Chapter 11
Why is my room so dark?
I wrinkled my nose and sat up on my bed. I reached for the comforter, but notice nothing was there. Panic shot through me, this isn't my room. It was....nothing. I placed my palms on the floor and pushed myself up. I glanced around the tenebrous space.
"Hello?" I called into the darkness. A stiff silence fell over the place. "Hello?" I called again. A shrill screamed echoed throughout the ill-lighted valley.
It penetrated fear and panic through my bones. "Is anyone there?"
A giggle bounced off the walls and attacked my ear drums. I shivered and hugged myself tightly.
"Follow me." A hoarse voice whispered.
"Hello? Who are you?" I asked the darkness.
Giggles of a little girl erupted from the walls again. I twirled around violently. I snapped my eye shut a sent a silent wish to the heavens: that the noise would go away and that I would get out of this scary space. After two minutes of silence I opened my eyes slowly and the wind stuck in my throat. My trembling hands flew to my chest and mouth.
I stared at a little girl who looked around the age of five. Her hair was midnight brown, her eyes cat like brown. She lifted her right hand and waved, but a smile never met her lips.
"Who are you?" I asked again.
"My name is Charity Clove. I'm five years old." She answered and stepped closer to me.
I took a step back cautiously. She cocked her head to the left, casuing her russet hair shifting to one side. "What the heck is going on?" I muttered and side glanced the strange little girl in front of me trying claim my identity.
She frowned and reached for her hair. "Our hair was originally supposed to be brown. Like our mommy's. But he changed it."
"He?" I wondered out loud. The little girl nodded and bent her finger beckoning me to follow her. She twirled around her pink skirt following with her movement with a swoosh and skipped down the black path.
I released myself from trance I was in and quickly followed her down the pathway. As I got deeper into the nothingness, my eye caught something. A shine of light, white light. I quickly went into a sprint to catch up with the "younger me".
"Charity?" I called. But no one answered. Where could she have gone so fast? I slowed my past, as the panic in my chest began to soar to the outer galaxies. What if this was all a joke? This was an illusion. A mind trick being played on me.
"Why are you so slow?" A tiny voice asked, behind me. I spun around and glared at the little girl.
"Where did you go?"
"I can't go past here but your suppose to go down there." She pointed to the white light. "That's where we open up. Our history." She explained. Without hearing my response she turned around and began to skip back into the darkness.
"Wait!" I yelled after her. But she didn't stop. Her movement were slow. Her arms seemed like they were moving in slow motion as the moved back and forth.
Heel. Toe. Heel. Toe. I watched as she began to fade, the rhythm of her feet never missing a beat.
"What about our past?" I asked, but she was already gone. I sighed and turned back to the white light penetrating through the inky space. Here goes nothing, I thought. And pushed my feet closer to the revealing light.
After 3 minutes I finally reached the edge of the blackness, the white light tickling my little piggy toes. I wiggled them a bit absorbing the warmth the light gave off. I reached up shielding my eye from the blinding light, and stuck my left hand out into the white whirlpool.
I gasped as the chill enveloped my arm, and my face. Come in, it whispered against my air. Just as I began to retract my hand from the whirlpool, I felt my body being dragged uncontrolablly into the white mass.
"HELP!" I shrieked. "Someone help me!" I yelled.
* * * * * * * *
I whimpered softly as something cold and wet compressed into my back. I winced as I twisted my stomach to turn over. I huffed and turned back to my back, the aching pain of my legs and core forbidding me from moving.
My hands immediately shot out and felt around my body. 'Why aren't I in my bed? The last event was a dream, right?'
I dug my nails into the substance beneath me and pulled. Bringing my hand to my eye level, I examined the green stick of leathery grass.
My heart hammered more in my chest. 'What if this was one of the devils stupid illusions?'
My breathing began to turn ragged as the reality dawned on me. The nightmare demons had an ability to kill anyone in their dreams. He could do anything like that to me!
I quickly pulled myself up from the ground ignoring the pain that cleaved through my bones. I brushed off my hands allowing the handful of grass to fall back with its brothers and sisters.
As my breathing slowly became steady again, I turned to my life admiring the ample amount of oak trees around me. Pink, blue, yellow, and indigo flowers we're lightly sprinkled across the lime-green grass bed. The sunlight highlighted this one section that held a small pond.
As the tiny waves danced around the pound surface, luminescence of sparkling droplets shimmered in the sun. I stood in awe at the breathe-taking waters.
This couldn't be a nightmare could it? 'Not with this pretty place', I assured myself.
I shivered as a breeze washed away all the warmth from my body, the light scent of salt passes with it. The leaves of the grand oak trees rustled in the wind.
An eerie silence fell over the area as I looked down into the dark gasps in between the tree trunks. Waiting for something to happened and rocked back on the balls of my heels.
I waited. And waited, but the only sound or movement in the entire area were the sound of the leaves and grass dancing to the winds whistle.
I sighed after a while of waiting and wiped the sweat off my palms into my black, red, and white polar bear sweatpants.
Enveloping my upper body into my arms I began walking towards the backwood of trees and away from the intended grassland. The sound of the slosh of my toes scrunching into the arctic feeling mud, then being plucked back out echoed in my ears, keeping my heart at a steady rhythm.
That rhythm proved I was alive and walking. And that's all I needed.
I stopped as I approached the border of where the grass skirted the roots of the trees. I sucked in a breathe and lifted one foot to begin walking, but a squawk of a crow stopped me in my tracks. I placed my foot back on the floor and turned around slowly and searched urgently for the bird.
Crows were considered bad luck. Rita always told that if you walk under a black crow on a branch you'd have a week of black lucky.
And she was right, one day I walked into school and someone threw some oatmeal on my shoes and someone took a picture of it and posted it on the Internet. The next day I got busted for cheating and I never get caught cheating on any of my tests. The next day my crush at school caught me staring at him and made a snide--and very embarrassing remark at me--I avoided him for days. The following day Wren, the new kid in town, rode over me with his bike. But after that my luck disappeared because Wren became my friend and then I met Kim. And we've been friends for six years.
A all too familiar feeling periced through my heart, and a hot rising need to cry built up in my chest. God, I missed them so much!
I stopped searching as my eyes landed on this black figure perched on a tree branch. His red eyes looked as though they were trained on me.
I held my gaze with his and he let out another cry. His body twitched and his long wings expanded to a great length.
'That is not crow', I told myself and began to back away. The bird shoved himself off the branch and into the air, with one fluid movement his wings lifted up and his body quickly glided over to me.
I took a step back again, but something caught my foot and I stumbled back. The screech of the bird grew louder and I ducked my head, instinctively, pulling my hands over my head.
The call of the animal suddenly disappeared. I peeked out the crack of my elbows and sighed. Amen!
I picked myself up and turned back towards the woods. I dashed inside quickly before the bird could come back.
I stumbled on a hard root as I tried my best maneuver my way through the surprisingly dark forest. I held my arms out in front of my feeling for something to hold onto. I gripped the bark from a tree and started forward again.
After what felt like five minutes of tripping and falling I stopped walking. And held my hand to my heart. 'This has to stop. I have to wake up from this dream' I told myself.
I reached over and pinched my right arm. "Wake up, Charity!" I yelled and looked up t the dark blue sky. "C'mon wake up!" I pleaded but my body seemed to not respond.
"Stop yelling Charity it's not good for a souls ears." A soft voice scolded me.
I turned around and stared at the person in front of me. The warms rays of light cascaded on her slim body. The reflection of the light added sheen to her thick mass of curls. Her dark eyes seemed much bigger as her long eyelashes outlined them.
She was absolutely stunning, with sun making her brown skin glow.The white dress she wore seemed to hang lightly onto to her. She looked like an angel.
"Mom," I choked out. "What are you doing here?"
"Do not trust him, Charity."
"Trust who?"
"All of them, my darling angel, all of them will be your enemy in the end."
"In the end?"
"Yes, there is more to come, my child. I'm sorry I had to put you through this." Her voice showed my concern or regret in it. I was just as emotionless and the devil.
"Mom, why I'd you leave me?" I questioned.
"I did it to protect you, not hurt you. I knew he'd come after me if I hid. I didn't not leave you, Charity." she assured me. "And I never will leave your side. Through it all."
"Mom, you have to help me! I can't get out of this place? How do I get out?"
My mother shook her head, her dark locks flying everywhere. "I cannot. I wish I could."
"You....wish?" I snapped at her.
She wish.
She wish.
That's all she keeps saying. Why did she bother coming to me if she couldn't help me? I mean why bother me in my already torment dreams to tell me, you wish you could help. Does she think wishing she could do something will make a difference? Will matter to me? Doesn't she understand I have no time to wish? Why spend my time wishing when I will just be left with a pile of useless hopes? I needed a definite route to get out of here. If I wish weren't a lost cause, I would've already wished myself out of Hell and in Earth. But to my dismay-or more to my mothers' wishes are for five year olds who believe in Tinker Bell.
And I am definitely not a five year old.
"Seriously, mom," I emphasized the word, "that's all you could say: 'you wish'. You know, the least you could do is give me away out after you gave me away!" I yelled and watched as she winced, her eyes boring into mines.
"Charity," she stepped forward and held out her hand. I wanted to step back, to get away from her. I wanted to run away from her, the of source my torment, but my feet were frozen from fear and shock. "I cannot help you," She placed her hand on my shoulder. A warm tingle of sensation rippled through my body. "I wasn't anticipating that he'd find you when I gave you to Phil and Rita." She sighed and her lips slipped into a sad smile. "You have the power of your father. You are Eden, darling. The beginning and the end."