Chapter Three

Hearing him scream again I finally reached the locker room doors, slamming into them, my hand went straight through the one panel and when it swung open I went with it, crashing into the wall, my hand stuck up to the elbow in the glass and against the door.

I looked around the room where everyone else was standing looking at me in shock. And then I saw him... standing in front of the benches, looking scared. Like a rabbit... so small and innocent, terrified. That fear was beautiful... but only if I was causing it. Only if I was hurting him... frightening him.

Seeing that kind of fear in him usually instilled excitement within me... but like I said, only if I was causing it. Right now? There was only a burning rage, deep inside me, spreading like wildfire. I didn't want him to get hurt.

He couldn't get hurt.

The Ax... I needed to get to the ax... he was going to kill him... kill everyone. I didn't really care so much for everyone else, but something about Luke told me that he did care.

So I guess that meant I did too.

"Fucking hell!" I cursed trying to rip my arm free from the glass... but it was stuck at my elbow and I knew it would rip all of my veins open if I pulled it out.

I remembered Beatrice... the way she looked at me, late at night. And then I remembered his eyes... the same as hers. Luke... Beatrice... and infinite galaxy of blue swirling light in those eyes. The world itself would bow in shame before that beautifully wretched color.

I heard growling and saw Peter come flying into the room... his mouth was foaming and his eyes blood red. The place where I had burned him was severely injured and he was moaning and groaning. He made terrible sounds and it reminded me of the insane asylum, the way people acted... the darkeness, the insanity within their eyes.

He was focusing on the other people in the room, trying to see who he was going to go for next. He couldn't find me... so he setlled for the closest person in the room.

Luke.

Something hot flashed inside of me... as I watched him wildly swing the long knife through the air, flinging himself at the smaller, younger boy. The boy that was so feeble, fragile, and frail. My insides felt like they were burning... it was happening again. And then something violent tugged on my heart... and a pounding in my head that nearly had be blacking out.

He couldn't die... I wouldn't let him.

I closed my eyes, inhaling through my nose. Yanking brutally on my arm as I felt it rip open... all the veins and the skin, tearing, bleeding, dark red, almost black drops flying against the wall and down onto the floor as I ran... ran so hard, my eyes feeling like they were on Fire... and I knew they had changed... in some way... they had changed.

They felt... Black... hollow.

If I could just... just push him out of harm's way then everything would be okay... everything would be okay.

I felt my blood drenched arm reach him... shoving him to the side hard, so he fell parallel next to me on the ground.

And I screamed... I screamed as I felt the knife slice through me... into my abdomen... and it wasn't like butter, it didn't go in easy. It was rusted and jagged and it was pushed... pushed hard into me, violently. The metal twisting and sawing and ripping.

I gasped in loudly, not taking in air, but a memory.

'He looked so pathetic... standing there, begging me not to leave him. He... who was so codependent on me that the very thought of me going away just killed him.

"Please! Please! Star... Don't go... Don't!"

"Shut up... can't you hear yourself? Can't you hear how ridiculous you sound? Acting like a four-year-old, begging his mommy not to leave... grow up." I said harshly, turning my hand on the door knob.

"But... but don't you love me? Don't you care?"

I stopped, my hand gripping the cool metal before saying coldly, "No... I actually don't feel anything at all."

And then I was gone.'

I was back and blood was flowing rapidly down my body... the knife still embedded deep inside of me as my eyes turned back to blue, and became unfocused.

I realized in that one moment... that I did care... I cared about something... about him.

I cared.

I looked down to the boy to the right of me... laying on the floor covered in blood... and I just looked at him, seeing that my life was going to change forever after today... I just knew. I took in a shallow gasping breath, he was alive... I had saved him, and that meant... that meant that everything was going to be okay.

More blood gushed out, seeping and leaving my body... my lifestream draining from me like the color from the sky at the end of the sunset.

And even as I lay there on the ground... bleeding to death, I knew that everything was going to be okay... everything was okay. Because he was alive.
I gasped again before the knife was ripped violently from me, and I fell to the side...

Everything was so blurry.

The raucous noise from outside, in the shoe-scuffed hall, slowly morphed into audible words, gasps of pain, and the meaty thuds of two quarreling individuals locked in some kind of struggle, and that struggle was somersaulting past the billboards of tacked fliers and practically empty waist paper baskets directly towards the doors to the locker rooms where the four kids froze, transfixed at the sound of the approaching storm.

"Let... GO!" the words resounded off the walls, guttural, gargling, pain.

Luke put a face to the voice and his complexion lost the speckled blush of shame and turned ashen and white under the blanched lights of the locker room, Alice was clutching to his dirty, wrinkled, black shirt, pulling so that the collar at his neck tugged uncomfortably. His hands closed on her wrists but didn’t pry her off, his blue gaze locked on the door.

"We need to get out of here..."

Luke tore his attention from the door to the thin boy. It was an understatement, whatever was coming down that hall was half molester, and half something else, something grunting and snarling… perhaps half animal.

He had to get out of here. He felt his limbs freeze up, casting around desperately for a way out of the locker rooms, a back door, some corner to tuck away into to throw his wrists over his face and curl tightly up, facing away from anything as if him not seeing it, meant it did not see him.

"Whatever that is, is angry." A scream rent between the boy’s words, echoing through the hallway. “If we use that against it…”

Nerio approached Luke and Alice, taking her by the underside of her arm, hauling her to her feet.

"We'll be fine"

Would they? Who was this thin stranger to propose to them that they would be okay? Because nothing was okay, and maybe it never would be again. What happened last night, this morning, what was happening to them, the world. It was impossible. Fine. It needed to be better than fine. But Luke doubted they would be. Wherever God was… He wasn’t here… in this locker room. Not last night, not now.

"We can probably hold it off... There has to be something we can use as a weapon."

A weapon? Was this new boy eager for a taste of violence? He knew for certain that Grinder, at the very least would be through those doors in a moment and whatever hell he brought with him… the blond was big, he was tough, Nerio probably wouldn’t stand much of a chance against him, judging by weight and strength alone.

“Don’t!” Luke’s voice peaked from the wracking silence of his throat, starting forward, his feet pulling from their place, stuck to the ground with fear. He drew away from Alice with a squeeze to her shoulder, seeing the two other boys exchange looks with one another.

Perhaps they were both preparing to face what was about to happen, but there was too much blood already spilled, they were already standing smear marks of his own, skidded across the dirty tile where he’d been dragged, bleeding the night before. He wouldn’t let anyone die or hurt as a show of strength or protection to himself and Alice.

Luke reached out to grab Nerio’s arm, to try to pull him out of the set-jaw stance the other boy had taken. “No! It’s not worth people getting hurt, we need to run!”

He stepped in front of him, standing closer to the door, trying to get in their line of sight, trying to break the concentration on the chaos rushing towards them. He extended his hands in feigned calm, his blue eyes wide and pleading, his brunette hair fell in a few strands to slash across his left eyebrow as he looked between Edward and Nerio begging them with his expression alone, to back down.

“Please! Nobody has to get hurt. I saw an exit door around past the showers, it was locked but we could take that axe break it!” He pointed towards the ax, thrown by the bent locker door, tossed under the bench, “We can get out of here. Please! No one else has to get-“

Hurt.

He never finished his sentence.

The door swung open behind him, causing Luke to spin on the spot. The blond boy, Grinder, had his whole hand through the glass of the door, arm crushed against the wall, blood smeared across his face, hair stuck to his forehead and over his eyes. The crash of the opening door sounded like a gunshot.

It left Luke’s hands shaking, shoulders tensed. Grinder’s ice blue gaze raked over Edward, Nerio, Alice and Luke before fixating. His jaw clinched, that cruel face was softened with shock and fear, actual fear, it was so blinding that Luke’s breath caught and for a second he couldn’t breathe. The two of them stared at one another, wordless.

Blood. He needed help.

Luke pushed last night to the back of his mind and immediately moved forward to help, but the blond boy screamed. "Fucking hell!" Flailing, trying to tear his muscular arm from the glass prison biting into his forearm.

Something… no, someone, followed after. The expanse of their broad shoulders filled the frame of the doorway.

Peter, their probation officer.

His face was oozing blood and angry clear puss from the scalding burns seared into his skin like pockmarks. His lips pealed back from his white-white teeth, his eyes bloodshot as a red sunset in a scarlet sky. And there was a moment that the great hulk of a man squinted through his madness for his next target, a moment when he inhaled before he charged, and a moment… just a little too late when Luke realized that Peter charging straight for him.

The nearest target.

He stumbled backwards, his small frame knocking against the edge of the bench, stumbling around it, unable to tear his eyes away from the probation officer running at him full tilt, a short blade raised in his left hand, a sound rising from his throat like a rabid animal, sucking on the air.

Luke gripped his tiny wooden cross in a fist so tight his knuckles burned white.

Everything was blurred out, someone was screaming and adrenaline pumped through his blood so quickly that he felt himself ease in and out of unconsciousness in the milliseconds between gasps,.

It felt like an eternity of time when he could think of nothing but the mistakes he made, nothing but how many people were waiting for him to come home, nothing but how much harder he could have fought to protect the dignity and the purity that he swore to God he would, nothing but the gut full of needles churning in the pit of his stomach when he thought of that little girl, needlessly in the hospital bed robbed of her potential beauty by him, a boy so caught up in self hatred that the knife cutting through the air towards his chest was an archangel from heaven striking down his sinful existence with the certainty and promise of an ending.

And then…

Blood shattered across his black shirt, sprayed across his neck and face from the glimpse of someone, shoving him out of the way, onto the ground.

He landed on his rear so hard his teeth jarred together, his brain hurt inside his skull and he felt another shot of warmth slash across his face and body as a body collapsed down beside him.

Luke saw that fist first, the dark skin of Peter’s hand, veined and muscled renting the blade from the body of his savior, and his heart tumbled into his gut…

Grinder.

How?!!! Why?!!!

His thoughts short circuited in his head.

His body was against a locker, his wrists raised to protect his face, his cross still clutched in one, as he felt the shock leave him frozen, suspended unable to move. Soaked in scarlet, unfurling his hands to see the red between his fingers, the warmth of his shirt pressed against his chest.

Grinder. The blond boy, the violent stranger who had cursed him and mocked him and humiliated him, was lying there in a spreading pool of his own blood, gushing from his body, hemorrhaging, pain massacred across his face. And Luke could do nothing but sit there against the locker in mute ghostly shock soaked in the life fluid of his molester, his mouth half open.

Peter let out a roaring grunt and turned on the spot, rounding on his next closest victim… but Luke couldn’t see anything anymore…

He could only see the blood puddle slowly expanding to the tips of his shoes. He could only feel his breath leave and enter his lungs.

… he didn’t even know the boy’s first name.

He forced himself out of his haze, forced himself to tilt forward onto both knees, collapse by the blonde’s side. His bloody, delicate fingers sinking into the other boy’s hair, his hand on that gushing wound, feeling hot warmth spurt through his fingers… oh god. He was going watch someone die… and had no idea how to perform the last rights…

“Alice!!” He felt his voice leave his mouth but not the words. “RUN! Get help! Please! Run!” They needed the emergency room, they needed doctors… they needed a priest…

He looked up in teary eyed horror as he saw Peter rounding on the two bigger boys.

I’m not ready… he thought.

I stood there lost in my thoughts wondering what the hell could be coming towards us it was either fight or flight and I was thinking more fight because we had no choice."We need to get out of here..." he was right in some sense but how? There was no way.

I looked at Nerio wondering if he was flight or fight as well I was seeing more fight than any thing with his thin physic.Watching him walk over to Alice and helped her up to her feet.Sure what Luke said rang in my head my head of getting the fuck out here but we would have to get through that earthquake of yelling and screaming and I sounded like a familiar voice actually...who was it though.

I heard some thing angry like the incredible hulk it actually struck fear into me,we were not going to be fine this bull shit and we needed to help out Alice while we defend our lives as well...

I here Luke yelling “Please! Nobody has to get hurt. I saw an exit door around past the showers, “We can get out of here. Please! No one else has to get-“
and his voice faded off.But we had to fight he needed to see that was the only option the only exit was our demise and I was always ready to face it,I just didn't think it was coming this quickly,shit just to real to fast.

We just needed to fight no holding back I just couldn't give a fuck right now!I look around the locker room and see if there was an weapon,we need to protect ourselves,"We can probably hold it off... There has to be something we can use as a weapon." I saw Luke at me like I'm crazy,really? That's bull shit there was no other is all I can tell myself.

Of course Luke being his saint self and trying to back us off from saving our own lives!!!God fucking hates us Luke that's we're here and on top of that we're sinners!!!If I were God I'd hate me too.When I lost in my thoughts I heard no more talking I saw no more faces every thing blurred out of focus when I came back all I saw was a huge man dark man after the blonde this had to be one of the scariest situations ever I freaking hate this!

Luke screamed for us to get help, or was it Alice I couldn't hear over my own thoughts.I just saw him trying to protect the blonde.Alice was out of there I watched her go out in her struggle.Next thing I know the large man is coming towards us...All I could do was stare at Nerio and wonder what the fuck are we going to do? All I could utter out of my mouth was,"Oh shit..."

Alice clutched to Luke's wrinkled black shirt tightly as she felt the boy's fingers enclose over her small wrists.

"We need to get out of here..." Nerio said as a shrill animalistic scream erupted from the hallway, horrifingly clear. Alice felt a chill shoot down her spine and looked down to see her arms turn to gooseflesh.

"Whatever that is, is angry," Nerio continued as another gutteral scream ripped through the hallways to bounce along the cement walls, the echoes magnifying the sound. "If we use that against it," Nerio began. The slender boy caught Alice by her arm helping to pull her to her feet. Her legs felt close to collapsing, but the impending danger kept her on her feet. Nerio's face was contorted with concern as his gaze sized her up. "We'll be fine." He smiled, though it did not reach his eyes. He glanced at Edward, worry still pulling at his brow.

"We can probably hold it off... There has to be something we can use as a weapon."

"Don't!" Luke exclaimed fearfully, starting forward. With a light squeeze, Luke pulled away from Alice. A small pang of loss resinated through the girl as he withdrew, though she knew not why.

Luke raised his arms, pleading, “Please! Nobody has to get hurt. I saw an exit door around past the showers, it was locked but we could take that axe break it!” He explained as he pointed towards the ax halfhazardly tossed under a bench. “We can get out of here. Please! No one else has to get-“

A loud boom exploded into existance followed by the cristiline roar of breaking glass. Alice's wide eyes surveyed the blonde boy.... beaten and crucial life's blood spilling from his forearm to pool into a quickly expanding puddle on the floor. He stood there, arm wedged between the wall and glassy daggers of the door, seemingly frozen.

Luke rushed forward, ready to assist the boy.

"Fucking hell!" the blonde boy yelled as he fought through his pain to tear his arm away. He looked like a small animal caught in a trap, flailing recklessly, as a large form paused at the doorway.

In the icy floresent lighting, Peter's burned and bloodied face appeared in sharp relief with murderous intent in his bloodshot eyes. His lips were pulled back in an animalistic snarl exposing clenched, too-white teeth. He squinted at them and then lunged at Luke.

Luke stumbled backwards at the charge, trying to scramble away. Peter uttered a feral sound in his throat as he ran at Luke, a short blade in hand. The knife arced downward toward the boy's chest.

Alice closed her eyes, her hands covering her face, tears already flowing again over her pale cheeks. She didn't want to see this. She didn't want to watch someone else die. Especially not sweet, kind Luke.... the boy with the blue eyes. Her slender shoulders shook in grief.

She heard a sickening thump and a sound, the horrifying sound of blade seperating from flesh and redoubled in her silent tears. She shook her head back and forth, sure this must not be real. Another gutteral roar sounded and Alice's head jerked up. She had to get out of here.

As she blinked back the tears flooding her eyesight, she found to her surprise, not a sad lifeless Luke. The other boy was laying there in Luke's place and.... so much blood! The metalic smell of it wafted over to her, making her gag. Luke touched the boy's hair, feeling the wound. His face had taken on a ghostly complection; his lips bloodless with fear.

“Alice!!” Luke shouted, the bite of a hystarical scream tainting his words. "RUN! Get help! Please! Run!”

Alice stood frozen a moment in the scene, and saw as Peter rounded on the other boys. She ran through the now bloodied and vacant doorway, sliding on the already drying blood. Shock and fear drowning all sensation; drowning everything except the urgent need to find help.

"Don't!" I planted my eyes on Luke's, I saw him move towards the doors and stand there. As if it would do any good.

"Fool" I spat the words out teasing bitterly, and started to approach him when his mouth started moving again.

“No! It’s not worth people getting hurt, we need to run!” He stood in front of me, arms stretched apart as if forming a cross would help him. The world is going to be the snake that'll devour him. Is all I could think about his show of bravery. I pressed my left hand into my hand, as footsteps became nearer.

"You've just wasted what little time we had." I hissed bitterly, and started backing away shaking my head at the words that sputtered out of his mouth. Damn it, this guy needs a wake up call. Is like he shouldn't even be in a place like this! Last thing I need to worry about is-. That's when I heard the door swinging open, and the sound of glass breaking. Loud enough it ceased my thoughts. I turned around and my eyes landed into the blonde guy. His arm was caught in the glass, and bleeding profusely. Shit.

I didn't had much time to think, as some dark skinned man blasted through the door. If you could even consider that thing human, he could probably snap us like twigs and use us as toothpicks. His eyes looked like those you see in bad horror movies. A tinge to red, too unnatural to look into. He had been burned, and you could feel the anger steaming off of him.He searched for a target, as if he already had his fun with the blonde.

Then came the switch. He decided on Luke; the boy who placed himself in front of the door with his speech that no one needed to get hurt. I kept stepping away my eyes fixed on the blade the beast had viced in ball of thick veined muscle. He was slashing aimlessly at Luke when suddenly the blonde ripped his arm out of the glass, and spraying the room with blood. He tackled the monster down into the ground, but before I had time to take in what happened afterwards. I started to turn around the corner to start a dash but only ended crashing into the ground. "FUCK!", I caught myself as my hand landed on water. Managing to magically not slip and bust my face open. I smiled as I felt part of my see through the water, feel what the water felt. It was like having your limbs extended I lifted my hand from it and felt the link disconnect except for the few drops in my hand.

Then a heart stopping scream came out of the boys throat, snapping my back into reality. I glanced at Edward, as he muttered the words "Oh shit".

I turned around, to take in the scene behind me. When I heard Luke tell Alice to go for help. The girl seemed to have gone unnoticed by the beastly man, and his attention was on Edward, and me. I clenched my jaw, as my eyes glanced at Edward. Something told me I had a chance in the shower, if I could freeze vomit... I should be able to freeze water too. I only thought of wanting it to freeze and it just did... It made sense, yet none at all. People don't just heal up, turn into savages, freeze water, or use it as an extension for no apparent reason. There's still some hope I thought, as I got up and darted towards the showers.

It was hazy... like my eyes just wouldn't focus. I was in so much pain, the tearing, ripping senstation had turned to a sickening burning feeling. Like embers were flying through my body. And I could hear noises... people leaving, running, some swearing.

I needed to find him... where did he go?

There was a soft but persistent hand on my wound... his hand. Trying to stem the blood flow, I was dizzy and I could still feel the softness of his skin through the crimson. He was still here... he hadn't left me.

Why though?

I saw Peter looking around, crazy and still weilding the knife, the one covered in my blood. Anger coursed through me... I was dying, I was dying and it was his fault.

I felt myself grit my teeth, pushing the small frightened boy away from me, pulling his hand from my hair and wound, which, weirdly, wasn't bleeding as much as it had been before.

The ax lay behind me... and I felt the wood of the handle connect with my hand, it was warm. My head wouldn't stop spinning.

His dark figure was before me as I stood shakily, gripping it tight... like I gripped his hair last night in the locker room.

The ax felt light but my body heavy as I swung hard, missing the first time the blade going into the locker behind Peter, I had to do this, Luke wasn't safe... with him still alive.

A low growl emitted from my mouth as I ran full force at him, his eyes were red and furious but the ax swung back in my grip and I heard more than saw, the blade go deep into his skull, right across his ugly fucking face. Blood splattered everywhere, leaking all over the white floor, I slipped in it, falling to the floor, watching as his huge hulking body swayed before finally collapsing.

He was dead.

I groaned and panted lightly as I used all my energy to pull myself over to the lockers, finally breathing a sigh of relief as I lay against the usually cold metal... only it wasn't cold, it was warm against my back, my blonde hair falling in my lowered face.

I couldn't... couldn't really see. Blackness was closing in and then going away and I'd see the room again... and then blackness... and then the room... and then blackness... and then the room...

Where was he... I wanted to see him, just one, last time.

Just one last time.

Everything was a blur. There were people shouting, their words drowned out by sound, ricocheting off the ceilings and tile flooring, throughout the locker rooms, to resound in the showers, and thunder in the basins of the sinks. There was so much chaos that, all at once, Luke shut out everything, and focused on breathing. The tremoring bird of his heart flapping against his rib cage. Numb, like he’d been plunged into icy water.

Warm blood was still spurting through his fingers from the wound in the blond boy’s gut, clinging to his skin, red butterflies, patterns of life fluid splattered to his porcelain face, and he looked up in desperate horror at the man who’d plunges his knife into Grinder’s stomach.

They were all trapped there, caught in an emotional moment of panic. Alice, flying towards the door, agile-hope, sprinting towards help. Edward captured in frozen shock, all bravery turned to stone. The tall skinny boy, Nerio taking off towards the showers, slipping in water, dragging himself to his feet… running like the devil was at his heels… and Peter spinning there in the room like an executioner searching for his next victim.

Nothing made sense anymore… Luke was too scared to utter a prayer, he couldn’t remember Our Father, or Hail Mary, if he ever really knew them, if the scapular around his neck didn’t burn. A boy was dying in his arms and that knife would surely find another heart to lodge itself in. In the wake of that realization he no longer knew how to pray.

Peter turned on Edward, the next closest victim, drew back his knife, his upper lip curling into a snarl… but he paused. His dark face turned suddenly in Luke’s direction.

A flurry of movement from under him, and hands roughly pushed Luke’s shoulders, pushed him away, and he suddenly realized that the blond boy in his arms was shoving him to get free, trying to pull himself to his feet, unsteady, wobbling, trying to hold on to something.

Luke tried to grab him, tried to keep him away from Peter, because the monster of a man was rounding slowly, lips peeling back to reveal teeth caked with blood, his half burned face dripping angry puss down his neck and throat.

“no stop!” he cried, but his voice was a throaty, hoarse, whisper against a backdrop of nothing.

Grinder had the axe in his hands, his knuckles white as he clutched it tightly. Luke couldn’t watch. One of the two… would end up dead...

The blond boy fumbled and swung haphazardly, hitting the locker behind Peter, who retreated back a step than took a few paces forward, raising the blade in his hands, grunting under his breath like some wild thing without purpose and reason.

“Grinder NO!!!!” Luke heard himself scream as the boy hauled back and swung full force at the larger man’s head…

… and Peter… he stood there, didn’t move, didn’t try to get away, almost as if the man behind the monster stayed his ground one last time, and in that split second the knife lowered, that angry face slackened… and…

Luke threw his hands over his ears and turned away as the axe made contact with bone, and even though he tried to shield himself from that horrible sound of blade cutting flesh, he would never forget that dull thud, the silence that followed like the dust after an avalanche.

The large man’s body hit the ground as he collapsed to the tile, blood pooling from his head... staining the locker room floor black, a dark, dark, black. It spread obscenely.

Luke kept his eyes closed, knowing that any moment he would have to tear his hands from his face and force himself to look at the massacre in front of him, the stench of blood and body fluids made him want to retch.

He forced himself to look… his whole body was shaking with trauma. He couldn’t think. Blood. Murder. Blood… blood… blood.

“Nerio?? Edward???” he said their names to verify that someone was still out there, and he wasn’t alone… his voice was weak with panic.

Grinder lay there, leaning against a locker, pale as death, his blond hair a mess with fresh blood, and sweat. No. No. No. NO.

Luke’s stomach flipped over and he scrambled forward, crawling to the boy, slipping over the corpse of Peter strewn in his way. “No!!” His voice was a whimper of a sound. “stay with me!” he breathed as he reached Grinder, cupping that angular face in his trembling hands, lifting it to look into dull eyes, fading… fading.

“Grinder!” he said quietly… he didn’t know the boy’s first name… didn’t know anything about him other than he was violent, and sadistic, but none of that mattered now. Peter was dead, and by the look of it… soon this boy would be too.

“Can you hear me?” Luke said desperately, shaking Grinder, trying to get a response, looking desperately up towards Edward. “Oh… God… I can’t…” too much had happened in too short a time. He couldn’t handle this. “I don’t know what to do… help me… someone!” he felt frantic… slipping.

Alice was speeding away from the community center as fast as she could, terror nipping at her heels with every step. She heard not the birdsong, but instead her heartbeat thudded almost painfully in her ears.

Lifeless eyes flashed in Alice's periphery, causing her rapid breathing to catch as her head swiveled frantically. Her shoe hit something hard and before she could even register it, Alice was laying in a heap, sobbing.

He's dead, she thought as she raised her stinging palms to dry her wet cheeks.

She curled herself into a ball, hoping that by holding herself tightly enough, she could stop shaking. The last of the morning dew was soaking into her clothes and it made her feel itchy in the harsh sunlight. She gazed up to see the indifferent orb threw wet eyelashes, feeling very, very small.

She was supposed to get help... but though she was compelled by the overwhelming sense of death, she knew not whose soulless eyes keeps flashing into her mind. what if it was Luke?

The thought jarred her. Panicked, she jumped to her feet as she sprinted back the way she came, an entirely different fear urging her aching muscles forward.