Ch. 1
xxxxLost
My feet crash on the hard stones as I run through a barren forest stripped of its summer greens. The forest surrounding me is pitch-black, and I could hardly distinct the branches from fingers grasping at the silvery diamonds up above my head. I didn't know why I was running, I just was. My breathing fell into the rhythm of my feet, and my mind thought of nothing else. It was blank, just focusing on the one task set upon it. Lights flicker in front of me, greens flash and blues eagerly take it's place with a dash of purple. Reds burst into the scene along with golds and an orange or two. I wasn't sure what the lights were, but I paid them no mind. Until a voice rushed through the wind. "Hurry!" It said in a urgent voice. "For what?" I cry out, but my voice was ignored. But I diligently kept dashing through tree after tree, despite my unanswered question. A purple butterfly flew past me, fluttering that way and this way in front of me. "Hurry!" The voice repeats. It seemed that it was coming from the insect flapping constantly in my face. "For what?" I ask again. But still, no answer. I was growing impatient, until I saw a door. It was old, ancient like those doors you see in the pages of story books with patterns depicting a fairy tale. At the top rested a clock that was frozen at a minute before midnight, like in most tales concerning that mythical time. I opened the door without a second thought, thinking that it was the thing I had to hurry for. The wind whipped my face as my foot came into contact into white puff. "What the?!" I scream as I plummet into the depths of cloud. I saw the ocean below me, deep and fathomless as I feared. I blinked to find myself surrounded by burning flames cackling with passionately. I was in a place of ruin. Paintings of some family were pealing, trying to get out of the reaches of the ever-growing fingers. I noticed in the corner of my eye something...off. Something that shouldn't be there. I walked toward it, only to shudder and turn a light shade of green. It was a head. But there was no body, no heart pounding against a moving chest. Just a head, still oozing that precious life liquid. I closed my eyes voluntarily, trying to erase that gruesome image and hoping secretly that I would be elsewhere. I, still flustered, unfastened my eyes. Still, I was in this chaotic scene. The head still lying there. The flames still lapping up the what air was left. For some odd reason, I didn't choke nor did I pass out from the smoke the clustered toward the ceiling. But one thing was different. A pair of red eyes, glowing devilishly and then some, stared directly at me. It was a woman, with red hair resembling that of crimson liquid frozen in my veins. It was slicked back, to show more of her unnaturally pale flesh. She smiled at me, but it wasn't a smile. It looked like a grimace, a snarl if you will. It looked like a face that never smiled, except at the agony and torture of those surrounding the grin. She held in her hand what looked like a pitch-black mace, with bloody spikes protruding out of it in the most garish way. I shuddered involuntarily, as though my own flesh knew of the horrors this single individual can do. "Ha! Well, well. That's what that little wretched creature gets for standing against me! Me!" She was almost squealing in sheer delight of the lumps that encompassed her. I felt the blood drain from my face, for I figured out it wasn't just a head she was laughing about. I glimpsed at the carnage strewn about her. Women...men...oh my god. Children. Children! Still in their play clothes, with dolls and toy soldiers in hand. The women were worse. They clutched their husbands and family as though they could shield them from the flash of steel and the bitter taste of the Reaper's ever vigilant scythe.
The woman turns her steel toward me. "Hmm...one left I see! My, my. Can't let you go can I?" She grinned, letting all her malice toward me. I took a step back, my heart pounding against my chest. "Oh my dear, don't be so scared. You just need to die." I turned to flee, hearing the clicks of her metal shoes clash against the tile. Every echo I heard, the more I desired to hide. There had to be a place to hide in here that wasn't totally annihilated or being devoured by fire. I bolted down this corridor with arch ways leading toward a mirror held up my silver strings implanted in the ceiling. Nothing behind it. A dead end. "So much for my navigation skills." I huffed as I neared the silvery obelisk, reflecting the consumed castle in all it's gore. And my awaiting death in garbed in crimson. I knew this was only in books, but I tried it none the less. I touched the thin layer of glass, only for my hand to sink into it. It rippled across the surface like water, and even my hand felt the usual feeling it gets when submersed. Stranger yet, I felt something pulling my hand into the vortex of silver. When I was almost half-way through, I felt nothing. My limbs didn't budge the slightest. I was stuck! I attempted at struggling, but was unable. "Pity, I almost liked the chase." I heard the voice, almost like granite etching against each other, cackling at my helplessness. My eyes were glued to her shimmering mace, still stained with innocent's blood. I see it hover dangerously close to my head, once, twice, and finally a third time. The pull soon continued it's course, even swifter than before. The last thing I saw is the woman nearly smashing my skull in, the last thing I hear is her cackling against my scream of terror.
---------------------------------
I awake in my bed, my flesh beaded with sweat. My parents burst into my room, nearly wrenching my door off it's hinges. "What's wrong honey?" My mother inquires, with some rebellious strands of hair fluttering defiantly in her face. My mother, Evelyn Augusta, is a archaeologist who loves anything with a nice little layer of dust and time on it. My father, Matthew Augusta, is a writer who never leaves without his favorite pen. "Is something wrong?" His voice waivers slightly, his nerves wracked by my voice. "I'm fine...just a dream." I clutched my fist near my still fast-beating heart who wasn't satisfied with I'm fine. My heart wanted to know what it saw in those gruesome images that flashed before me. My folks sigh in relief that such an event was over. "Well, breakfast is down stairs if you want it hot." My mom hugs me, as she had always done since I was brought into the world. My father leaves after kissing my forehead. I didn't pay attention to that, I just kept seeing the images play over and over again in my head. The seas, rolling against the wind. The head, basked in red-hot flames that held a woman so fearsome she would put Madame Defarge to shame. What did it all mean? I pondered this as I pulled on a shirt and some shorts. As I brushed my hair, I noticed something wrong. In my reflection, I had strange tattoo-marks all over me. Even my face wasn't spared. They were curvy, sometimes spiked in a rebellious fashion. But one thing caught my attention. It was like someone drew a perfect compass rose on my forehead and right hand. An N, curvy near the edges, was in the center. And surrounding the funky looking N, was a star. "Nice. My parents aren't totally going to kill me. They'll scream my ears off first." I chuckled to myself. I stroll down stairs, expecting someone to notice the dark streaks covering my body.
