The water pounds the shore.
Metal bends and shrieks.
“Are you ok?” Dare asks, and his voice is afraid.
He wasn’t supposed to be there.
I can’t get away from that fact.
But I can’t, for the life of me, figure it out.
I can’t come to the truth.
A wall stands in my mind, blocking me,
Protecting me.
But I can’t be protected forever.
I have to tell you something.
It’s new.
A new memory.
From before the accident.
I startle, and focus.
Calla, I have to tell you something. You won’t understand. Please just listen before you decide I’m a monster.
My breath… it won’t come, and I try and try to inhale, and I try and try to remember more.
But that’s all.
Dare’s face is gone.
He’s afraid he’s a monster, and maybe he is.
I don’t know.
But being here, in the wind and the air, perhaps even at Whitley, is freeing me to remember. Everyone was right, the answers are here.
I feel it.
I just don’t like it.
The water crashes below me and it’s like a lullaby or a song, until it turns into sort of a snarl…then my name.
Calla.
It’s a whisper carried on the wind.
I open my eyes, and someone is staring at me.
The boy in the hood.
He’s on the edge of the water, his feet buried in the foam, and I can’t see his eyes.