Five Lies

Five Lies

Introducting Phoenix

For the first time in a long time, I was happy again. My parents were still alive and so were friends. I laughed as my best friend Jacob chased me through the woods that we had dubbed our playground. His brothers whom I had also made friends with were already out there playing somewhere. I recalled the familiar little chuckle that belonged to Jacob while he got his fill of play. I ran through the evergreens, dodging every trunk and every severed branch that mapped out the premises. I leaped over an old rotted tree trunk and sprinted faster as Jacob made his move and was coming up fast behind me. I wasn’t fast enough and he tackled me from behind and we fell hard to ground. I cursed myself once again for letting him catch me. I was never able to out run him, but I still found the spirit to try. He lay on top of me panting and I rolled under him to turn around and face him. We burst out into a fit of laughter and I hugged my forever loyal friend. He returned the favor by licking me all the way up the surface of my face. I took my right sweater sleeve and wiped off his saliva.

“Eww Jacob!!” I whined. He laughed when the wind blew, causing his dark mocha brown hair to shaggily blow in his deep chocolate brown eyes. I pushed him off and hugged him again. “I love you Jacob.” I almost whispered to him. A howl in the distance caught our attention and he stood up.

“Phoenix… run home. I’ll be right behind you.” He spoke so calmly, I thought he was playing. But I got up and dusted myself off and proceeded to do what he asked of me. I ran back to my house and when I stopped to catch my breath, I turned around expecting to see Jacob. But instead I found myself peering out into the empty yard before me.

I jogged across the vacant lawn to search among the entrance wondering if he was just lacking from our previous run out. But when my search came up empty I thought maybe he was just hiding from me and would come scare the living daylights out of me in a few minutes. So I made my way back over to the steps and sat down in my white dirt stained dress and waited for him to appear. Little did I know that he never would. Nor would I ever see any of the Olds boys again. I sat there the rest of the night until sundown and my mother made me come inside. And everyday after that for the next five years I would go out and sit on the stoop in a dreamers daze, hoping that one day my best friend would return like he promised me he would.

I gasped as my eyes flew open to stare at the boring white ceiling of my room in my aunt and uncle’s house. I was aware that what just happened was just a dream, but the reality was still fresh in my memory. That dream had truly happened before in my past long before my parents had died in some freak accident that my aunt and uncle refused to tell me about because it was too heartbreaking. But then they hadn’t known I had been there when it happened. They thought I had been at another friend’s house. Jacob had been my best friend as far back as my memory could possibly go. He didn’t return that day when I was seven and never did. I stopped looking for him when my parents were killed when I was twelve. It was a horrible memory really.

I remember I was lying in my bed when I heard a loud thud and a scream coming from the hall. I heard someone yelling at my mom. She ran in frazzled and frantic. Her eyes looked at me and I could feel her fear as well as my own. She slammed the door behind her and locked it. She turned back to me.

“Phoenix, I love you baby. Hide for Mama, okay?” She told me with a shaky, panicked voice. I didn’t question her and ducked under my bed before the door was busted open and two people stepped in to my room. I heard my mother yell out in pain, pleading for them not to take her life.

“Shut the hell up, you Bitch! You were always a thorn in my side!” A harsh tone spoke loudly over her cries. She took two blows to the head before she hit the floor, her face dripping in blood. She looked at me and met my eyes. That was the last time I saw her alive. They shot her in the back and threw a black sack over her head before dragging her out. When I finally came out from under my bed, I found my father laying there dead in the hallway where the loud noises had came from earlier. I stared down at him and his dead, bloodied corpse has been etched into my memory ever since. I've always wondered why they left me alive. Obvious they knew I was there. Later the cops found me sitting outside on the stoop and that was the last time I ever waited for Jacob. He wasn’t there when I needed him.

Now I’m 18 and senior in high school. The funny thing is, I’m more than just a normal high school student. I live with my aunt and uncle who gave me the answers I needed to do what I love doing now: Wolf Hunting. You see, they informed me that it was a wolf that took my best friend Jacob away from me. They said that his body had been found in the woods the night my parents were killed. I never got to attend his funeral because my aunt and uncle said that his body had been too mangled from the attack and I shouldn’t want to see him in such a state. The same happened to his brothers. They convinced me that my memories would be a healthier alternative to remember them by. This wolf that took my Jacob from me though, it wasn’t just any ordinary wild wolf. They’re called werewolves and they exist. I should know. I’ve killed a few. I’m a hunter and that’s who I am.