Lost Lies

I lay there, unable to move, every inch of me drenched from the rain and my skin caked with mud. Wind whipped at the trees around me and I felt the hairs on my skin stand up, leaving me with a cold chill and horrid feeling in the pit of my stomach. I felt the earth quake in fear of the thunder and lightning as it zipped and banged out of time in the forbidding sky above me.

I stood up, mud seeping between my bare toes as my feet sank into the ground. I was dressed in the sleep and tank top I went to bed in. I gazed around, trying to decipher how I got from my cosy bed to the middle of a creepy, unsafe forest. I turned a full three hundred and sixty degrees before I spotted a shadow hiding behind a tree.

“Hey,” I called, trying to make my way through the mud, only to fall face first in the dirt.

Each time I attempted to get up, my hands would slip from under me, making my face fall in the mud repeatedly. I rolled over, giving up; I wasn’t going anywhere. Looking up to the sky, I watch the lightning streak across the sky and indulged myself in the sensation of the rain battering against my skin.

“Winter?” An astonished female voice called.

“Who’s there?” I questioned, feeling fear crash through me now I knew I wasn’t alone.

“It’s me – Evangelina!” The voice echoed eerily through the trees.

“Where are you?” I called back, not quite trusting the voice to be Evangelina’s.

“Here.”

A set of golden eyes peered at me from above: Evangelina’s eyes.

“Is that really you, Evangelina?” I questioned, lifting my hand to touch her face.

Evangelina grinned. “Yep, now do you want some help?”

She offered her hand out to me, tugging me up to my feet. I gasped as I took in Evangelina’s new look.

Her once waist length golden hair was a shimmering electric blue. Her plump red lips were now a shade of the darkest blue. Her eyes were rimmed in eyeliner and caked in different shades of blue. A sleek, taffeta strapless electric blue dress caressed her body, showing off the curves of her hips. She looked like she just fell into a big pot of blue dye; the only thing that stayed the same colour was her olive green eyes. What shocked me most were the crystal white wings stretching high and wide from her back.

“This is all a nightmare, this is all a nightmare,” I repeated, over and over again, taking a step back from her.

“It’s sort of a dream; a real dream. What you are experiencing here is in your head, but it is real. Sorry, that’s the best I can put it,” she laughed and offered out her hand to me. I batted it away in frustration. “Winter, what’s wrong?”

She took a step closer to me.

“Stay back!” I screamed. “I want to know where I am.”

“Winter, please don’t be afraid. I will explain everything to you, just please calm down and take my hand.” Evangelina’s voice was calm and caring; I let myself be taken into her delicate hug.

“I know this is a dream. I know you have been missing for a few hours now, but-but I miss you so much,” I sobbed. “There’s just one thing I don’t understand.”

“What?”

“The wings,” I whispered.

Evangelina pushed me at arm’s length away, holding on to my shoulders and stared deep into my eyes.

“I have some explaining to do, but there’s one thing I don’t understand: how did you get here?”

“I don’t know. I just went to sleep and then I woke up here, covered in mud, my arm completely fine and really cold.” I answered, rubbing my arms to keep warm.

“Sorry, but we’re stuck here. Come on; let’s go for a walk.” Evangelina linked our arms and we walked, taking refuge under the trees. “Ok, explanation: well for starters, I am not who you think I am, and neither is Cara. How can I put this? I am an angel.”

I laughed; I couldn’t help but laugh. It was a joke - it had to be a joke.

“Why you laughing?” She questioned, puzzled at my outburst.

“There are no such things as angels,” I giggled, unable to stop.

“I knew you would say that. That’s why I want to show you something.” Evangelina stopped in front of a puddle, bending down beside it, and waving her hand over it. “Sit,” she commanded lightly, pulling me down by my hand.
An image of Danny, Alex and Casper appeared in the water.

“What’s this?” I laughed. “A magic trick?”

“You’re in danger, Winter, and these are the three people putting you in it. These are the three people who will end your life. Winter, they are not who you think they are.”

“I knew they were dangerous the first time I met them. But that’s just stupid. They won’t kill me.”

“Winter, listen, I am trapped here alone, watching you walking right into your death. How you got here, I don’t know, but I can help you live,” she sang, delighted.

“Hold on a minute,” I said, looking back and forth from the puddle to Evangelina. “What do you mean ‘trapped here’?”

“Well, you know when Cara text you saying I was missing and not to call the police? The reason she said don’t call the police is because she knew where I would be.”

“So, why didn’t she save you?” I asked, frowning.

“She tried, but she was also thrown in a place like this, alone.”

“So, how did she text me? How did you know that she text me?”

“I watched her from here. I watched her warn you, but as stubborn as you are, you refused to believe and went ahead and hanged around with them. Winter, I have been your guardian angel for a few years now - so has Cara. We knew this day would come when, that’s why we were assigned to you.” She paused for a moment, then took my hands in hers and sighed. “Winter, please just look at the puddle.”

I turned to the puddle. It showed a picture of Alex in the moonlight. He howled, sending a cold shiver up my spine. Before my eyes, he turned into something I’d read about in fictional books. A coal coloured werewolf, but with a pair of matching wings. I gasped at the sight.

The image dissolved into Danny. He sat staring straight at me. I screamed when his face flashed pearly fangs and eyes of the purest black.

The image again dissolved, this time showing Casper standing tall and proud in the pouring rain. Wings of black sprouted from his back. I laughed in shear horror, falling backwards flat on the ground.

“Winter, are you ok?” Evangelina crouched over me, tapping my face, repeating my name over and over again.

“No,” I laughed, gazing up into her eyes. “This is a dream, right?”

“Sort of; if you hurt yourself here, you will hurt yourself in your world. You get dirty here; you will do there, then on and on and on. You get the point, right?” I nodded in reply. “You will know this dream is real because you’re so muddy and will be when you get back . . . if you get back, that is.”

I shot up when I fully understood what she was saying, knocking her down flat on her back, and began to pace back and forth. “So if I die here I-I -.” The words stopped on my tongue. I forced out the last few words. “I will die in the real world.”

Evangelina nodded as she wiped herself clean of mud.
I walked over to the puddle, watching as it drifted from image to image. It paused on an image of me. I was tied to a cross, gagged, my dress shredded and my feet bare. My skin was covered in dirt and scratches, and a silver knife stuck out of my stomach, blood seeping into the dress and dripping to the floor.

I felt tears roll down my cheeks; I looked so scared and helpless, and I just couldn’t bear it. I stomped in the puddle, destroying the image. I felt Evangelina’s arms wrap round me and she pressed her head against my shoulder.

“So, that’s it? I am going to die whether I like it or not?” I blew out a sigh.

“I think not. This why you’re here: I can help you get past this and live.” She began to hum to herself as she paced back and forth.

“What are you doing?” I asked, falling into step with her.

“Thinking,” she replied, pulling the smallest feather from her wings. In a blink of an eye, she was crouched on a tree branch, looking down at me. “Take this and keep it on you at all times.” She dropped the feather to the ground.

Scooping it up, I asked, “Why?”

“So you know I am safe. It will protect you for a little while because by the looks of it, you’re going home.”

“How do you know I am going home?”

She pointed to my legs in reply. I looked down to see my legs fading. I yelped out of panic.

“No, I can’t go home! I won’t leave without you!” I cried, trying to climb up the tree, only to fall through it. “Please no I can’t leave without you!”

I felt tears blur my vision as I tried so hard to grasp the tree branches, but it was too late; my body was being dragged away no matter how hard I fought back.

-:- -:- -:-

I shot up, tears rolling down my cheeks like a waterfall, Evangelina’s words lingering in my mind, skin caked in mud and soaked to the core. The cast on my arm had returned and Evangelina’s feather glowed in my hand. I got up, sitting at the edge of the bed, and grabbed my phone of the bedside table, checking the time. It was ten pm; three hours after I went to bed, feeling ragged and tired.

I stood up and walked over to my dresser. I opened my jewellery box and took a pin and a spare chain from the box. I pierced the feather at the end of it calamus with a hole big enough to slip the chain through. Placing the chain on the dresser table, I wandered over to my full length mirror.

I stood and stared at my reflection, wondering if what I saw in the puddle was real or fake or maybe even both.

Finding out Cara and Evangelina were my guardian angels was shocking, but finding out Casper, Danny and Alex were going to kill me left me hollow inside.

Something pulled me to Casper, Danny and Alex even though we had only just met; the attraction between me and them was so great and didn't understand why. Creeping out of my room, I hopped in the shower to clean the mud of my skin before Chris woke up and got suspicious.

That dream was real, no matter how hard I tried to forget it. The proof was washing away down the drain and sat on my dresser, whether I believed it or not. I was in danger . . . yet something told me otherwise.