still throbbing, shooting lightning up my arm and across my shoulders. The blood soaks my jeans, joining the paints and markers. I can feel it acting like glue, sticking the denim to my leg.

I sit up, giving myself vertigo. I stare down at my wrist, which continues to bleed. My eyes are puffy and red from crying, but it seems to me like my blood flow is slowing instead of speeding up. And I'm still alive. It makes no sense.

"Most things don't, child," a voice behind me says. I whip around, on my feet in an instant. A man stares at me, not flinching. His silver eyes gleam brightly, and his scarred hands are folded in front of his stomach, like a businessman. He's dressed like one, too, in an ink-black three-piece suit with a silver tie the exact color of his eyes.

"Who are you?" I ask. I flinch at the sound of my hoarse voice, raw from sobbing and weak from lack of blood. The man cocks his head at me, and says, "That's an interesting question. I am many people. Well, mainly one. JR, I was called in the beginning. Now, I am called Curator. My time will come, but not for awhile. My master is still alive. His plans for me are only for when he is dead."

I blink at the man, confused. Spirits, demons, and death, I understand. This silver-eyed man in the woods talking about a master? Not so much.

The man shakes his head, and says, "It is not time for you to know what I speak of, child. Not yet, at least. In time, in time." I stagger away from the man, my eyes finally noticing that his suit is darker around the cuffs. Dark with blood. I would know that stain anywhere. His silver eyes gleam too brightly, too inhumanly. His hands are too still, his chest not moving as he talks. I see no pulse in his neck.

"So, you realize what I am," he says calmly, watching me as I stumble further away from him. I shake my head, my mind simply not understanding what I am seeing. What I know in my bones is real and true.

"Human technology isn't that advanced yet," I mutter. The man laughs, surprisingly, a rich, deep laugh that sends shivers through the air. "Human technology is more advanced than you will ever know, Saira Collings," he says, stepping back to melt into the trees.

Anger surges through my veins, and I snarl, "That's not my name." The man laughs once more, and steps further into the trees' shadowy embrace, until only his glowing silver eyes show.

"It will be your name for forever, Saira. You will never escape it. It will be written on the last shard of glass, I promise you," the man says, his eyes winking out like stars in the day.

I stand there for I don't know how long. I just know that when I move, I almost fall since my legs are asleep. I scoop up my folder, rip a piece of cloth off my shirt to bind my still-bleeding wrist, and run into the trees, fear a trilling siren in my blood.