Prophecy of the Most Beautiful (5 page)

But just that fast, the man materialized and won. Summer choked and tried to twist her way out of the death grip locked tight around her throat. A useless task.

Only Chloe saw his heinous smile as she watched the girl struggle. Summer seemed to find her then, and her determined eyes screamed at Chloe to make a run for it. Instead, her entire body went numb.

Then, with minimal effort, the man threw Summer right over the edge of the cliff.

Chloe's hand flew up to muffle her scream.

The man laughed, then becoming the shadow, he blew into the forest.

She waited for him to come for her next. With her knees drawn up to her chest and unintentional tears turning to frost on her cheeks, she waited for her time to die. She was alone now, and there was nothing standing between her and death. But forty terrifying minutes later, she was still alive. That hardly gave her any solace. He was only prolonging her agony, she knew, just like he did in her dreams.

But maybe not. Maybe he had only come for Summer, maybe
she
had been his target all along. Maybe she was hallucinating and the girl wasn't even dead.
You should go confirm that for yourself
. Yes, she would do that.

She forced herself up, crept the ten feet standing between her and the clearing, and climbed over a giant fallen limb into the open area. There was no sign of the white-haired man, but she felt no better about it. She spent several minutes just staring at the place where Summer had stood last. The image of her resolute expression in the second before she knew it was over, replayed itself over and over in Chloe's head like a scratched DVD. She could feel the girl's staunch fear because it had now become her own, and the feeling that she might soon meet the girl's fate slithered back into her heart.

Maybe she's alive
. She stared at the cliff's edge for a while, like if she willed it hard enough, the ground would stretch on so that it had no end. But it didn't, and something morbid inside of her told her she had to see. She had to see for herself the results of all that had just happened. With bated breath, she inched towards the cliff's edge and with regret, she peered over the side––to find a fifty foot drop-off and Summer's body lying in a heap of leaves.

She's dead
. She drew back in horror and swallowed back the acidic bile that had tried to retch itself out of her throat. What a mess. What a bloody, mangled mess. There would be no extracting the image from her mind. It would haunt her thoughts forever.

Trembling, she sat back on her hunches and brushed the stupid tears from her cheeks.
Where were the voices in her head now, now that she needed them?
She needed them to talk her through her fear because sometimes, though she hated to admit it, they had been her only comfort. When her father had first ran out on her family, six years before, she had talked to them often. It was during that time that she finally came to terms with her mental condition. Crazy or not, they had consoled her, had been her only friends. She wanted them there now, but they were silent. It seemed they had finally abandoned her.

She thought of Benjy and her mother, the last images of them being from that morning. How she wished she had hugged them harder, given them more kisses, told them she loved them. She should have told Benjy to behave in school, not cut anymore girls' hair and not spitball his teacher. She should have made sure he put his lunch into backpack. He was always forgetting it.

She should have told her mother she was beautiful––the most beautiful woman she had ever seen. She should have told her she wouldn't have ever wanted any other mother even if she had a choice of any mother in the world. It still would have been her. She should have said so much.

She wasn't making it out of this forest, she knew that. This was no hallucination. The man who had been haunting her nightmares for weeks was real and had come for her. Deep in her gut, she had always known that one day her nightmares would become reality. She wouldn't bother to pretend like everything was going to be okay. This was the end of the line. She was going to die here without ever getting the chance to do or say any of the things that she should have to the only people she cared about, and that was more torturous than anything.

Without warning, a gust of icy wind cocooned her like a blanket. Before she could react, something grabbed her by the hair and she screamed.

It's him. He's come for me.

He lifted her into the air by her neck and her feet swung under her, useless to help. His cold hand was like a collar of ice around her neck––hard and chilling, but with the strength of steel.

The man only smiled at her, a perfect smile for something so heinous and vile, and then brought her face closer to his. His breath smelled like rotten eggs and the kiss he gave her made her gag. He caressed her jaw and ran his jagged nails down the side of her face. She felt warm blood coat her cheek. The man smiled again.

"How could they all fear such beauty?" He said in a dark, raspy voice, letting her blood drip into his mouth. He laughed. "But they cannot fear what does not live to incite it." His grin was detestable.

More humiliating tears streaked her face. These were her last moments of life. All she could think about was her mother and Benjy and her regrets. She was so sorry she hadn't been better for them.

"Do not cry for your banal human family. They will meet their destinies soon."

She squirmed in his grasp.
No!
How had he known? He couldn't hurt her family! Please, no! He was
her
nightmare, not theirs!

"Sweet dreams," his bloody mouth taunted her. She gave it one last fight, a whimper and a kick, but it was to no avail.

One by one, his fingers tightened around her throat…

*****

IV. Chloe

Being dead was easy. It was painless. It was peaceful. It was lovely.

She was perfect. More perfect than she had ever been alive. She felt free, and it was something she had never felt before she had died.

It was like floating, so light and untamed, like a tuft of dandelion blowing in the wind. She never wanted to come down. She never wanted to stop feeling like this.

She found herself walking through a maze of greenery and flowers and came upon a beautiful waterfall in the center of it. She was standing on the edge of a deep rocky cavern crawling with flowered vines and plush foliage where the waterfall met its end. The sky was blue and clear above and the sun shone bright, more bright than she had ever seen it. Yet, she could look into it without squinting. Having never seen the sun like this before, she thought it was beautiful. It was a perfect ball of red, yellow, and orange flames. It flickered around in the sky like a campfire and its warmth soothed her.

The thunderous roar of the waterfall was strangely calming and she sat down on the cavern's edge, letting her legs dangle over the side. Mist from the fall tickled her bare feet and the breeze it created cooled her skin. She was within a state of total peace. Yes, being dead was not so bad.

One second she was alone and then the next, she wasn't. She found herself sitting between two women and a young girl. One woman flaunted endless dark tresses and a flowing white gown; the other had short golden curls and wore colorful robes. The slant-eyed young girl, who was barefoot in simple jeans and a t-shirt, wore two spiraled pigtails on top of her head and after settling down next to her, handed Chloe a blossom-less flower. Chloe, who welcomed their company, smelled the flower. She liked its scent and smiled down at the girl, who did nothing but stare in return. The woman with the golden curls clapped her hands with joy. The dark-haired woman seemed indifferent, but nevertheless, her smile was pleasant.

The girl looked up at the dark-haired woman and asked her something with her eyes. The woman nodded. They both looked at the woman with the golden curls sitting on Chloe's left. The woman smiled at them, then at Chloe, running her fingers through Chloe's red hair. She planted a soft kiss on Chloe's cheek, then with a gentle voice, she whispered into her ear, "It's time."

Then she pushed Chloe off of the ledge.

*****

She woke up in a cold sweat.

It took a while for her to come into complete consciousness. She hadn't wanted to come back and she fought hard against it. She wanted to return to the cavern, and the waterfall, and to the perfection of being dead. She wanted to go back to the women and the girl. She had felt safe with them, even though they were strangers to her, even though they had pushed her off of a cliff and sent her back. Somehow she knew it had been for her own good. But now that her eyes had opened, all she felt was fear.

Her eyes focused on the ceiling above her. She didn't recognize its gold crown molded edges or the way it was lofted in the center, and as she looked around her, she realized she didn't recognize anything at all. This was not her room, this was not her bed, this was not her home. Maybe she
was
still dead. But if she was, why couldn't she return to where she had been? Why couldn't she go back? She didn't want to be here. This was not where she belonged.

Chloe gripped the temples of her forehead between two fingers as she pushed herself up into a sitting position with her other hand. She felt like an anvil had been dropped on her head. She was so dizzy and disoriented that if she had seen birds flying around her head in circles she wouldn't have been surprised. She squinted through her sore eyes and blinked the sting away until she could at least see some of what was around her.

She was in a plush room with luxurious and expensive furniture, black marble floors and where the slated walls were covered with strange carvings of things she didn't recognize as anything in particular. The room was lit by antique glass sconces embedded in the walls every few feet. There wasn't much furniture in the room. There was a grand cherry oak wardrobe inlaid with gold leaf sitting across from the foot of the matching cherry oak sleigh-style bed she lay in. Two Roman-style chaise lounges covered in a delicate blue fabric with golden lions' feet were situated in the corner, but otherwise, the room was bare. There were no pictures, there were no paintings, there wasn't even a window for her to look out of.

There were three gold doors, though. One was next to the bed––she could almost reach out and touch its knob. It was heavy and thick, a door clearly made for ultimate privacy. The other was on the opposite side of the room, just past the wardrobe. It appeared to be a sliding door as it had no knob, but a deep indentation for gripping. The last gold door was at the far right side of the room. It was a grander door, arched at the top, engraved with molded reliefs of temples and mountains, and studded around the frame with rubies.

The bed was like a dream. The sheets were white––whiter than freshly fallen snow and softer than baby powder. She felt like she was sitting on a cloud. If this had been her own bed, nothing would have kept her from lying back down and cozying back up under the blankets and sleeping for the rest of her life. But this wasn't her bed, and this wasn't her room, and all she really wanted to do now was escape them both.

I'm so glad you are awake, dear,
A voice much like a mother's––soft, yet authoritative––spoke inside her head,
Do not worry. The dizzy feeling will pass soon.

Chloe was so relieved to hear the voice that she almost cried. She forgot all about her sore body and aching skull and concentrated on holding back her tears.

"Where have you been? Where am I? What's going on? Why am I here?" She rambled off questions. "Did I have another fit? What happened to me? Am I dead?" She could remember bits and pieces of things, but nothing coherent. None of it made any sense, and at that moment, her brain didn't have the ability to filter out what was real or not.

The voice chuckled.
I can assure you that you are not dead, dear. But I am not the right one to tell you the truth.

"What do you mean?"

I mean, that the truth will be quite unbelievable coming from a voice in your head.

"
Well, tell me anyway! You seem to always know everything, don't you?!
"
Chloe shouted, only making herself more dizzy. Her head throbbed harder and she pushed at her temples hoping to make it stop.

You will know everything in due time, dear. And the voice said nothing more
.

"
Don't go. Please, don't go!
"
But there was nothing. She really needed the voices to keep talking, scold her, giggle, anything to give her some sense of her own reality again. But yet, she got nothing.

Now in a huff, and scared witless that she was far, far away from home, she pulled herself from under the fluffy, stark white down comforter and sheet she was cloaked under, and got to her feet. She was horrified to find herself stripped down to her underwear––and they weren't even hers. They were frilly yellow pieces that she would have never purchased on her own.
Someone changed my underwear?
The idea of it was humiliating.

Even though she was starved, forget food. She needed to leave. Right now. Clothes, she needed clothes, and she yanked open the doors of the wardrobe. Inside, she found stacks of fluffy white, terrycloth robes and slipped on one to cover her ridiculous undergarments.

Now for the great escape. She tried the heavy door closest to the bed. It opened up into a bathroom with gorgeous marble sinks, marble floors, a large antiqued mirror, and an exquisite marble bathtub that was the plunge pool for a waterfall pouring out of the slit built into the wall above it. She shut the door, wondering if she had only imagined that the sparkling water had been pink or if she had just hallucinated it.

The sliding door by the wardrobe was locked and wouldn't budge no matter how hard she tugged on it. The arched door had no handle on the inside, she was dismayed to discover, and with that conclusion, she realized she was trapped.