In The Shadows (Re-written)

-TWENTY-

Sleep was not an option for me. There was nothing I could do to calm the rapid beating of my heart as I paced back and forth in front of my bed.

Strangely enough, it was not my nerves that had me all worked up. My feeling of nausea was not about killing the female lycan tomorrow. My father had turned me into a murderer long ago and it was not something I batted an eye at anymore.

What I was panicking about was that all of this had already begun. It was too soon. I thought I would have at least another ten years before I had to worry about this hunt. If I was unable to prove my worth during this hunt, there was nothing stopping my father from killing me alongside the lycans.

It was my life or theirs and I didn't have the slightest clue in how to plan for what my alpha apparently expected of me. None of it was supposed to happen this way. I was supposed to have time to formulate a well thought out plan. I was supposed to know more about the lycans. I was supposed to have been told what my father expected me to do years in advance, not the day before he planned on starting the hunt.

"Moon," I breathed, "moon, moon, moon!"

What the hell was I going to do?

I was trained for combat not reconnaissance!

I allowed myself to freak out for a minute more before forcing myself to calm down. Being in hysterics would not solve anything. I had to be levelheaded about this. I had to be clever, cautious. There was no room for anything but precise calculation. Just like the way I was trained to fight.

Yes, that's how I had to do this. Take it one step at a time and design a plan as I went. There was no proof that even if I had the information and time to create a decent plan, that it wouldn't need to change the moment I actually reached the lycans.

Inhaling deeply, I let out a long breath, exhaling my fear, panic, and second thoughts until I was utterly calm.

Tomorrow I would kill the lycan and then do exactly what my alpha wanted in order to keep my own life and to make Coda proud.

Lying down in my bed, I closed my eyes, not intending to sleep but only rest.

In the back of my mind, I felt a familiar sensation that tickled some distant memory that always pulled me into my reoccurring nightmare. The second I felt that tickle I forced my eyes open, but it was already too late.

Instead of seeing the familiar wooden rafters of my room I was in the cabinet again. It wasn't the cabinet that allowed me to watch my mother's death, but the dark box that was already starting to allow blood to trickle down from the sides of the cabinet and the top.

"No!" I screamed, hammering my fists on the walls caging me. "No! I won't go back there! Let me out!" I demanded, kicking and screaming until my voice gave out. My punches were weak, my arms shaking in utter terror as the blood was already up to my chest. "Someone let me out!" I cried. "Please, anyone."

I was ashamed of how frightened I sounded. I hated how pathetic I was.

Hot tears rolled down my cheeks, and I could only stretch my neck and tip my head back to prolong the time I had before I would be trapped in the blood ocean of utter darkness.

Where I would feel nothing, hear nothing, taste nothing and see nothing.

A fate worse than death. The fate of eternal loneliness. Something that I could not bare to experience even if it was only in a dream. A host of fear burned in my heart, the fear that I would never wake up from this nightmare.

Rather than gulping in one last breath, I uttered out one final quiet plea. "Please," I whimpered, "save me."

The blood swallowed me up and I readied myself for the nothingness sure to follow but then the cabinet door was abruptly opened, and the blood gushed out onto the floor.