No Escape From The Past

“What do you want from me?!” She screamed, her voice cracked and feral, slicing through the silence like a broken promise.

“You,” he said, almost whispering. “I want you. I’ve always wanted you… No matter how much I’ve tried to forget, you’ve plagued my mind.”

His voice trembled, but his eyes held her like they always did—steady, blue, and full of things he never got to say. Crystal didn’t turn. She couldn’t bring herself to face him. The weight of the moment collapsed her body from the inside out.

She hadn’t heard that voice since she was twelve years old. Noah became a ghost that haunted her dreams for the past six years. An imprint of what she longed for in her memories. Just a sliver of something that was.

Something that could have been.

She tried turning, but her body couldn’t. After dreaming about what he’d grown up to look like, she couldn’t bear to look at him. She didn’t know if he was alive or not.

But with him standing behind her – pleading with her – the guilt of not knowing how he’d survived ate at her. She couldn’t bear the thought of him suffering.

She took a breath, calming her anxiety. Her left foot moved first.

Seeking the light out of the darkness.

Her body was half turned when—

BANG.

Her spine stiffened. Another bang. Then another.

Her breath caught in her chest like a scream that didn’t make it. She spun wildly. Light swallowed the alley they were standing in. Her eyes burned.

“Noah?” She called, voice splintering. “NOAH?!”

No answer.

Silence had always been the most deafening thing in Crystal’s life. The fake promise of “Talking can make the pain better” laughed at her every time. The darkness she had befriended met with the silence. Wrapping her in a suffocating blanket of safety. But as she heard nothing standing in the alley, her own friend had become her enemy.

The only thing her foe now befriended was the metallic taste of fear and the sharp scent of blood painting the air. Then came the sound—wet, gurgling. Distant.

Drowning.

Her knees buckled before she even knew she was moving. He was there Crumbled, eyes wide and lips red. Not the kind of red you fall in love with. The kind that stains your hands.

Forever.

“Don’t leave me. Not you too,” she whispered, dropping beside him, knees scraped on gravel.

Her hands clawed at his chest like she could force life back in. Her eyes found the three holes in his body. Each one bleeding like a scream.

“Shh… d-don’t cry,” he rasped.

Blood bubbled at the corners of his mouth. “I hate seeing you cry.”

She tried to hold herself together. To be the Crystal he remembered. But she shattered anyway. What he saw now was the broken girl she’d become.

“Save your energy—” she pleaded.

“No time, Crys,” he coughed. “Listen. I should’ve never told you I loved you… and then disappeared like a damn ghost. I’m sorry. I should’ve stayed. I should’ve fought—”

“It’s fine,” she sobbed. “It’s not your fault. I know you had to. I just… just stay. Please.”

Tears streamed down her face, landing on his skin. A silent prayer begging for life to return.

“I can’t. But promise me something,” he whispered.

“Move on. Don’t carry me in your chest like a wound. Talk to people. Feel shit. Live.”

“I promise,” she choked.

“Even in death,” he smiled, “you’ll be my Crystal. My light. My beginning.”

She didn’t even have time to comprehend his words, his return before he was ripped out of her life again. His final breath sent a cold shiver down her spine. The blue in his eyes fading into grey. She didn’t scream nor move. The only sound louder than her silence was the officer yelling for her to put her hands behind her head.

She never got the chance to.

She made herself a promise instead:

I’ll find whoever did this.

And I’ll make them wish they never crawled into this world.

The bloody vow wrapped its claws around her heart.

Pain—searing, sharp—ripped through her body. Her hands flew to her back. Blood slid down her fingers like sacred water. Inking the promise into her skin. She raised her hands to her face.

Red.

Noah’s blood. Her blood.

Her body slumped forward with a dull thud against the road. Tiny stones bit into her face, but no pain matched the one inside her chest. Before she could process what had happened—

Everything went black.