Scream

Reyna Copulas

There was a spotlight shining on the double doors of the church, luring me to its vacant place. However, I resisted the temptation and watched, feeling almost safe behind the curtain. I start to back away when the curtain pulls together on its own, making me feel exposed in the supposedly empty church. Another spotlight flicks on and drags from the right wall and down to me, where I raise a hand to prevent momentary blindness. 

Slowly, I tread down the stage steps and roam to the second, placid spotlight. There isn't anything scary about this...of course not. It's just electricity charging an enormous bulb, which gives off light. At least, that's what I tell myself. In reality, there's someone inhere directing the stage and how it works. Someone who's directing me and making me do what they want. 

Maybe if I play their games, I'll survive. 

I make it to the spotlight, where the one following me overlaps it. I turn towards thestage to see if I can see someone, but I don't. Then again, it's hard to see anything whentwo enormous lights are pointing right at you.

 At the doors, I try to open them. Locked. I try again. Nothing. "What the hell?" Iwhisper to myself, baffled. 

Out of the blue, someone comes from behind me, grabs my neck to hold it in place, andbashes my head into the doors. Grabbing a handful of my hair, they repeat the action. Pain flowers through my forehead and makes me see bloody stars. For a split second, theattacker's grip relaxes and I whirl around, ready to fight. 

In the spotlights, I see a figure in a dark cloak and the classic Ghostface mask from those movies...what were they called? Oh, yeah: Scream. 

A knife is held upwards, tip pointing at me, the blade gleaming in the light. The person brings it down and I barely manage to turn my head in time, making the knife plunged through the door. I'm shoved back against the door – something meant to distract me –and I'm attempted to be stabbed again. Lucky as hell, I manage to dodge. 

A dark shadow engulfs me like a blade sinks into my side. Gasping, I try to scrambleaway, but it only makes the stab deeper. So deep, that the tip scrapes through me andagainst the tiled floor. Using the heel of my foot, I rear my knee back and kick Ghostface. There's a resounding grunt as their knife removes from my side and they fall backwards,scattering the other chairs.

Holding a hand to my side, I take off backstage, feet almost slipping in my ownblood, splattering it everywhere. Vaulting over my mother's coffin and leaping onto the stage, I rediscover the control panel for the curtains and the lights and the props. Desperately, I claw at the mechanisms – yanking the levers; pounding the buttons;drawing back the ropes; flicking the switches. Some of the spotlights crash to the ground and the curtain unfolds and covers me from the audience-view half of the stage. 

The spotlights don't penetrate the veil and I'm in the darkness. And I'm not alone. 

 My breathing sounds like thunder in the silence. Slowly, I return to the curtain,wondering which side I should be on...wondering which side won't get me slaughteredlike Adelina. Like my mother.

I'm an inch from the curtain when a knife slices through and chops the air, searching for a body to sink into. I backtrack, but not fast enough. The knife sings through the veil ina swipe, the knife slashing across my stomach. For an instance, I feel like my guts are going to spill out on the floor, but I get over myself. The Ghostface wannabe tries and triesto reach me through the curtain and I take the time to painfully run away.

My right side throbs from the knife cut that got me from my back and through myfront. The slice in my stomach is excruciating and adds to the wetness of my blood-soaked clothes. Still, I stumble through the place, knocking instruments off desks and trippingover props. I don't make the mistake of looking back – I already paid the price for thatwhen I fell and got stabbed through and through. 

I hit a dead-end in the back of a church. My hands skim over the dusty walls, searchingfor a door. There's always a back way in and out, right? Come on...door, door, door,door...door! My hand closes around the handle, twists, and pulls. Nothing. "Are youshitting me?" I exasperate aloud, instantly regretting the slip of an underlying temper. Itry again, but push this time, throwing my body against the door. 

It flies open and I fall out with everything but grace. "Guess I'm not being shitted," Isigh to myself. I slam the door shut behind me and back away, eyes locked on the door. Iexpect it to fling open; killer ready with their bloodied knife, charging at me. I back so farthat I reach the middle of a road and almost get hit by a car. 

Jumping back as they slam on their breaks, I hold a bloodied hand against the car tostabilize myself. "I'm sorry," I whisper, unable to scream or form audible sentences. Shock, my functioning part of my brain tells me. You're in shock...also, why the hell areyou sorry? 

The driver gets out of the car. By now, it's dark out and my vision is spotty. The colourred edges along with my sight and I begin to grow nauseated. "Reyna?" a man says, startled attheir discovery. Good, it's someone I know – a friend. "Oh, my God! What happened to you? We need to get you in the hospital." The voice sounds like it's far away, a tunnellingeffect making it echo. Briefly, I wonder if I'm on my way to the afterlife, and I'm fading out of this one. 

My stance starts to waver and I find myself falling. Right before I hit the ground, I'mcaught and guided to the backseat of a yellow Jeep. Gently, I'm laid down. "We're takingyou to the hospital," the voice says, slamming on the gas pedal and flying down the street.

 Now, I begin to fade in and out of conscientiousness. One moment, I'm bouncing alongthe road in black leather seats, ruining them with blood that looks black in the night. Thenext, I see a head full of golden curls looking both ways before turning into the SolarisHospital parking lot. Golden curls...Oscar. What's he doing here?

Panic floods my body. Solaris Hospital. Death. Della died. Mom died. Hanzo was injured. 

 I try to sit up, but I blackout again.

I catch scenes of blood trailing behind me on the white floor of the under-construction hospital. The elevators are down and the affected floors have been rapidly repaired in the two weeks since they fell under obliteration.

I remember the echoing noises of feet pounding through the stairs.

IVs are injected into me as the doctors rattle off my blood type, in need of a donor. I fade out of consciousness before I can hear it.

A man's voice croaks my name in the bed beside me. Hanzo.

Overwhelmed, I finally pass out. For good, this time........