I wish I could've stayed longer, but I couldn't.

The light got brighter every time I blinked. I tried to keep my eyes open, for knowing that in a couple minutes, I would never open my eyes again.

There was a soft humming, and then it got louder. I realized it was me, humming the last few notes of Safe and Sound (A/N Sorry, I couldn't think of any other sad, quiet song!).

I heard small giggling, then children laughing. The light was so bright now; I had to cover my eyes with my arms.

You could barely hear me breathing now. My heart was going really slow. I wasn't ready when it happened, but the humming got louder, and it wasn't mine. Then everything stopped. There wasn't a noise in my world. Any second now I would be crossing the line between life and death, or had I already? It was so hard to tell.

Then it got dark. I felt the ambulance take me away, I heard the voices saying that I was gone, yet I didn't feel dead.

I felt so alone. Is this how it felt like to be dead? Alone and forgotten? They couldn't have forgotten me already, could they have? I told myself no, but in my mind it felt true. Would they really forget me?

I felt something or someone touch me, carry me somewhere. It seemed even darker where they put me.

I wondered where I was, but I couldn't open my eyes. I couldn't breathe, wherever I was. I couldn't move. Every time I tried to shift, I just felt a cold wall pushing against me.

But I'm not dead, I was certain of that. Why couldn't they see that?

"HELLO?" I screamed as loud as I could. "HELP!" I don't think anyone could have heard me, though. My voice was hoarse, almost as soft as a whisper. It hurt to even talk. I was losing air fast.

"I'M NOT DEAD!" It echoed off the walls of the very tiny room, possibly a box.

It was then I realized, I was in a coffin. I must have passed out in the hospital. Maybe even died for a few seconds, but I wasn't gone now.

In a couple of hours, I would be gone for good. I couldn't have wished for anything more than to be out of that place. Dead or alive, it would be better.

I felt my breathing go so fast, then very, very slow. I saw spots.

"HELP!" I screamed louder than I ever had, just before I closed my eyes falling into a deep, endless sleep.

***The Next Day, back at Anubis House***

Nina Martin swore she saw the alligator on the table in front of her blink. It was watching her with those cold, dark, beady eyes, she was certain of that. Watching. Waiting for her next move.

The eyes turned lighter into a dark chocolate brown. It took Nina a moment to realize that she was staring into her father's eyes, not the soulless stuffed alligator's. The picture dissolved into her father's face, looking back at her from the driver's seat in her mother's old car.

"Nina, were here." Her father said. Nina looked around to clarify where 'here' was. There was a long gravel road in front of the car and wedged in the blurry green of forest, was a small house. Nina knew the house so well.

"Gran!" She exclaimed, jolting upright causing the seat belt tightly wrapped around her being slammed into her chest. Nina tried to get free of the seat belt when she realized she was in a car seat. Oh no, oh no, oh no…

Her mother, showing her face, bent back and helped Nina out of the tangled mess of seat belt.

Nina got out of the car seat just fine and couldn't control herself as she grabbed her little ducky stuffed animal and hopped out of the car, starting towards her Gran's house.

"We love you!" She heard her mother and father call after her. She was almost to her Gran's house as she turned around to wave goodbye. She only had a few milliseconds to before a car came swerving out of nowhere and hit her mother and father's car, almost sending them down a steep hill.

"Mommy! Daddy!" Nina shrieked running toward them as the car bumped into them again, sending them down that hill.

Nina ran deep into the forest and down the hill until' she reached their car. It was slammed into a huge oak tree with branches that tried to hide her parents. She didn't know for sure that they were dead, so she ran up to the window with closed eyes and pounded on it, and when she opened her eyes, Nina leapt, back shrieking with terror.

Blood. Blood covered all the windows. It was everywhere. It seemed to start going on the trees and filled the branches with the sickly red liquid. It started taking the sky and the clouds and the grass underneath her feet was solid red. The red crept up her arm and her shoulders and reached her face.

Before the blood covered her eyes, she saw and got a good look at the killer. She recognized him, but not from back then. From the present, right now, when she is sixteen years old, not four.

"Nina!" Nina heard her Gran call out her name several times as the blood took over her senses. "Nina!"

Nina couldn't close her eyes because of the blood. She fell, to the ground, twitching, probably looking like something had token over her body and she was possessed.

"Nina!" She heard someone shout again, but it didn't sound like her Gran. "Nina!" Someone was shaking her.

"Nina! Get up!" Nina shook her head over and over again, trying to get the horrible memory out of her head. But she knew it would never go away as long as she lives. And maybe even dies.

"Nina!" The person screamed so loud, Nina was sure someone in China had heard it. "NINA MARIE MARTIN, GET UP!" The person yelled, making Nina jolt her eyes open.

"Nina? Nina, are you okay?" Amber Millington sat on top of Nina, her hands on Nina's shoulders. Nina was lying on the loveseat by the alligator she was staring at before. "You were screaming!"

"Yeah, I'm fine. Just a bad dream." Nina didn't even try to fake a smile to convince Amber she was okay.

"What would make you scream so loud?" Amber asked. "Tell me," And Nina explained the whole thing to Amber. About her parents, about the man, about the blood. At the end of it, Amber had a horrified look on her face. "Nina, that is so scary. I am so sorry."

Nina realized that she had lost another person in her life. Everyone she cared about was dying, and it might just be because of her.

"Who do you think the murderer was?" Amber asked, sliding off of Nina.

Terror filled Nina's beautiful brown eyes as she recognized who killed her parents. Who might have killed everybody.

Nina barely could speak now, but she managed to choke out the name. "Rufus."

Chapter Two soon! I promise!