My bare feet pounded against the freezing cold pavement. My black river like hair flew in knotted torrents whipping at my back. The thoughts in my mind redundantly screamed at me to be evasive. Rapidly, my eyes began searching for an escape. I looked up, and for a brief moment I saw beauty in the clouds. They were hybrids of color mixing together producing tiny ivory fairies. They swirled in an intricate dance across the sky without pattern. They floated downwards to be consumed by the corpses of their relatives that sheathed the earth. Then I felt bad, because I was crushing there fragile bodies with every step.
“Out of all this chaos there is still beauty,” I thought.

With a start I bring myself back to reality, I kept running. Ignoring how painful the bit of snow was with each step I took. Still, fiercely searching for my escape my eyes found the entrance to the forest. When I got to the bridge I slid on ice cutting my feet and scraping my knees.
I had to stop and regain my balance, but also because I couldn’t breathe. My lungs were on fire. I turned around to make sure the coast was clear. I took this time to quench the thirst for air my lungs so desperately desired. A sharp pain in my shoulder made the air in my throat catche and I dropped to my knees. I tried swallowing it but I couldn’t. I lay there gaping open mouthed like a fish out of water and that’s exactly what I felt like; a fish. I forced myself to a crawl at the same time trying to pick myself up. My shoulder seared with pain each time I put weight on it. I pushed myself to get across the bridge and to the forest line.


Thump. Thump. Thump.

I could hear my attacker crossing the bridge now. I crawled fast. My eyes pouring tears from all the pain I was in. When I thought I was a safe distance away from him I used a tree trunk to pull myself to my feet. Baring my teeth together as my shoulder sputtered more blood from the wound. A gun connected with my spine with a hard smack. Trying my best not to scream when he hit me was hard, but I refused to give him the satisfaction of knowing my pain. I lay on the ground face first. He kicked me over and next thing I knew I was staring up into the eyes of the man I once loved.
“These eyes know belong to those of a killer,” I told myself.
“Have I not given you everything? And yet, you run. Have I not loved you when no one else would? I took you in and loved you! I treated you how you should be treated and you betray me! I have done nothing wrong, but make sure that our love will last forever!” He was in a fit of rage.
“You kill people! You are abusive. You are…” I couldn’t finish my sentence because in the next second I was hit in the face with the gun. It hurt and I squealed in pain.
“SHUT UP! Do not talk to me like I am nothing you depreciative little rat! You have lied to people. I have saved you, protected you, I have killed to ensure our everlasting love. Others would only tear us apart. And now you run from me…you tell the cops what I have done and now you deserve and equal fate.”

I didn’t register what he had said at first, but I saw the look in his eyes that was the same look that was there when he put a bullet between my mother’s eyes. I kicked myself backwards, but he grabbed me by my shirt and forced me to stare in to his face. The face that once was so full of love that once had a laughing smile that was now twisted with nothing, but hate and disgust for everything that the world did to him. He put the barrel of the gun to my lips and when I didn’t open my mouth his eyes transformed into that of a mad animal attacking its prey and forced the barrel through my teeth. The pain didn’t register. I tasted the metal of the gun mixed with the copper of blood that pooled my mouth making me choke.

He leaned in and kissed my forehead, but once and the whispered into my ear.
“I love you, you could have trusted me.”
“Says, the wolf sniffing and the door,” I spat in his face. Bang.

My body hit the ground. I didn’t die immediately, but I let him believe that I did. My head was in searing agony. I became incoherent. Unblinking, I watched him pull a black rose from his trench coat and place it in my hand saying something that sounded like ‘Good night Amnesia’ then he walked away. I lay there in an unmoving heap of decaying moss and leaves sprinkled with snow. I prayed that the pain would soon end, that I would soon find relief. Crimson wine coated my pale skin and drenched the fairies corpses. I looked up at the sky. More fairies began floating down to cover my body in a protective coat. I could barely see them one. Everything was so blurry. Each time I blinked it felt like minutes rather than seconds. Coughing, I sprayed blood drops on my face. I closed my grey eyes and shed, but one tear. Glad that the last thing I saw was beautiful.
“Out of all this chaos there is still beauty,” I thought once more.

The trees bowed around me as if in mourning. A soft wind blew and the leaves licked at my skin. I smelled a faint hint of lilacs. Finally, I was winter.
~
And. Then. I. Woke .Up.