Chapter 2

2

Isabel

A thin layer of sweat formed on my forehead. I charged between the towering trees of dark woods that laughed at my silly blunder. Fog blinded my ability to detect any chaser behind me. The thickness of dark air coursed adrenaline through my veins. I could barely breathe through the cold breeze. My head momentarily wheeled behind to glance if Peter or Cora themselves were chasing me like cavemen, but inky haze was the vision I could only hold. 

Deep down in my heart, I knew that they'd gotten conscious of my fleeing. It had been the longest five minutes I ever endured yet I was forcing my legs to jog for a few more distances to cut off the middle of nowhere. The silent eerie followed me with an evil grin in my head. With each second passing, my heartbeat ramped up to a dreadful pace. Many bumps came my way to stumble me but I lapped each of them with a hitching yelp.

Instead of quickening my speed, I paced down my legs when my unconscious detected a presence near me. All of the alarms triggered inside my head and I was left with a petrified feeling. I spun my head over my right shoulder while jogging and still found fog blinding me. But the second I turned my head straight, my feet skipped a step and my mouth escaped another yelp.

The next, I felt like my body losing balance and without knowing what was coming next, I fell into freezing water that nearly gulped me in whole. 

For a second, I couldn't comprehend what just happened, but then, water filled my lungs instead of air when I tried to breathe, by then I realised I had thrown myself in the mouth of a cruel river that could take my life if I would not fight for my survival.

Flapping my hands in the water as hard and fast as I could, I reached above the surface of the river. My teeth clattered as my veins froze like a block of hard ice. 

But the moment was short-lived as I sank again.

I appalled God to send my mother for help, and as if he listened, my hand gripped the edge of the ground. I clutched it with every bit of strength in me and forced myself out of the river. I coughed the water that filled my lungs through my gaping mouth. Anxiety clutched my guts with full force and made my thinking-process haywire.

Breathing heavily, I plopped out of it and fell back on the ground, coughing the blood-mixed water out. The urge to fill my lungs with oxygen was all my brain knew. I began gasping difficultly when my brain numbed with the lack of oxygen. My coughs distinctly audible. 

When the oxygen started interlacing with my blood, I opened my eyes and the inky sky came before my sight. I kept blinking recurrently until my vision stabilized and I came across the moon. The same moon that I used to stare at all night. It was a full moon, rounder than ever. It shone luminously miles apart. I felt like I was being hypnotised by its beauty. 

I just couldn't take my eyes off it no matter how hard I tried. As if it whispered a secret in my ears. The night felt special all of a sudden. The feeling of being chosen overtook my worries. I smiled as I found solace in that bespeaking sphere. I breathed deeply and closed my eyes. 

Letting my tears capture the best of me. 

Everything I left behind replayed in my mind. The torture, those touches by lecherous men and a life I lived for sixteen years in the hellfire. It was cursed upon me and every girl who was caged in that slaughterhouse. I still couldn't believe I escaped the place after spending years of fantasising about it. How come I overcame the fear of being caught and be brutally tortured by my mistress. Cora was a witch. I had seen her at her worst. How I escaped the phobia of her beatings?

I still remembered how she tortured Aurora. That poor soul. She almost lost her life by her hands. Just to escape and live a life she wanted had become a punishment for her. For I wished I could take half of her miseries and heal her with the bits of my empathic power, but she was too far to be approached, they locked her in the black cellar; a place where not a single ray of light can make its way, or a person could reach the prisoner for months until she feels suicidal. The last I saw her, she was dampened in her own blood. Her clothes were torn, she was bruised ruthlessly and thinking that could be me too gave me a minor heart attack.

Oh God, what have I done?

Tears cascaded down my eyes as I opened them and gazed at the moon with blurry vision. I didn't know why I had done this? But I could not back off now. It wasn't a choice anymore. That time the urge to escape was stronger than thinking about any aftermath of my actions. I pressed a hand against my mouth, quieting the scream that was lingering on the tip of my tongue. The warm tears continued to cascade down, over my recklessness. 

But the warmth of those tears also weren't of any relief. 

Instead, I felt like dwelling more in pain as if the starving sensations weren't enough back then. But till now my stomach had also sprouted numbness. There wasn't any pain anymore. It was filled with enough grief that it decided to stop bothering me. After all, not eating for three days and surviving on water could result exactly like this. 

I sighed louder, trying to get my emotions in control. I wiped my tears and rose from the lying position. The water splashed beside me, on my thigh, when I put my hand inside it. Now the cold wasn't bothering me. I wasn't feeling anything anymore. A smile sat on my lips as I admired the waves of water syncing with the moonlight, as if it was being commanded by it. 

My eyes stoned at the moon when I heard the bushes rustling, my head lurched in that direction with a racing heart and unruly trembling body. My teeth clattered as I stood on my lifeless, swollen legs. The rustling noise of the bushes cleared, this time it was closer than the last. I put a hand on my mouth, because I didn't know how noisy and deafening my screams could be once she would appear clear. 

I began snivelling, she was getting closer to me, I could sense her motion. My heart would leave my side anytime, any moment. "P—Please n—no," I supplicated brokenly, but the rustling continued getting closer and closer with each second. My snivelling morphed into loud sobs with the back of my hand covering my mouth. "Please, don't, p—please, p—please," I fell on my knees, having an episode.

My head began to spin and it would leave my side at any moment. The moonlight flooded eye-blinding light as I turned my head toward it. Everything seemed out of focus and the next I knew, I was falling on my stomach. My eyes barely remained open. I did try my best to keep it zeroed. 

The moment was here. She was here. I could feel something stepping out of the bushes. My tears blurred the sight I was staring at as if my body began giving in to the darkness of my future. It was her. I knew it. Who else could be other than her? Who would follow me in a terrifying hour of night? It had to be her. 

I felt her coming closer to me. My eyes gave up and so did my breathing at some point. Chills were hitting my bones and I doubted if I hadn't gotten frostbite yet. 

Something came closer to my face, maybe her foot. I felt a tug at the back of my head. Maybe she was thinking I was dead. Maybe she would leave me here, dying. That's better. At least, it would be nicer dying right here than dying after days of enduring everlasting torture. 

I smiled thinking any of this could be my last breath. I would not bear any more suffering.But there were a few regrets that filled my bosom. 

My tiny wishes. I wished I could tell Stephen King how I used to steal his books from Cora's library. He made me fall in love with terrifying stories of real life. How I stopped fearing monsters and started believing they were part of us; within us. I just wished to tell him how much I was grateful to him. But it wasn't happening. Maybe one day in heaven. Just maybe. 

With these thoughts running frantically in my mind, I heard a growl. The loudest yet most noisy growl ever in my life. And that's when I felt had given in along with my mind. I lost my consciousness. I felt suffocated. This was it.

This was my last moment. 

Goodbye.