This will be deleted soon - The Wrong Hope *Complete and Free*

27. Giving in

Sally-Anne

Year: 1983 1st of August, Monday, almost dawn, Summer.

The needle loomed in front of me, gleaming steel with a deep inky void, the sharp tip glinted menacingly and blind terror exploded beneath my skin sending a ripple of liquid ice gushing through my veins.

“Hey, stop it. Hold. Still.” Guy told me tersely through gritted teeth. He looked pale and pained with a sheen of sweat across his skin. Fear was coiled around me, crushing and squeezing. Everything was overloaded, my senses on high alert absorbed every minuscule bit of information. I could feel the night air moving over my skin, my clothes rubbing, Guy’s rough hand on my shoulder trying to hold me steady, his pulse deliciously fast resonating down his arm, through his palm, across my shoulder and into my chest. I could hear everything for miles, cars rumbling past, trees rustling, the tiny heart of a rabbit beating rapidly, ants thundering across the dirt amongst the quivering blades of grass, Guy’s shoulder clicking periodically like a cooling light bulb as he fought to inject me. IN. MY. EYE. The voice hissed in my mind, seething, demanding. ‘Kill him’, it shrieked. ‘Rip his heart out.’

I tried to fight it all, it was too much, my mind was on fire with the influx of information. I pushed at Guy trying to move him away, trying to save him from the vicious monster leaking darkness into my soul, trying to get everything back under my control. A high-pitched sound poured over my lips in place of words. There was too much going on.

“Ahh. f**k. Shitting hell.” Guy cursed, taking a step back. I could smell the tang of blood in the air. ‘Mmmm, we need it, we want it, kill him, he hurts us, he lies, he took from us. Kill him.’ Conviction encased every viciously rasped word.

“What the f**k are you fighting me for Doll?” He shouted, his voice booming painfully in my head.

For a single lucid moment I could see myself give into the blood lust, I envisioned my mouth tearing into the soft heat of his neck and the sound of his flesh ripping. His strangled scream would be sharp against my ear as hot blood pumped into my gaping mouth, each mouthful in time with the ever fading beat of his desperate heart.

I couldn’t let that part of me win. I couldn’t find the control I wanted but equally I couldn’t give in so I opted to just stop. It was like I had turned myself off. Locked within my body I could only watch as Guy calmed himself and brought the needle up to my open left eye. There was a searing pinch followed by pressure that fizzed and raged making me feel like my eye was going to pop out. I barely had time to pray for it to be over before the world folded into nothing.

Moonlight.

It was the first thing I saw when my eyes flashed open. It was on the back of my hand, gleaming, shining, impossibly pale and warm. My mind was racing and sluggish at the same time. Difficult to explain but the present was so real, so focused with every detail blaring in my brain. I was lying prostrate on the soft forest floor, the lightest breeze stirred my hair and caressed my cheek. Somehow I knew it came from the west. The earth was damp beneath me, I could feel it making my dress cling uncomfortably to my stomach and thighs, I could feel the dirt stuck to my arms and the palms of my hands. Vibrations crept across the ground tickling me and lighting up my mind with a flashing echo of their source; a snout snuffling in the forest mulch, a branch bending as a weight settled on it, a leaf kissing the floor. It was beautiful like I was the moon feeling the peace of the night in my soul.

The past, however, was being difficult. It trickled and dripped disjointedly in my mind. Memories tripping over each other, sliding in and out of order, a dizzy spinning collection that denied me answers. I couldn’t remember.

I couldn’t remember who I was, where I was.

– why I was.

In this moment all I could recall with any certainty was the most beautiful set of eyes. At first I thought them the most luscious shade of brown, deep and warm but the more I looked the more they seemed to be an uncanny shade of red, like dark stained cherry wood.

The owner of those entrapping eyes would have answers for me; of that I was certain. With barely a thought I was on my feet, the action too fast, unnatural. It startled me but I had to find those eyes. Nothing looked familiar as I turned around taking in the surroundings. The small clearing was edged with thick trees and wild untamed shrubs and while there were a number of trails leading out into the forest only two looked used by people. East, something called within me, follow it east. It took a moment to get my legs under control; somehow they had become ungainly jerking out like Bambi on ice. I traversed the path in a flash, coming out in a field of cabbages. I could see a house. My house, I thought suddenly. Home! HOME! My mind screamed joyfully. I wanted to be home, there was an ache in my chest for it.

In a blink I was there, the fields and forest behind me watching, quiet and pensive in the moonlight. I followed my feet to the side of the house aiming for the kitchen door. Everything was so beautiful bathed in the bright moonlight and it wasn’t even a full moon! I kept looking between the flower beds and the stary night sky dazzled by the intense beauty. If it wasn’t for the moon and the stars hanging above I would have thought it was day.

As I stood enrapt by the visual feast a sound caught my attention.

All my attention.

I angled my head toward the enchanting thrum. It called to me, a sweet song that made my mouth water and my footsteps whisper quiet. I followed my ears with my eyes almost closed, the lids sinking lower with each thump and I licked my lips. I'd never heard such a delicious sound. Something primal was awakening in me, it too licked its lips before following it up with a wild and guttural ‘Mmmmmm’.

Suddenly the tasty little drum leapt; the sound oh so exciting.

“Good grief Sally-Anne! You gave me a fright.” The woman clutched at her chest, her voice, the flushed face and barely tamed chestnut hair pulled at my memory, familiar and different at the same time. “What on earth are you doing out at this hour young lady? Oh look at you! My baby, what happened?” Her watery blue eyes were wide in fear but not afraid of me, afraid for me as she opened her arms wide to envelop me and started ushering me towards the kitchen door. Sally-Anne she called me, that must be my name and baby, she called me that too. Was she my Mother? No sooner than the thought had struck me my mind began to cooperate, it was as though the word was a string and pulling it drew those memories forward.