Darkness. A black desolate void consumes me, pressing around me like a heavy, suffocating blanket of death. I'm tapped: but free. My body a prisoner in this perpetual abyss, but my dark, terrible thoughts are free to wonder to the borders of insanity. Screams pierce my ears, her screams –Lena. It's only her pain that is worse than the black emptiness that has filled my heart. I open my mouth in a terrible grimace, trying to call he name, but black, metallic soil fills my mouth. That's when I realise: I'm underground… Buried… dead…
I jolt awake, the whisper of a scream burst from my lips. It was just a nightmare, it was just a nightmare, it was just a nightmare. I repeat to myself, in a desperate attempt to convince myself it wasn't real, Lena and I are safe, everything is just fine.
But even I know it's not true. Since the Macon's death, on Lena 16th birthday, nothing has been the same. Lena has been distant and wretched ever since, well that was expected, I know better than anyone what it is like to lose someone you love. But what I never anticipated was her sudden coldness towards me. Every smile she gives me twists her face into a distorted mask of pain and falseness. It's driving ne insane, literally. It was the night of Macon's funeral that Lena broke down and shut me out. It was also the night the dreams started.
We has just laid Macon's body to rest and the beautiful Ravenwood crypt (I know he would have been grateful). As I stumbled across the graveyard, eyes blurred and glistening with unshed tears, I saw her. Genevieve. Although the moonlight had basked the cemetery in a hazy, phantom glow, and my eyes we blurred with tears for everyone I had lost, I know it was her.
She smirked, a cunning, catlike smile. Her golden eyes burned brighter than usual, narrowed into fiery slits of jealously. Not quite the green eyed monster. She had looked angry and cheated, but for what reason I had no idea. I threw her a questioning look. In response she flashed me an arrogant, promising grin and then disappeared. However, her meaning was clear; she was going to give me some answers.
Later that night was when the nightmares began. I am sure Genevieve has sent them to me as some kind of riddle for why the Ravenwoods and Duchannes have been treating me with such indifference ever since the night of the claiming. A riddle that I cannot decipher.
I have had three nightmares since then, always the same one. Since they involve Lena I am going to her for help today. I can only hope she is in a mood to talk. The fact I have to question her love and concern towards me, scares me even more than Genevieve's creepy visions.
I stumble apprehensively down the lane to Ravenwood manor. A supernatural, cold, stinging wind reminds me of Lena's sudden remoteness towards me. I feel a miserable rage start to well up inside me, but force myself to ignore it. Today is bigger than Lena and me, it's about the Duchanne curse.
I retrieve Genevieve's locket from my pocket and toy it between my fingers, in the hope that again it might provide me with some answers. The events of Lena's claiming are still foggy and my memory is riddled with unexplained holes. I have a sneaking suspicion that my strange amnesia is the result of a certain Duchanne's curse, and as creepy as it seems I hope that is the case. It might explain Lena's coldness towards me, maybe she feels really guilty about putting a cast on me. I desperately pray she hasn't just fallen out of love with me. The only thing I really know is I have to find out: why Macon is dead, why I probably have a cast on me and why Genevieve has started sending me visions.
With each step closer to the Ravenwood manor I feel the locket heat up in my hand. I am nearly at the porch when the locket burns my hand, the fiery agony is excruciating. Bursts of burning pain shoot from the locket, through my body, like cursed flames. The scorching torture is unbearable; I crumple to my knees defeated. A numbing black wave reaches up and claims me and I fall into a chasm of nothingness…
Thanks for reading. I hope you liked this story, i know its short but i will upload another chapter soon. Please review and tell me what you think and if there is something specific i should include in the next chapter! xxx
