Fallen (Fallen 1)

I sat across from dad and really studied his appearance. He had a large amount of stubble and there were shadows under his eyes. There were cuts and bruises all along his bare arms. I could make out caked in blood in his hair.

“How long have you been here?” I asked him.

“I’m not sure. Long enough,” He sighed.

I watched uneasily as the sun rose. How long would it be before she came back? My life was slowly ticking away from me. Every second counted. Why did it have to end like this? This was so wrong! This was not the way that my life was supposed to end. I should have had a happy ending with Jonathon by my side. Not a grave stone marking my untimely death.

In my frustration I ran at the door wanting to break it. Unfortunately I think I dislocated my shoulder. I screamed out in pain grabbing my right shoulder.

“You shouldn’t have done that,” my dad said coming over and tenderly feeling the shoulder. “You’ve dislocated your shoulder,” He said confirming my fears.

I wanted out so desperately. There just had to be a way out. There had to be.

The hours of that day passed slowly. As did the next three days. Selena didn’t return nor did anyone else. Maybe she was hoping we’d writher away. But that just wasn’t her style, not at all. Every day I got hungrier and thirstier. I was sure my dad was worse off than me but he didn’t complain. Out of some simple twist of fate it rained on the second day of my confinement and it leaked through the roof pooling into a dip in the uneven floor. As dirty as the floor was neither one us minded drinking the dirty water.

I tried to keep my mind off of things that would be painful. Namely mine and my father’s death and Jonathon. I was not about to open that can of worms. My shoulder hurt like hell. I was scared to have my dad move it back into my place. But I also thought; what’s the point I’ll be dead soon but I didn’t tell him that.

I wished someone would find us so desperately that I kept imagining that I was seeing it; like someone in a desert searching for water and seeing a mirage.

On the fifth night she came.

A noise startled me from my restless sleep. A figure was closing the ancient door. For a moment my heart leaped. Someone’s come to save us! But then I saw the long black hair and soulless silver eyes that seemed to glow in the dark.

She smirked. Then that smirk turned into a smile. A lethal smile. A smile that showed her elongated vampire teeth. It was menacing.

I felt the hair on my arms and the back of my neck stand on end. I felt like I had been dipped in ice water. I used all my strength not to flinch; she would not see me as weak. I would die fighting. In the opposite corner of the room my dad jumped up. Selena stalked toward me. My heart raced.

This is it. I thought.

Her eyes sparkled with pleasure. She was finally going to kill me.

Oh god please! Please save me! Let me get out of here alive! Don’t let her kill me!

Suddenly my dad ran at her.

At first she didn’t see him she was too focused on me. He hit her with all his force and she barely stumbled. She caught him by the arm and then held him to her. He couldn’t escape her strength. My dad looked at me fear shown through his eyes but also the undying love of a parent. He wanted to save me even if it caused his death. Tears sparkled on the surface of his forest green eyes; eyes that matched my own. He knew there was no hope.

She smiled at me again. That evil smile that held no mercy for the one she gazed at.

She put her hand in my dad’s hair as if she were going to stroke it. But instead she pulled.

I watched with sickness in my stomach as she pulled his head off his body with one yank. She let his body fall but held his head in the air for me to look at. I stared at it in horror. I couldn’t look away. My dad’s head was hanging from her hand. She looked like a demonic angel standing there holding my father’s severed head. Blood fell from his neck onto the floor with a sickening drip, drip, drip. I couldn’t believe my own eyes.

I closed them thinking that when I opened them the view would be different. I was wrong. She dropped his head and let it roll across the ground. My eyes followed it as it rolled towards me. His head stopped only inches from me. The eyes stared blankly back at me. The blood from his head and body was inching ever closer to me. The smell made my stomach churn even more. I kept gazing from the body to the severed head and back in horror. This can’t be happening, I thought. As the blood inched closer to me I couldn’t take it anymore. I stood and ran to the other side of the room. I threw up on the floor. My empty stomach heaved. The images of the body and severed head swam before my eyes. I couldn’t make them go away no matter how hard I tried. I sat back on the floor, my knees had gone weak from the sight and would not support me, away from my puke and the body but it still wasn’t far enough away; nowhere was far enough away. I pulled my knees to my chest and wrapped my arms around them. I closed my eyes and rocked myself trying to calm myself. I cursed myself silently for showing weakness.

Selena laughed.

It was horrible. Her laugh was more like a shrieking. It

was an evil laugh. It was the laugh of a super villain when they’ve caught the super hero in a trap. It made me want to claw at her to rip and shred her to pieces.

I kept my eyes closed even though I still couldn’t rid of the gruesome images. Make it stop! I wanted to scream.

I grabbed onto the one thing that could make the images disappear.

I broke the dam I had built and thoughts of Jonathon flooded me. If I was going to die then I was going to die close to him.

Jonathon, Jonathon, Jonathon. Memories of him flooded my mind. When I saw him in my dream. Him sitting on his car. Jonathon driving me to school that first day. Him comforting me in the hospital. Our day touring Rome. Me on the back of the vespa. The garden. The paintings. Everything came flooding vividly back to me.