Stuck In Between The Shadows Of Yesterday

Ajay's eyes shot open when the crash of thunder reverberated throughout her bedroom. She untangled her arms from Octavio and placed her hands over her face. The pounding in her head was mild as opposed to earlier in the night. She rubbed her face and then her eyes in an attempt to adjust them to her dimly lit room.

She felt like she had been sleeping for days but after observing her surroundings, she knew that she had only been sleeping for a maybe a few hours. It was still dark and pouring down rain outside of her window. Something about this particular night felt oddly familiar but her thoughts were abruptly interrupted by thunder cracking through the sky and bellowing in the not so far distance.

The smell of something sweet lingered in the air. It was something that she had smelt before but she couldn't quite put her finger on what that something was. She glanced over towards the window that Octavio always left open and let out a sigh because she knew that she would have to get up out of bed and close it. "Silva?" Ajay whispered to him but he didn't budge.

Octavio's body was draped over hers like a blanket; a soft, warm, cute, cuddly blanket. She felt safe and warm in her current state and really didn't want to get up. She had never known Octavio to be one to sleep through the night but on rare occasions he would. So on the rare occasion that he did somehow sleep more than hour she tried not to wake him up.

The low rumble of thunder drew her attention towards the window once again. She felt a strange obligation to get up and go over to the window. She returned her attention to Octavio and gently nudged his heavy, limp body off of her, which soon became a chore. It was very apparent that Octavio was fast asleep, so she more or less had to push his dead weight off of her and onto the bed.

After reluctantly escaping the warmth of his body and staring at him for entirely too long, she proceeded to swing her legs over the side of the bed to get up but she stopped when the cool breeze drifted along her bare legs. She quickly became very aware that her night gown was hiked up to her hips, revealing the more intimate parts of her thighs. Her cheeks were immediately flush from excitement and embarrassment.

Several unwholesome thoughts raced through mind all at once. Unfortunately the thoughts were fleeting because when she stood up she could feel a damp spot on her chest from where Octavio had drooled all over her in his sleep. She rolled her eyes and pulled her night gown down before making her way over towards the open window. For a brief moment she thought she would remind him about closing the window but she knew it was a pointless because he wouldn't remember.

As she stepped closer to the window she could hear the rain grow louder as it was falling harder than before. She really couldn't remember a time that it rained so much but tonight was the exception. For some reason the window seemed farther away than it should have. Even as she walked towards the window it felt like the window was getting smaller and unobtainable to reach, which made absolutely no sense.

As she tried to make sense of the whole situation her head began to throb once again. The sharp sensation stopped her momentarily and caused her to squeeze her eyes closed. She tried to stop thinking logically about the whole window situation. In fact, she just tried to stop thinking at all because it made the pounding worse. The only thing that her brain allowed her to think about was the necessity to get to the damn window.

When the pounding became more tolerable Ajay opened her eyes and began walking towards the window once again. The closer that she got to the window the louder the rain became. By the time she was almost all the way to the window the rain was so loud that it felt like was beating against the inside of her skull.

The breeze swept in around her as she was inches from the window. The air was no longer cool, it was just cold, almost frigid. She shivered and rubbed her hands along her upper arms as the cold air engulfed her body. The windowsill sat just below her waist and she used it as leverage to stand as she peered outside.

The rain blustered like glass shattering when hit the ground but when Ajay took a closer look she was at a loss for words. She watched as the rain wasn't falling down but, rather, it was falling up. The fucking rain wasn't raining right. She looked down from her second story window to watch sheets of rain pour upwards into the sky like that was somehow possible.

There were no clouds on the ground, just pavement from what she could see. When she glanced up into the sky all she could see was a black pit of darkness. She looked down towards the ground once more and noticed something that appeared to be glowing red. It looked like a set of eyes but when she blinked the glowing red eyes were gone and she was left watching the rain doing un-rain-like things.

Eventually curiosity got the better of her, so she decided to stick her left hand outside to touch the rain; it was calling to her. Big mistake. At first it felt like she was pushing her hand through a bush with razor sharp leaves. Then it felt like shards of glass were grazing her skin; like they were trying to force their way through. It wasn't at all what she had expected, the rain wasn't even wet; it was just sharp and unforgiving.

Then, the rain was warm until it wasn't and it began to feel very hot. The rain was so hot that it felt like she had stuck her hand into a pot of boiling water. The rain prickled and pierced her hand, sending a burning sensation up her arm. Before she had realized how hot the rain had actually became it was too, because it was already burning her flesh.

She quickly yanked her hand back inside and winced when she saw several small burned areas along her it. Her skin was still sizzling and smelt of burnt flesh and, oddly, like gunpowder. She really didn't even know how she even knew what gunpowder smelt like. "What da fuck…" She whispered to herself.

Blood streamed from the burns and cuts on her hand; it was the only thing that was actually wet on her arm. After she dropped her hand to her side the blood pooled at her fingertips and fell downward towards wood floor below her. She couldn't quite figure out what kind of anomaly she was witnessing or why she was even witnessing it at all. "Dis has ta be a dream. Just go back ta bed. Dis shit isn' real."

Deciding it was best to listen to her thoughts, Ajay quickly turned around and took a couple of steps towards her bed before she was stopped dead in her tracks. Astonishment overtook her face, which swiftly turned into terror. She swallowed hard and balled her fists at her sides, digging her nails into the palms of her hands as if the pain would somehow wake her up.

She wanted to move but she was paralyzed by fear as she stared at a stranger that was sitting at the edge of her bed. It was dark and Octavio was nowhere to be found, just a stranger in his place. She wanted to scream but somehow she had lost control of her voice. "What da fuck kind of dream is dis…"

"Che." The voice was strong and soaked in a Latin accent that held an odd familiarity over her. When the figure stood up she could see that they were tall and slender. "Che. Can't you see that you're lost?" The voice repeated her name again along with some cryptic message. She somehow knew that voice but she didn't know where she knew it from and why was this person calling her that, Che.

Only one person called her by that name and she didn't see that person anywhere. The voice did kind of sound like and older version of him, but it couldn't be. "No!" Octavio was 13 years old and he was just in her bed and now he was gone. This was a full grown man pretending to be Octavio and pretending to know her. This had to be some sort of mistake. She knew that this must have been some whack ass dream and she no longer wanted to be a part of it.

"Wake da fuck up!" She desperately tried to coax herself to wake up but she was immediately interrupted when the stranger spoke to her again. "Please Che... Can't you see that you're lost without me?" The man inched closer but stopped only a few feet from her. He was close enough for Ajay to make out his dark disheveled hair and scar riddled face.

She wanted to speak but her mouth was dry and she couldn't get a word out. So, instead, she shook her head at the stranger but that didn't seem to detour him. "Che… I can see through the scars inside of you." The man's voice was gentle as he spoke. She could see the concern in his emerald eyes. A feeling of familiarity clawed at her brain the longer she stared into his haunting gaze.

He began closing the space between them, reaching for her with his hand turned upward like it was some kind of grand gesture. "Come on Che. Take my hand." Ajay shook her head again and realized that her body was finally working. She took a staggered step backwards but as she did the man took a step forward, towards her.

"Che, please just take my hand." She could hear the urgency in his voice, which made her stomach feel uneasy. She could see that this man really believed in what he was saying but the problem was that she didn't believe anything that he was saying. She parted her lips to scream but instead a soft, feeble cry emerged from her mouth.

The man took another step towards her and, for a moment, Ajay felt like she was walking in quicksand. She cursed at her stupid body underneath her breath because it had been fighting her the entire time. It took every fiber of her being to budge herself from the intangible quicksand so that she could get away from this man. She took another step backwards but something cold and wet caused the floor to become unsteady beneath her bare feet.

"Che!" The man yelled. She tried to regain her balance as she stumbled backwards from her own blood on the floor but it was too late. The man reached for her as she fell backwards out of the window but he came up empty handed. Ajay made sure that he did not lay a finger on her, she would not let another stranger touch her ever again.

The fall from the second story felt like it was happening in slow motion, as if she were in some kind of movie. She only hoped that she looked awesome as her body hurled itself through the air. She even managed to give the man in the window her middle finger as she fell backwards; that had to earn her some extra cool points.

The rain washed over her skin like liquid fire and for a moment she felt like phoenix. She wondered what it felt like to die. It would only be a matter of time before she found out. She had been on the brink of death a handful of times but she had never actually crossed the threshold. She closed her eyes and threw her arms out like she was flying; another familiar feeling.

For a brief moment she felt nothing and she was okay with the feeling. The pounding in her skull had ceased completely. The burning rain didn't even bother her. She just simply felt at peace with her decision. There was only thing, or one person, that came to mind and brought her back to whatever reality she was in. "Silva."

That's when it hit her, she couldn't leave her best friend behind. A million questions and thoughts flooded her brain. "What am I doin'? I can't leave Silva. We made a promise ta get outta here togetha. What da fuck did I just do?" Panic set in when she realized it was too late for an escape plan. She tried to hold back tears as she braced herself for impact.

In this chapter I have quote a song in a few of my chapters. Enjoy!

In paragraph 20

"Can't you see that you're lost?"

is a quote from the song:

Cirice

by the band:

Ghost

In paragraph 22

"Can't you see that you're lost without me?"

is a quote from the song:

Cirice

by the band:

Ghost

In paragraph 23

"I can see through the scars inside of you."

is a quote from the song:

Cirice

by the band:

Ghost