Ella

Chapter 3

"N-no, I-i"

"Get away from us! Get the hell out!" Grace pushed her with all her might and she did not fight her. She has no right to fight her this time.

She slowly crawls away from them, her arms shaking, realizing the enormity of what she has done, of what she was capable of doing.

She did not notice when Alex walked to her side, helping her get up and stand on her feet. She only realized when he whispered to her. The words like bucket of ice waking her from a nightmare.

"He's not dead." He said, squeezing her shoulders where he held her. "He's going to be alright."

I look into Alex' warm brown eyes. I saw the truth of his words reflected in his eyes. She nodded in response, her voice failing to serve its purpose. She should be relieved, and she is...

But not quite.

"You need to let her calm down Ella. I'll take care of things here." Alex led her back to the pathway. "Go take some air. You don't have to go to class for now." She only nodded her agreement not wanting to speak. "Don't worry, I'll cover for you." She was afraid that her voice might crack and she will dissolve into a sobbing heap here in the pathway. She took her bag in his hands after he grabbed it from the ground where it must have fallen.

She turned around and walk down the path without any sense of things. Everything around her is a blur. She did not see nor recognize someone as she walked aimlessly. She did not care where her feet led her, her mind preoccupied with everything that happened in the last hour.

I did not know what happened. I did not know why I did it in the first place. I know it was my hands around Andrew's neck, and yet it all felt so foreign to her. It was like she was another person. It wasn't her that tried to kill Andrew but it was her hand that was wrapped around his neck. She wasn't a murderer. That is what she wants to believe. But something inside her says it's not, a light whisper in her subconscious telling her otherwise. Is it her inner psyche, a murderous persona lying silent within her?

She thought back into that moment. It all played behind her eyes in slow motion like she was there again. She remember the feel of his neck. The satisfaction she felt when Andrew was struggling in her grasp. The desperation in his eyes to live, and that she alone can give it to him. It was powerful, sinister... and it wasn't her. It was something inside her. Something that has been dormant or someone. The thought sends a chill down her spine.

There is no explanation for what happened to her. What it was that overtook her. She had read every single line in her mother's memoir, committing each one to memory. Every event that took place, every thought and explanation she had written to help her understand what she really was. But there was nothing like this in her book, safely tucked under her pillow back in the orphanage. Nothing that could tell her if this was something normal for her or if she was a peculiar case.

She walked for one hour or maybe two, or more, she doesn't remember. She only new that she had been walking for a while. The ache in her legs and the soles of her feet knocking in her senses. When she looks up she was standing in the city limit in the north side of the city. The open road was right in front of her, beckoning her to go further.

Yet another unanswered question.

For some reason, going north and finding what lies beyond the boundary of the city is like an itch wanting to be scratched so badly.

It all started when Alex found her lying beside a tree in this same area on her sixteenth birthday. He said she was sleep walking, the orphanage only five hundred meters from the city limit. She woke up on the cold ground, her feet bare and teeth chattering from the cold. After that incident she always caught herself staring out into the distance, into the north side of the city. Her thoughts blank except for one thing. The burning curiosity of finding what lies beyond. And right now that curiosity burns brighter every second.