0. February 13, 2005
It was mid-afternoon when I had decided to escape from the cabin and go for a walk. The dead leaves crunched beneath my feet as I walked slowly through the trees and took in the early evening air. I smiled at the scent of the trees and dry earth as it filled my lungs. The day was beautiful. Outside, there was no chilling February breeze, the air was still. Still enough that, if I thought about it long enough, it just might have scared me. It might have warned me.
I had to leave that cabin. The air in there was much too tense. My baby brother, Vincent, had been crying and Mom couldn't figure out why. That should have forewarned me too, but I wasn't thinking then either. And, of course, my little sister had another one of her 'feelings.' I could tell by the way she suddenly withdrew herself and coiled into a corner of the room. My dad tried to ask her what was wrong, but she wouldn't spill. At the time, I was getting tired of Alexi's creepy senses that I didn't care that it could have meant something.
I just wish I would have listened. I wish I would have cared that time.
I continued on my walk, taking slow but large steps further into the forest of green and brown. It was then that a breeze swept up behind me, tingling my spine and throwing my hair into an array of cocoa-brown tangles beside my cheek. Just how far had I wandered from the cabin? Maybe it was time to head back. Yes, it was definitely time to go.
The first step was slow, unsure, a bit frightened. The second was a bit more rushed and less grounded, a step that felt like someone had just pushed me. Step three, I started jogging, crumpling the brown leaves beneath my shoes. Four, I knew something was wrong as I jumped over large protruding roots of trees and ducked beneath branches on my way. My breathing became shorter, quicker. My legs started to burn; but all these things I ignored. Things I should have taken in. Things I should not have disregarded. But how was I to know that soon I would forget and miss knowing what these things felt like?
The cabin came into view, no visible signs of panic. I dared to question slowing down, realizing that I was probably getting worried over nothing. The stillness of the area told me otherwise. It was quiet. Yes, too quiet. Vincent wasn't crying; there was no sound whatsoever. The revelation scared me, and, with this new fear, I threw open the wooden door of the darkened room. In an attempt to keep myself from screaming, my hands flew to my mouth.
It was a sight no one deserved to see. A scene no one deserved to lay their eyes upon. I was scared. I was shaking. I could feel the hot tears as they glided down my cheek until they reached the fingers that had been covering my gaping mouth, where they slipped into the tiny crevice between my fingers and face. I stumbled back, tripping over my own feet and falling onto the floor. I wanted so badly to tear my eyes from the horrific display of bloodied bodies; two adults, two children. One family. However, as badly as I wanted to gauge my very eyes from their sockets and go on for the rest of my life blind, I could not look away.
How could this have happened? I was only gone from the cabin for no more than twenty minutes. Who could have killed four people so quickly? So…brutally?
A chill tingled up my spine as I heard something shift in the darkness of the room. I froze and stared with wide eyes into the black abyss. Whoever had killed my family was still there. I was next.
Those predatory crimson red eyes were the last thing I remembered staring back at me before the pain began.