Lost Lies

I woke up to the sound of blades of some sort being sharpened in the distance, my cheek pressed against the cold floor. I closed my eyes for a moment, hoping it was a dream, but the sound still echoed through my skull.

I opened my eyes, trying to figure out where I was and where the sound was coming from. In the distance, the sound stopped and something moved in the corner of the room.

I seemed to be in a church, its arched windows letting colourful beams of moonlight in to rest on my skin. I moaned, feeling an ache throb at the back of my skull as I pushed myself up into a sitting position. I tried to remember what had happened to me to make me be in this state, but my mind was completely blank.

Something zipped through the shadows again, passing through the coloured beams of moonlight. I caught a flash of a long black jacket and ragged long, black hair.

“Hello,” I called out, clenching my fist in stupidity, realizing I shouldn’t have done that.

I felt a cold sweep of wind zip past me several times and saw a blade flying towards me. I quickly bent backwards, the blade just missing my nose.

“Want to play a game?” Chris’ voice cackled from somewhere in the room, but I couldn’t pinpoint where.

“What game?” I asked casually, trying to hide the fear swelling inside.

“Truth or die,” he laughed bitterly.

I stood up slowly, then span in a slow circle, trying to find Chris and talk some sense into him. Before I could make a full turn, I felt my body knocked to the floor, winding me. I gasped like a fish out of water, clutching my side, trying to crawl under a pew, but before I could make it under, I felt a cold hand around my ankle; it dragged me out and a heavy, booted foot stood on my back, pinning me down.

I tried to push myself up, but only made it a little way up before I was forced down again.

“Stay down,” Chris growled.

“Please, you don’t know what you’re doing. Casper did this to you. I’m your girlfriend, please, I beg of you for mercy and to listen to me.” I pleaded.

“Liar,” he hissed, putting more pressure on my back.

I moaned, all air seeping out of my body.

“Please, listen to me, let me go!” I groaned as more pressure was added to my back.

The pressure on my back slowly eased. I felt his hand grab my arm and yank me to a standing position.

Chris turned me towards him, his long black hair tangled and his make-up smeared. He wore a long black trench coat that touched the floor, heavy black military boots paired with black jeans and nothing but the devil’s cross made out of gold hanging from a piece of string around his neck.

But what scared me the most was the two deadly fangs displayed by his bitter smile.

“Are you afraid?” He hissed, crooking his head to one side and pressing his cold hand on my cheek. He ran his sharp nails down my neck, stopping over my heart.

I shivered and batted away his hands.

“You shouldn’t be afraid, Winter,” he whispered, pressing his lips at the start of my neck. “I’m your boyfriend, remember?”

He growled, his tongue running up my neck. I closed my eyes, resisting the urge to attempt to stake him and make him angry.

Chris growled and hissed under his breath before flinging me to the floor. He roared, pulling out a pistol from his trench coat and pointing it at me.

“I can smell him all over you!”

“Smell who?” I asked, but I already knew the answer.

“You know who!” He yelled.

I looked away in shame, tears spilling over the edges and running black trails down my face.

“Please, believe me.” I begged. “I thought you were dead.”

“Shut up, shut up, shut up,” he screamed, chucking his gun to the side and storming over to me.

He grabbed my ankles and dragged me across the floor to where a cross stood - Satan’s cross. I screamed, digging my hands into the floor, trying to halt our movements, but it didn’t work.

“Let me tell you a story,” he seethed. “One day there was a little girl who had a rather large argument with her parents, but during that argument a man came into the house, a man named Casper. You see, the girl had just turned fifteen. Poor soul, she was.”

He smiled as he grabbed my waist and began strapping me to the cross. I shut up screaming, processing his words, and then realized what his story was: the truth of how my parents really died that night.

“What -?”

“Hush, I am telling a story. It’s rude to interrupt,” Chris warned, tapping a cold finger on my lips.

“As I was saying,” he continued, double checking the ropes before sitting down on a pew, legs spread, his arms splayed across the back of the pew and his body slouched.

“So, the nasty fallen angel visited a young girl named Winter Alexandra Bloom, if I remember correctly. Casper walked into the house all masked up and killed the girl’s family.”

Chris laughed, as if it was a funny story.

I felt the urge to scream; all this time, I’d blamed myself even though I knew I wouldn’t have done something so twisted.

“Then this fallen angel confronted the girl and told her she had a power, that this girl was something not of this world and left the little girl for dead. But that isn’t the best part,” he grinned, leaning forward, resting his elbows on his knees and his chin on his fists.

“Oh. My. God,” I choked as my hidden memory of that night and what had really happened unfurled in my mind.

“Casper has two friends he classed as brothers, Alex and Danny, who wanted to kill the same girl because if any non-human kills this girl, they gain the girl’s power, when her eighteenth birthday approached. But there is one problem.”

He laughed, pushing himself up from the pew, and began to stoke my hair.

“What is the problem?” I asked shakily, avoiding not biting his fingers off as he trailed a finger across my lip before letting his hand travel widely round my body.

“The only problem is this: my girlfriend is the devil’s daughter, who is a great specimen,” he whispered into my ear before creating a love bite on my shoulder.

“I’m whose daughter now?” I laughed.

Chris slapped me across the face and I stopped laughing, a tear of pain rolling down my cheek.

“You know that feather birthmark on your neck? The one you never wonder why it’s shaped like that? Well, I know, I know everything about you, the real you. I know who you really are.” He barked.

“Now, let’s play that game,” he said, pulling out several throwing knifes from his coat.

He sat before me, a throwing knife pointed towards me.

“Ok, let’s start. The rule is: you lie to me, I throw the knife at you, and trust me when I say I know when you are lying.”

“Ok,” I breathed.

“First question,” he smiled. “Do you love me?”
“Yes, I love you with all my heart.” I sniffled, holding back tears.

“You really do, but it’s too late,” he scoffed. “Next question, do you love Alex?”

I nodded, feeling a few tears spill over.

“Next question, do you hate me?”

“No, I would never hate you!” I cried.

“You lied!” He screamed, throwing the knife at me.

I yelped and cried out as the knife hit me in the stomach.

“Please, why are you doing this to me?” I coughed.

“Because you need to die; you betrayed me, you lied to me, you loved me and left me, and now you pay. I take the power you hold as your payback.”

“What are -?”

I began to curse as another knife hit me in the shoulder.

“Do you know Casper is your brother, same mum, same dad? How ironic you never knew. You sort of look like him,” Chris chuckled.

“I don’t believe any of this. Alex and Danny would never do that to me.”

I gasped and groaned in pain, closing my eyes as Chris pulled the knife out of my shoulder and shoved the other knife further inside.

“Please, sto - stop this. Let me...let me walk - let me walk free and alive.” I panted my eyes half closed.

Chris slapped me across the face again, leaving me tingly and light headed.

“Plea - please,” I begged, my head lolling to one side.

I could feel the energy and life drain away from me slowly, but every piece of my strange life finally fitted together fully, explaining why I kept doubling over in pain, why my eyes kept going red. Now I finally had my answer.

I knew who I really was.

I screamed, a fiery pain ripping across my back as I struggled against the ropes, growling and hissing. Chris began to back away slowly, crouching to the floor, his hands tumbling for the pistol.

The ropes snapped and I fell to the floor, all air knocked out of me. I struggled to push myself up, but each time I got so far, I would only fall to the floor again. My body began to shudder, my breathing becoming ragged and quick and my body burning up rapidly.

“Chris, h-help me,” I stammered, my voice ragged and shallow as I reached one arm out to him.

Chris shook his head and pulled out a box of matches. He zipped off, returning with petrol can, and began to tip it over different parts of the church.

“P-please don’t…don’t do this,” I choked, blood spilling from my mouth and over my lips.

I screamed and yelped as I felt my skin rip across my back and my dress tear. I clawed at the floor, leaving scratch marks as I tried to drag myself to an exit, but was unable to go any further.

Chris appeared, crouching beside me, his hand brushing the hair off my cheek.

“What a waste.” He hummed. “You’re the best soon to be dead girlfriend I ever had.”

Before I could stop him, he lit a match, holding the flame before him; the light danced in our eyes before he flung the match into a puddle of petrol and disappeared out of sight.

The puddle immediately lit and the flames spread rapidly, lapping up everything it touched. I coughed as the smoke began to bellow and the heat began to rise, boiling me alive.

I tried to crawl again, but something overhead cracked. A beam of burning wood dropped inches behind me.

Over the roar of the fire, the sound of glass shattering echoed through the burning building, followed by a loud, worried howl - a wolf howl.

I struggled to push myself up again, only to be pinned to the ground by a collapsing beam as it landed on my back, sending another burst of hot white pain through my body.

I let out another piercing scream, and it was followed by another wolf howl.

At the corner of my vision, a great black wolf appeared at the end of the pews, his nose sniffing the floor, his ears perked as if trying to find something - trying to find me.

“Alex,” I choked.

The wolf’s head snapped up towards me and it came galloping at me. When he reached my side, he whined, dread in his green eyes.

Using his head, he shoved the beam off my back, then with his snout he nudged at my shoulder, urging me to wrap my arms round his neck; with what strength I had left, I pushed myself up with Alex’s help and wrapped my arms around neck. I then slung my legs onto his back.

Alex stood up and began carefully carrying me to a fire exit, dodging the burning beams that began to fall and avoiding dropping me off his back.

With his snout, he pushed down on the fire exit, throwing the doors open, and exited into the cold winter air.

In the distance, sirens blared and Alex collapsed to the snow covered pavement. I rolled off Alex into the snow, wincing as the cold began to take over my body. Alex whined and then growled as observers began to run to my aid. They quickly backed off. He began to whimper and whine, his wet nose nudging at my cheek and my arm before he lay down before me, his fur keeping me warm, his furry face in mine.

I smiled, resting my arm around his neck before I closed my eyes, feeling drained of all energy.