The Mother

Chapter 22

Her mind was foggy, and she was very cold as she came to her senses. When her eyes cleared she was able to make out the land scape, its hilled slopes dusted with snow and the light was a soft muted grey. She panted softly, her teeth chattering from laying on the wet ground, pain vibrated through her like a dull ache in her bones. A soft groan escaped her dry, cracked lips, she was confused when she felt the warmth of a small bead of blood swelling in one of the cracks. It should never have even cracked in the first place; her healing was too advanced for such a small thing to happen.

  Her body shuddered, she curled a bit in on herself when she forced herself into a sitting position, her numbingly cold fingers digging into the wet, snow mixed mud. She could barely catch her breath and there was a thick burning pain in her chest, and she was hardly able to hear the sound of someone else in the distance over the sound of her own pained gasps.

  Her head raised a little and her eyes caught sight of a familiar tan coated back as he too struggled to push himself up. Her pained face twisted into confusion, she knew this man and wanted to help him, but she couldn't figure out why or who he was. His name was at the tip of her tongue, but she couldn't pull it from her fog filled mind. She heard a child's laughter and his soft questioning tone, but she was too far away to actually hear him.

  She whimpered in pain as she slowly and weakly pushed herself to her feet, struggling behind as he got to his and stumbled forward. Her shallow breaths made soft white puffs form in the air, one after the other, as her stiff, numb hands clenched her chest. She could feel the hot blood seeping slowly from and odd hole in her shirt over her hands, but she knew if she looked down her trembling legs would give out and she's loose sight of the man she was trying to follow.

  'Your too late. He's already dead. Been dead since that night you entered the Bakers home.' She panicked when she heard the sound of a child's voice, oddly familiar, in her head and she nearly collapsed when the man in front of her fell. She had made it up the gentle slope she had been laying on to where he had first stood, and he was farther ahead of her when he fell into the small trickling creek. Her body jolted when memories slammed into her mind, taking her already small breaths away, the pain in her body burned brighter for a moment before it intensified, and she crumbled to her hands and knees.

  "Ethan!" She screamed out suddenly, his name bursting from her mouth in a harsh brittle scream, Eveline's laughter split her head again, but her eyes stayed on Ethan.

  'You'll die before you get to him, you don't heal here. He can't hear you anyway, the molds fighting to keep his body alive since it no longer has a heart.' Eveline said with her crazed giggles before the sound turned into a surprised yelp and Scarlett could feel herself healing rapidly.

  'No! Your heart was taken too! You're mine!' Eveline hissed but Scarlett could feel herself being pulled from the molds odd record mind where it seemed Eveline resided, and she tried to scream out to Ethan again, but she jerked upright in the dark. The echo of her scream rang in the small space she was in, it was warm and dry unlike what she had seen or when they had finally me the real Miranda. She panicked from both the loss or Ethan and the hot hands that grabbed her and restrained her to the set she was aware she was sitting it.

  "Letta! Letta, you're safe! Calm down." Chris's deep voice floated through her consciousness and her panic settled some but stinging, hot tears spilled down her cool face as she grabbed Chris's arms and leaned toward him. Her glistening eyes wide and her body shaking.

  "Chris, Oh god! He's gone, she killed him1 I have to get his body back, and Rose! I have to go!" She cried as she started letting him go and reaching for a way out of the warm dark shelter. She still wasn't cognitive enough to know where she was, how she'd gotten there and her deep anger at her friend holding onto her.