I shut my eyes. I avoid looking at her creamy skin and pink cheeks. Her slender neck. I can't look. Images appear on the inside of my eyelids.
This girl I closed my sight to is there, her features blurred by my focus. I press against the vision, willing it clearer.
Eventually she's visible. Her curly, blonde hair flows freely behind her. A smile lights up her face. She stares directly at me. "R," this woman whispers, her lips stretching further out across her pearly white teeth. Am I dreaming? Is this what I get to see before I truly die? Will the curse not even save me now? Will this girl not save me now?
As if on cue, she approaches me. Her smile fades to nothing but a smirk. "Shrug," she whispers as her grin returns, her shoulders shifting upward helplessly. I turn my eyes away from her, looking around over the green field.
A boy and a girl sit in the grass several feet away. The girl smiles and waves. The boy rolls his eyes. "Focus on me," the blonde girl whispers in front of me. I turn back to her. "Do you know who you are?"
I shake my head.
"You're R." She answers, studying me with pure interest. "So, R… Tell me. What do you want to be?"
I remember this. It seems so familiar. The air soaking into my skin, the feel of grass tickling my legs through my jeans as I wander aimlessly through it towards her and her friends. I realize she's waiting for an answer and I shrug.
"Stop shrugging, Shrugger." She giggles, poking my shoulder playfully. I rock back on my heels as I shrug again. She pauses and lifts an eyebrow. "Really?" I nod, wind pushing my hair away from my forehead as I blink. "Hey… R?" She whispers, bowing her head as she glances up at me.
"Ye… Yeah?" I ask, bending down slightly to try and see her eyes that I've recently grown quite fond of.
Tucking hair behind her ear, she looks back up at me. "You're dreaming, R. You're really dreaming. You're leaving me and you probably don't even know who I am." She whispers, her voice cracking as she fixes her eyes on her shoes. I imagine a glass sheet balanced weakly in front of her, shielding her from harm that can break it so easily. I picture it already broken. This girl was long from safety. And under the glass, staring helplessly up at me, was a destroyed girl. A girl who's felt too much pain and agony.
"I'm… Dreaming." I mumble, agreeing with her before lowering my own eyes.
"Close your eyes." She says after a while, her soft voice carving its own memory into my brain.
And I obey.
Once my eyes close, I immediately reopen them. Basically it was a blink, a very slow blink. The room around me had changed. I am standing in an airport, surrounded by eerie walls and deadly sounds. Moans echo into both my ears from all sides. I frown, turning to look over my shoulder before slowly proceeding down the hall.
"You said a few days, R! It's been a few days!" A voice bellows behind a curve of a cement, now grey from age, wall. I try and pick up speed to follow the voice, curious as to who it was now calling "R".
As I round the corner, I am greeted by several bodies littering the floor. But the bodies are rotted. I grimace, turn away and face the man and woman. I can't hear the man's reply, I only see him nod in the dark. Then a shuffle and one of the dead stands.
"What?!" A bald, heavy set man barks. He looks like hundreds of pounds of muscle and fat thrown onto a six foot tall frame. "What!" He yells again.
And, again, the other shadowed man's reply is muted. I lean forward, risking my discovery to eavesdrop on the conversation. I sigh wearily, reluctantly caving into my failure. The other tall man's voice is drowned out by the banging pulse of the girl's heart.
She glances at me curiously, blinking into the shadows. "R?" She asks, the bald man and the mysterious man fading from sight. I am left alone with this girl. "R, remember what you are." She silently approaches me, extending a hand in my direction. "You're R. You're human. You don't…. Kill." I stare dumbfounded at her. I don't understand what she means. I feel human. I don't kill. "R," my eyes move to hers, my chin resting against my chest as I let my head hang. Her hand lands on my arm as she whispers, "I'll keep you safe."