Breathe
BREATHE
I feel his hot breath on my bear neck. I feel his icy hands touch my arm. It sent a shiver throughout my entire body. I tensed up as he was face to face with me. That smirk has haunted me since I was little.
Flashback
“Mammy! where are you?” “mammy I need you !” “mammy?” “i am scared.” I look around in a panic looking for the familiar face of my mammy. But all I can see is smoke and a lot of it and bright flames dancing through the walkways of my beloved home that is now lost to ash. My vision became blurred of my eyes overloading with salty water.
“Ellie!” I hear a faint voice call out. I rush straight to it only to see my mammy. My mammy covered in ash coughing to catch her breath. “mammy!” I squealed excitedly
“ssh, honey you need to run until you reach the old phone booth and get help okayl, please don’t stop running.”
“Are you coming too mammy?”
“I am sorry Ell not to this one .” She says with a worried tone in her voice
“why?”
“Here take this I will always be with you, keep it safe .”
She says while taking off her favourite necklace.
It is an oval shape with a light blue crystal in the middle surrounded by a ring of diamonds .
As she put it over my head I fiddled with it in my ash cover, hands rubbing my thumb over the engraves on the back .
“but it’s your favourite necklace.”
“now it’s yours “
She swiftly squeezes me and plants a kiss on my forehead and says
“mammy will always love you, just remember that okay honey?”
I slowly nodded my head unconsciously and with that she took off into the roaring fire. I stood there until I could no longer see her .
I turned around and ran, ran for my life, for my mammy. keeping an image of her in my head and holding tight to the necklace.
After a while I started to get very tired and my knees became wobbly with each step I took.
Without my acknowledgement, frosted tears escaped my eyes stinging without my consent. The icy wind whipped my hair straight and all over the place.
I didn’t stop running though. Until …
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Into the woods
My face came in contact with the rough, icy ground. I tripped, I think over a rock. As I tried to move my foot a shooting pain ran up my leg scattering to the rest of my body making every part explode with pain .
I took a shortcut through the woods to the village from our house which was farther up the hill near the lake side. What a silly mistake that was, i should’ve stuck to the dirt road maybe farmer Malcum was coming down on his tracker. If i got his attention i could of got help for mammy. But no i thought the shortcut would be better, faster.
I stretched my arms out to try to move to sit up right . As I moved, the pain shot again. I looked down to find my right foot swollen, bruised and in an awkward position.
My eyes became watery yet again with the pain. I tried to move it back into its right place. I knew it would hurt but I have to keep running to the village to get help and be safe and never stop running so it needed to be done.
“aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhh!!!” A pain filled scream escaped through my dry cracked lips .
When I got my vision back, I heard a snap come from the bushes that surrounded me. I continued to move my foot into place and moved it around to see if I could walk. I bit my lip so no more sound could seep through. After a while I started to taste blood in my mouth. Showing my bottom lip coated in a crimson liquid.
I let out a sigh as I slowly rose myself off the ground. Before I could properly put my right foot down I was interrupted by a sharp snap! Of another twig. Feeling so scared and frightened drowned me off that I was not alone and that it was not a good thing, have they been watching me?
Waiting,watching. Listening…
I now become aware of my surroundings and all the noises and smells. I picked up fast with heavy breathing and a sent nose crunching. I looked around frantically in a circle of bushes that surrounded me, trying to see something. Then I saw his face. Sorry, it’s face if you could call it a face or person.
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That smirk
That smirk, I remember it very clearly. I felt my heart stop and plummet to my stomach.
I tried to turn and run but my right ankle had other ideas. I was frozen, paralysed all over. All I could do was drag and limp on the moist leaf-covered ground to try and escape .
But it got closer and closer…
I tumbled to the cold earth on my back reaching my arms around to try and find something. But it was too late it was over me. I tried to squirm away but his hands grabbed me.
“Come on . Come with me !”
His voice echoed through my brain.
I stood up with confidence shaking “no!”
I spat in his face, oh how stupid of me .
Before I could realise what I just did I felt a rough cold hand grab my arm and dragged me off further into the woods, further away from the old phone booth. I started to scream my lungs out, making them burn. Suddenly he covered my mouth with a cloth that smelt of rusted iron. It muffled my attempts to get help which soon fades to silence and my vision gets intruded by black dots.
Then it all went black.
Waking in the back of what I think is a van.
Blacking out again to wake by the man roughly grabbing my upper arm. “ be quiet now Ellie’
How did he know my name? I dont reconsines him or his voice. Panic engulfed me, my heart rattling and banging to get free from my ribcage. Feeling that i can’t get enough oxygen into my lungs.
Eyes squinting as he drags me outside to the sun shining. Then his phone starts ringing. His grip ever so slightly loosening and his attention elsewhere. This is my chance. And I took it .
Took off running again, on to a road out in front of a car getting help.
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7:35
I shot up in my bed panting for air and drowned in cold sweat. I have been having these nightmares for a while now ,just the same thing over and over again of fire, running, and that smirk. Running free to that strange village.
Looking to my left I am greeted with red flashing lights reading 7:35
Shoot I am late for school. Okay so I have five minutes to get read and sorted then walk to school ,which starts 7:40
Oh kill me now.
Next to my alarm clock is a photo with me and my auntie Sophie, uncle Collin and my cousin Lottie.
They all look alike especially Sophie and Lottie with their brown straight hair , pools of honey for eyes and a tan complexion and both size 6/8. Unlike me who is pale as can be with dirty blonde frizzy hair , green eyes also a lot of moles all over my body and size 10/12 body at that .
My eyes slowly drift off to my window and the heavy rain pouring down on it. I love cold wintery weather as you can get all nice and warm and cosy.
I pick a blouse out with a pleated skirt, some tights, my striped tie and old blazer that have seen better times.
My uniform is a white blouse, a pleated plain black skirt , 60 d tights black, black, purple, gold and white striped tie and a black blazer with the school crest on the left side on the chest pocket, which is of a swan in a shield like shape which is coloured purple (the shield not the swan ) with the words Lockwood academy at the bottom. (i am 5’4”)
After I got dressed I rushed my hair into a ponytail, put my new glasses on, grabbed my grey backpack, slipped on my black flats and left to run to school.
