The Way to Love (Camren)

Chapter 9: Promises

IX.

Lauren blinked. Something painfully sharp was digging into the small of her back, twisting and screwing itself against her flesh. While her vision began to clear, she whipped her head from side to side frantically, a weak attempt to determine where she was. Blurry surroundings started to focus, and Lauren found herself standing on a dingy sidewalk, with her back smashed against an iron gate. Everything was negative, black where it should have been white, and vice versa while the sky above was a blood red.

"What the fuck?" Lauren grunted as she tried to turn and look behind her. She had full control of her eyes, but the rest of her body was completely immobile. Even the expansion and recession of her lungs felt involuntary. After a few moments of confused silence, a scream pierced the air.

"Lauren!"

The Latina frowned when the familiar voice rang out, full of panic and borderline terror. Her stomach flipped when she matched the voice to an all too familiar face.

"Camila?" Lauren asked incredulously. "Where are you? What's going on?"

There was a moment of quiet, then another scream tore its way to Lauren's ears. "Lauren, help me!" Camila's voice tapered off into a wail. "Please!"

The girl bit down hard, grinding her top teeth into her bottom lip and narrowing her eyes. Two figures came into view, one larger, and towering over the other, who was curled on the ground. It took Lauren no more than a number of seconds to realize what was happening.

She tried to lunge forward. "Get away from her." The Latina growled. She never thought she would be tired of saying those words. "Get away from her, or I swear to god I'll..."

Lauren was cut off when the man began to kick her roommate in the ribs. Hard. Over and over again, releasing scream after scream of sheer pain. The green eyed girl froze for a moment while her body registered just what was happening. "Stop..." Lauren uttered, her voice a low, deadly rasp. "Get the fuck away from her... leave her alone!" Her voice escalated into a roar. The girl tried her best to move, wrenching every single limb so hard that her body began to roll into a heated burn.

"Lauren..." Camila croaked, curling her body up and tucking her chin into her chest.

Lauren's pupils began to shake within the sclera, moving everything she was seeing from side to side at a sharp pace. She couldn't do anything but watch as the man grabbed Camila by the front of her shirt and hoisted her into the air, shoving her up against a non-existent wall. "Fuck." Lauren swore to herself as he snagged the hem of her shirt, pulling it down slightly to reveal the same bra she had worn to their pre-exam party. She shut her eyes, but the image was etched on the inside of her lids as well. She knew it was nothing but a lucid dream, but Lauren just couldn't watch Camila suffer.

Camila screamed one more time, and Lauren tore through all the barriers before her to get her body moving. "Camila..." The girl whimpered to herself as she began to dash towards the man, ready to shoulder him out of the way and smash his face into deep into the ground.

When she got closer, she noticed that Camila's naturally dark eyes were white, while her own were nearly black under the colour change. It looked like a scene from a horror movie, and the faster she moved, the farther away they got. Lauren knew she was fighting a battle she couldn't win. The fierce Latina hissed a number of expletives the moment everything around her turned to a high-speed blur and her surroundings changed.

"I'm going to lose her." She opened her eyes again, forced to watch her mother cry as she let her husband hold her tight. The green eyed girl lay still on the white of the hospital bed, her other siblings huddling in the corner, both trying their hardest not to cry. There was the steady drone of the heart rate monitor, the soft pump of the IV, the bustle of the hospital inhabitants outside. Everything was placed perfectly, to depict a parent's greatest nightmare.