The Murder Of Willowstream

Ch.14. A Burning Nightmare

Rhys ran forward as the two figures disappeared in a smattering of ink blot, shadow patterns.

He fell to his knees. Yasmines blood seeping into the dust ridden ground of the floor, her expression empty as the amber brown of her eyes stared straight at Rhys. Bored straight into his soul with all the delicacy of pneumatic drill.

Guilt, and grief seemed to immediately wrench at Rhys' chest as he watched her eyes begin to rapidly fog over into a faded white until there was nothing of the colour left. Her expression changed. Yasmines jaw clicked, snapped, crunched open as if her jaw unhinged, and that was when Rhys heard the scratching.

Very slowly, unsure of what he would find, he craned his neck towards the source of the sound. Moving of it's own volition was Yasmines hand, the one that had reached for him mere moments ago. Her finger was extended as it scrabbled and scratched at the thick layer of undisturbed dust in an erratic fashion. It jolted and skipped, jumping from one side to the next. In long swooping motions, it made a collection of angular lines as if the hand had its own autonomy from the corpse from which it was attached.

But then it stopped. Rhys felt movement to his side. His heart clambered into his throat as Yasmines body rose up chest first into a seating position. Her black hair covering her face which peeked through with burns and scars, it shrieked as it lunged forward

"WAKE UP!"

Rhys lurched forward as his mind went blank. He was cold, and shivering. Sweating as he panted heavily in an attempt to calm himself.

It took him a moment of mumbled voices, before he was finally able to take in the surroundings. He was back in the den. His friends all crowded around him as the chill air breezed soothingly through the cave entrance.

"Rhys. Rhys, can you hear me?" Marshals worried voice called to him, and it took another moment of Rhys just staring at him before he could reply with a nod. He was shaken, and afraid to his very core. He had never had a nightmare so oppressive before, and he wasn't sure if he was out of it.

He inspected his hands, his knuckles. They weren't hurt or damaged, yet there was a shadow of pain still there. As if it had been real.

The group observed him worriedly in silence, waiting for him to say anything and unsure of what to do.

Lily handed Rhys a bottle of water, which he gulped down, relishing in the coolness as it slid down his parched throat. But that was when an idea hit him.

"I need paper. And a pencil. Hurry, before I forget." He asked, and not a second later; Marshal had procured his sketch pad and a pencil.

Rhys hurriedly flipped to a blank page, and began messily scribbling on the paper.

He was no artist, but he did his best to recreate the image Yasmine's hand had drawn in the dirt. It looked like a shield, parted into four sections. In the centre foreground was a skull, a single spear was behind it, drawn through its middle and pointing down. A helmet, medieval in nature, sat atop the shield and was surrounded by floral decals of some kind.

"It looks like a family crest." Alice prompted as Rhys turned his crude sketch around on display. Her obsidian braids hung over her left shoulder, framing her beautiful neck in the gold of early mornings light as they fell over her chest. She stooped a little to study the picture more closely, the bountiful darkness to her eyes seemed to adequately display the multitude of thoughts that sped through her memory as she furrowed her brow, and pulled at the succulence of her bottom lip with her teeth, all while fiddling with the silver-chained amethyst around her neck. "Old families tend to have them if you look far enough back through a family tree."

"Indeed. Santana has one. Although the whole crest thing is outdated." Alaric mentioned, folding his arms across his bare chest. The faint, yellow of the dawn at his back had cast an interesting shade to the curvature of his body. Imprinting shadows over every swell of his muscular form, and causing him to glow softly as the morning had begun to creep in over the steep banks of the quarry.

"It was just a nightmare... But something about it felt so real." Rhys said quietly, his eyes distant as he handed the sketchbook over for closer inspection. He raked his tired fingers through the gentle chestnut curls of his unruly hair and threw himself back into the cot that protested under his weight. The nightmare hadn't fully left him. It still hissed with sinister intent at his shoulders, nipping at his heels, and every time he blinked: a flash of Yasmine's disfigured face would scream into his vision.

"When I get the chance, I'll see if I can find something in my fathers library. He has a bunch of previously useless books, I highly doubt it'll be there, but if it's anywhere..." Alaric said as he committed the hastily drawn sketch to memory.

"I'll see if the school library has anything on historical families or some shit." Alice said, pulling out her phone and snapping a picture. "It's worth looking into, given it's the only lead we have right now. It may not have just been a dream."

"And I'm gonna make breakfast!" Lily chimed happily as she stretched to her tiptoes, the large black t-shirt she wore as a night gown rising up as she strained to try and touch the roof of the cave.

It wasn't long before the clattering sound of pots and pans began to echo through the den. The repetitive click as she tried to get the old camping stove working, provided some distraction for Rhys. He'd hardly had much sleep with the nightmare, and now he had to face another day at school with a killer on the loose.

A/N: Okay my lovelies, just a short one for this update ^-^
What did you think happened? Was it just a dream? Or can Rhys actually see ghosts like he previously denied and that this was Yasmines, slightly terrifying, way of trying to contact him?
Let me know what ya think!
And as always: Thank you for reading ^-^