CHAPTER 17

Ever since yesterday, when Kori reminded herself that she needed a date for the Prom and only had two days to get one, she had been trying everything to find one. Not that she's as obnoxious at trying to find a date as Shelly. Unlike her, Kori hasn't been flirting with every guy she met. I had caught Kori scanning the hallways and lunchroom for a possible date. It actually got a little annoying, not that I would ever tell her that. But Kori's annoying behavior of finding a date didn't even come close to her sudden out burst of shopping for dresses for the special event.

"We should go shopping after school!" Kori exclaimed as we walked to our last class.

"Kori, for the thousandths time, I don't like to shop!" I practically yelled out of my frustration.

"But it'll be fun." She pouted. "Please, Rae. You have to look pretty for the Prom…not to mention Richard."

"Richard will have to live with me showing up to the prom with casual wear on." I sat down in a desk. Kori set down her books on desk next to me and lowered herself down with her arms crossed in attempt to pout.

All through science class, my mind kept pulling at the thought that had been eating me up for days now. How do I protect my friends from myself? My stomach began to churn and I felt that gnawing feeling that I would get when something was bugging me that I couldn't resolve. I clutched my stomach in an effort to numb the pain. I had no idea what the teacher was saying. I wasn't focused. I closed my eyes and began to try and concentrate on the ball of pain my stomach. Then I concentrated on my feet and my hands. The more I focused on anything but the pain in my gut, the more it faded away. Then I started to enter the meditation state. I focused on my heartbeat…nothing else. Soon the voices around me drifted away until all I could hear was my heartbeat in my ears. Thump, thump, thump, thump. Slowly, the heartbeat slowed…thump, thump… until it stopped. I freaked out. I grasped my chest trying to feel for my heartbeat. It wasn't there. My eyes shot open. I wasn't in the classroom. I was kneeling on raw ground. There was red dirt all around me, and an intense feeling that something was watching. The sky was pitch black with no clouds, stars, or moon. There was no vegetation anywhere to be seen, and the air was musky. My hands still on my chest I squeezed my eyes shut. I hoped that this was all a dream. I hoped that when I opened my eyes, I'd be in the classroom again. But my hope was lost when I opened my eyes to the same scene. Then came a growl. It was deep and menacing.

"Who's there?" I demanded trying my hardest to show no emotion in my voice.

"I think you know." Came the deep voice. I did know. I knew exactly whom it was, but I wasn't going to admit it.

"I live inside this person,

For a very twisted way

I make them thrash and bleed and scream,

With only me to blame

I can trick them into believing

That I am not so strong

But as I rip and rip again

They find that they were very wrong

I can lie very well

And I'll damn you to hell

I can tell you now that I am only an inconvenience

I can turn trust into lust

Let hate shatter their fate

And I'm here to see it through

That their life,

Up until the end,

Can only be more screwed

I love to cover with sugar,

The promises I say to keep

And then watch as the wither

As if they were at the bottom of the ocean

With weights bound to their feet

As I beat until you burst

As I smile knowing that I was a curse

As I drive them to the end

A constant shadow on their soul

All that I can say

Is that I am trapped deep in you

And I only laugh

As you try to resist me

But little do you know

I am the very reason that makes you strive

I am the very thing that keeps alive

I am the thing that keeps your dark blood pumping…"

I clutched my ears as my father's voice tore into me like a hungry panther into meat.

"Help Sarah. Please what do I do?" I whispered with my hands still clamped over my ears.

"It's no use to ask for help, dearest child of mine. For your sister has joined me."

I stopped everything. I looked up. I didn't know where his voice was coming from, but that didn't stop me.

"What the hell are you talking about?" I screamed. "Sarah would never join you!"

"She joined me from the moment she was born. Since her first breath of life, she was banned from heaven because of what she was going to do. And so were you."

I screamed. I pounded my fists into the ground. No, not Sarah! She did nothing! She shouldn't be damned to this hell! Tears of anger streamed from my eyes. I collapsed helplessly onto the dirt.

"Why didn't she tell me that she was going to hell?" I asked out loud.

"I didn't want you to worry about me." I looked up in shock. Sarah was standing in the shadows with her head down. I stood up, running to her. But before I could reach her, she vanished. I slammed into the ground.

"Sarah?" I cried silently.

I began to feel a burning in my stomach. Then I realized my heart was the thing in pain. I grasped my chest, hugging myself. The pain became more intense until I couldn't bear it. I screamed in pain. I squeezed my eyes shut.

"Rachelle?"

"Hey Rae!"

I opened my eyes. The entire class was looking at me, including the teacher. I looked around at the confused faces. That's when I realized I had been crying. I wiped the tears away with my sleeve. As I pulled my hand away from my eyes I noticed something. On both my hands, their sides where completely bruised from pounding the ground.

"Ms. Roth, are you okay?" Asked the teacher with an alarmed look on her face.

I couldn't find my voice. I guessed that I looked pathetic with my eyeliner smeared and my scared expression. I jumped up and ran out the door. I heard the teacher yelling at me, but I ignore her demands that I come back. I ran straight out the school doors. I couldn't run all the way back home, and my legs felt like rubber underneath my weight. I dropped to my knees behind the school. I took refuge behind a group of bushes that backed up to the gym's walls.

"Not Sarah…" I kept saying. "She doesn't deserve hell…"

I lost track of time, I didn't even hear the bell ring that indicated the end of the school day, or the rush of students trying to escape the campus. It wasn't until Kori and Richard found me that I realized where I was.

"What happened, Rachelle?" Asked Kori in a gently voice.

I still didn't have a voice. It was caught somewhere in my throat. All that came out was a moan of sorrow and pain.

"It's okay. You don't have to say anything." Richard said looking at me with pity in his eyes.

"I have to save her." I sobbed. "Sarah. I have to get her out of there."

"Out of where?" Kori asked, still trying not to push me out of my comfort zone.

"Hell. She's in hell. She damned to hell. She doesn't deserve it, any of it!" I cried. Soon, my sorrow turned into anger. I had to control myself. I couldn't let my emotions take over me, especially anger. I knew that when I became uncontrollably angry, I became a monster, a dark, menacing monster. I took in deep breaths. After some time, I shakily got up and walked back to Richard's car. I waited in there with Richard as Kori ran back into the school to grab my backpack and homework.

The ride home was so silent it almost made me deaf. As soon as we reached home, Kori called work and told them I was sick. I would have stopped her, but I was asleep in my room. Somehow, going to hell and seeing your dead sister, made me exhausted.

I awoke two hours later. It was early evening. I slowly sat myself up, trying not to get up to fast. Otherwise, my head would start to spin. I sheepishly walked down the hall, past the kitchen, and into the living room. Kori and Richard were doing homework on the coffee table silently. I groaned a weak, "Hey." And sat down on the couch besides Richard.

"We have to go shopping sometime. No use just hiding in bed." Kori teased. I knew she was only trying to make things better, but I didn't need her jokes right now.

"I'm not going shopping." I growled. "Besides, you don't even have a date."

"Yeah, I do. While you were asleep a guy called me." She said cheerfully.

"Who?" I asked pretending to have an interesting in what she was saying.

"That new kid, Garfield. He just came to our school two weeks ago, and when I was packing up to leave, I found a note in my locker. It was from him saying that he has had a crush on me ever since he saw me on the first day of school!" She sounded really girly at that moment. I struggled not to roll my eyes.

"Have you ever even met this Garfield before?" I asked.

"No, but Richard has. It turns out that the two of them are childhood buddies.

"Actually, we were like friends for a month before I moved here and had to start all over." I could see a flash of sadness in his eyes. I knew that something horrible had happened to him, some childhood horror, but he didn't seem like he wanted to talk about it, so I never asked him about it.

"Well, he still called me and asked me to the prom, so now I have a date. And tomorrow, no matter what, we are going shopping for dresses!" She insisted. I couldn't help myself. I rolled my eyes in a dramatic way.

"There is absolutely no way that I'm going shopping for a stupid dress!" I bellowed.

Yet, the next day, after school, Kori dragged me to the shopping mall. I pouted the entire way through. I pretty much did nothing but gag at every dress Kori picked out for me, and walk with my arms folded across my chest in a rebellious way.

"You have to try one on sometime!" Kori complained. She was holding up another dress. I had my finger pointed into my mouth, indicating I hated it.

"Not if I can help it."

I sat down in a chair next to the dressing rooms. Kori stomped off to go put the dress back on its rightful rack. Seconds later, she came back with yet another gown. This time she grabbed my arm and shoved me into the closest dressing rooms. She flung the dress over the door and slammed it in my face.

"You aren't getting out unless I see you in that dress!" I heard Kori yell from outside the small room. I gave a loud, frustrating sigh. I thought about using my powers to walk right on out of the stall, but I dismissed it when I heard a small girl's voice.

"Let's go in that one mommy!" She exclaimed. I heard the door of the stall adjacent to me open and close. Damn it! Now I couldn't use my powers. Then it occurred to me I didn't have to use my powers to get out. All I had to do was crawl under the stall's sidewall. I got down on my hands and knees. I stuck my head between the gap between the floor and the dressing room's wall.

"I'm not that stupid!" Chirped Kori, standing in the dressing room I was trying to escape in. I groaned and crawled back through. I guess the only way to get out of this place is by putting on that dress… I picked up the gown and lay it on the bench beside me. I pulled off my shirt and skirt. Once, I was fully undressed except for my underwear, I actually held up the dress to look at it. At first glance it looked like a plain black dress with straps that drooped around the shoulder instead of over the shoulder. But when I took a good look at it, I realized it was actually a deep, dark purple with an embroidered floral pattern of some sort in black. But it wasn't those cheesy floral patterns, it was the small detailed ones. The gown had somewhat of a flare to it, but nothing obnoxious.

"Are you done yet?" Kori asked impatiently.

"Yes." I said opening the door. I only opened it four inches or so. "Do I have to come out and show the whole world?"

"Well duh. If you can't even show a few people in a dressing room, then how are you going to show everybody at the prom?" She yanked the door all the way open, revealing me to anyone in the room. I moaned in embarrassment as Kori gaped at me. She smiled.

"It's perfect!" She piped.

"But I'm not doing my hair or anything else…" I warned.

"Nothing else." She promised. "Except for jewelry." She closed the door again and waited for me to get back into my casual wear. We bought the dress at the counter.

I found myself being lugged through the mall by Kori, with a bag that carried my prom dress, dangling from my wrist. We went into every jewelry store in the world, at least that's what it felt like. By the end of the day, we had bought my prom dress, Kori's prom dress, jewelry, and shoes to go with our dresses.

"Back so soon?" Asked Richard sarcastically as we walked through the front door. "It's only 5:00p.m." He was right; we had been gone since school got out at 3:15p.m.

"It was torture!" I complained setting down my bags of our purchases.

"I know you had fun." Teased Kori sitting down on the couch.

"Now we have to go to work in an hour!" I moaned.

We unloaded our shopping bags and got ready for work.