And Hell Awakens
Ema tightened her grip on the steering wheel of her Subaru Forester so that it hurt and pressed the accelerator down as far as possible, gunning the engine as she made a sharp right turn. With the squeal of the tires ringing in her ears she glared through the windshield and ground her teeth together trying desperately to ignore the tears streaming down her face. Her hands trembled from the pressure she was placing on the steering wheel along with her arms. She jerked off her glasses, flinging them in the passenger seat, and wiped the tears out of her eyes roughly with the back of her hand.
There were a lot of intolerable things she had put up with in her life that she had made it through. The death of her parents, gaining "mythical" powers, her best friend turning against her, the first guy she loved being murdered, the list goes on. She sighed, now at a breaking point. 'One more loss...' That phrase played endlessly though her mind like a broken record playing a sinister tune.
She sped through red light after red light, not caring what cars she sent swerving out of the way. She cut the wheel hard snapping the car into the parking lot of the mansion. She braked hard but still ended up in the grass and leaving skid marks of dirt in the green. She turned off the engine and yanked the keys out of the ignition tossing them in the back seat before squeezing the wheel again. Her blue eyes blazing with an unimaginable force, she sat in the driver's seat for a moment looking at nothing in particular.
She hated the thought of herself crying. Always had; always will, so she denied that she was. She let her eyes roam the interior of the vehicle before biting her lip. She sighed heavily and slowly loosened her grip on the steering wheel allowing her hands to fall into her lap. She hung her head and cried softly glad there was no one there to see her like this. After a few moments she looked up and caught a hint of herself in the rearview mirror. One glimpse at her tear streaked face and she snapped. "Damn it!" She screamed yanking the mirror off the windshield. She tried to choke back a sob. "Why?..." She balled her hands into fists and punched the steering wheel making the horn go off several times punctuating her words. "Why…? Why! WHY? WHY!"
She then violently unbuckled her seat belt and shoved to door open. She ran her hands through her hair not knowing exactly what to do; the fires in her eyes had dulled to almost nothing; they were now barely embers. She spun around and slammed the door shut then took to kicking the wheels and banging on the hood while sobbing uncontrollably. She finally slumped against the car door and slid into a sitting position on the ground. She wrapped her arms around her legs and rested her head on her knees. Letting her tears pour out silently.
As she sat there large tendrils of shadow stretched themselves out around her killing and withering the grass to leave bare, dry, cracked earth around her. She softly cried, to deep in grief to notice the other worldly presence sinking it's claws into her. Within seconds of being touched by it she was asleep and dreaming…
Ema blinked a few times not quite sure of her whereabouts. She looked around rubbing the sleep from her eyes. She was at home. "How'd I get here?" She felt an arm draped over her waist and she smiled. "Connor?" she rolled over to be face to face with him, though not the way she wanted. She felt her heart lurch then take off at an inconceivable speed. Screaming loud and clear as her eyes popped open impossibly wide she froze in fear, not unable to speak or breathe the scream siphoned off abruptly.
She saw him splattered with blood. His skin torn and burnt in several places, his left eye hanging limply from his eye socket, and his chest ripped open. She scrambled out of bed and backed away to the far wall. He slowly lifted his body out of the bed before her eyes. She kept backing up her whole body shaking with fear. Suddenly a set of arms grabbed her from behind. She whipped around to face her mother and fathers decomposing copses. She screamed again. "Murder…" they all chanted in low rasping voices. She ran for the door only to be stopped by Cara.
Her childhood friend, who still had pieces of her body missing from where the train hit her, they all converged on her screaming, biting large chunks out of her arms and legs, pulling her in different directions; In the mansion several bite marks and scratches started appearing on her smooth skin to stain the dead earth with blood; she screamed over and over again. She crawled away only to be dragged back again and again. She kicked and punched but to no avail. She felt her fear eroding away her sense of being. She let her power go rampant. The shadows she controlled scattered around her decomposing anything that came close; at the mansion the grass that wasn't already dead started to rot away, pealing the paint on her car and rusting the metal underneath along with other decomposable things in range.
Doing this she managed to escape to the window. She flung herself out with no other thought than escape. Feeling the glass pierce her skin, the air screaming past her ears, after what felt like an eternity in thin air she finally hit the ground with a dull thud. She lay still for a long while fighting to catch her breath through the pain in her chest. Struggling to lift her head as she looked around she forced herself to her feet once more her vision blurred. After her vision fully returned Ema found herself in her childhood home once again; a place she hadn't been in seven long years. She heard a low hissing behind her and instantly took off running through the halls her bare feet slapping the ground. She looked behind her to see Shade's snake-like form slinking after her. His body almost touching both of the corridor walls and the ceiling. She screamed in terror at her power being turned against her. She slipped and fell then scrambled to her feet her clothes soaked in a dark coppery liquid. Looking around she discovered that the hall was covered in blood and she froze.
Blood oozed between her toes and dripped on her from the ceiling. She screamed long and loud as the blood at her feet began to rise. She turned to run back to way she came to see Shade downing and twisting in wave of it. She spun and sprinted away from it slipping into another room slamming the door just as the tsunami of blood hit. She turned leaned her back against the door trembling. Ema used the back of her hand to wipe the tears from her eyes but stopped dead. She gasped and her eyes opened even wider. Stretched out before her was an immense waste land. The dry cracked earth with withered trees, and a reddish brown sky with dark storm clouds. She felt new hot tears pouring over her face as she watched vultures, crow, and ravens feeding on the rotting corpses of her mother and father. She stood on shaky legs and turned to go back through the door and found it had been replaced by Connor. She opened her mouth to scream but no sound came out. He was missing both of his eyes and had blood flowing down his cheeks from empty sockets, his body was partly rotted and covered in burns and what looked to be covered in animal bites. "Murderer…" he rasped at her and moved to grab her. She flinched away; bumping into a female figure. "Cara?"
Her eyes dilated and she stared at the disgusting form was at one time her best friend. Cara looked the same as when she had last seen her…after the train hit her. She was missing chunks of her face and torso. One of her arms was hanging limply from a ripped piece of flesh. Ema watched as a sinister smile curled to corners of her mouth, or what was left of it. "Murderer…" she growled. "I...I d-didn't m-mean it…" Ema stammered. "Murderer…" this time the voices where that of her mother and father. "I…" She turned to face them. "Liar…" Connor's voice hissed in her ears. She spun again. "Please…" she pleaded. "Unforgivable." This time she turned to see Austin glaring down at her. He was still in the clothes he had on at the bar. His eyes almost looked brighter now than she ever remembered them being. "Aussie…" Her knees buckled and she fell to the ground. "You killed them all…" As he spoke a gust of wind hit him and he exploded into a million tiny particles and blew away like smoke on the breeze. They all converged on her, biting her, scratching her as his voice continued. "You will keep killing…You can't control yourself…" She shook her head wildly. She fought and screamed, they continued their relentless chant. "Murderer…Liar…Unforgivable...Killer…" repeating the same words over and over again, growing louder and the words flowed together and over lapped as they tore at her body. She squeezed her eyes shut. "STOP IT!" She screamed at the top of her lungs and the world went silent around her.
She cautiously opened her eyes. She was lying in her bed at the mansion. The blankets were strewn about her, her pillows in the floor. She sighed in relief. "It was just a dream…" she felt a burning stabbing pain over her body. Puzzled she sat up still trembling and looked herself over. A blood curdling scream issued from her lips as she caught sight of her body covered in bleeding bite marks and gashes. She stood up to find herself knee deep in blood. She wadded over to the door and shook the handle; locked. She pounded on the door. "Let me out!" she screamed desperately. The blood started to rise swiftly up around her so that it reached her waist. "PLEASE!" she shouted. Now the blood was around her neck. "At least I don't kill the people I care about…" She heard Isabelle whispering into her ear; at the mansion her scream was cut off while in her dream the blood was now way above her head; 'I'm gonna die.' Was her last thought before…