You Can't Escape

Running as fast as her legs would carry her without slipping on the ice coated pavement, the tall, slender teenage girl panted even after she reached her destination.

"No. No. No." She whispered, blonde hair whipping back and hitting her jacket as the girl ran up the walkway to the single, one floor Philadelphia home.

Her eyes darted to the front door while she flew up the steps onto the porch.

"Fucker!" She flung the screen door open and yanked on the doorknob, prevented from turning it by the huge, ugly padlock in her way.

"Shit." The girl whispered, green eyes rose to the glass where a foreclosure sticker was stuck to the window from the inside.

Rage immediately consumed her at the thought of someone being in her- Well not her's anymore- house.

Time seemed to stop for a moment, the only sounds heard were the wind rustling dead leaves and the girl's panting, before an anguished scream tore from her throat that made all the birds in the near by trees flee into the gray sky. She sunk to her knees, letting the storm door slam into her shoulder before she rested her forehead against the inside door.

"Dad." She squeezed her eyes shut, remembering the man that passed away not even a month ago. Everything that belonged to the girl's beloved father was still in the house. Her head shot up with the realization that the men that the bank sent to lock up the house after it was considered a foreclosure must've been rooting through it. She was anything but naive.

"Bastards." The girl trotted down the steps and moved the side of the house, making her way down the narrow alley that separated the house she had grown up in from her next door neighbor's as she headed toward the backyard.

She was angry with herself for not being prepared.
She was angry that a group of thugs killed the love of her life not even a year ago in front of very eyes over a car.

"Jack! No!"

She was angry at her father for lying to her and telling her the house was paid off.

"Everything's fine, hun. Even if I go, you'll have the house, Adrian."

When She was angry with her mother for being a drunken whore and taking off when her daughter was just a child.

"Mom, where you goin'?"

"Somewhere you're not."

"Stupid whore." Adrian shook her head as she walked up the steps to the back porch. She smirked when she saw nothing changed.

"Guess they forgot about this door." She laughed bitterly and shoved her key into the old lock.

The house itself must've been one of the oldest in Philadelphia, as it started to fall apart sometime in the 80's when Adrian's family owned it.

The back door opened with a squeak, making the girl smile sadly, thinking back to the many times her father complained about it while he was alive.

She totally bypassed the empty kitchen before turning to go up into the second floor, which was originally an attic that her father claimed as his "man cave".

Grabbing a huge, black, water-proof duffel bag out of one of the small closets, she went through the mostly empty room and started tossing her father's belongings into it, it being a little more than halfway filled when she was done. Most of the furniture was gone, as the upstairs had received water damage from the leaking roof.

Making her way downstairs, she tossed in picture frames, CDs, movies, and anything else she felt that she couldn't part with.

Adrian wandered into her own bedroom, looking around with a sigh.

"Fucking shit." She sighed, sitting on the twin sized bed, the only piece of furniture left in the the room. Glassy Green eyes scanned the room, remembering flashes of the few good parts of her childhood, despair, fighting, and crippling loss scattered in between.

Knowing beforehand she probably should've had a backup plan, Adrian had left her own belongings at a close friend's house.

After she did a second search of the home, she made her way back down into the living room, when something red caught her eye. Upon closer inspection, she realized it was a full, ten gallon container of gasoline.

Hoisting the heavy bag over her shoulder, she bent over and retrieved the heavy container, unscrewing the cap and letting gasoline dump onto the floor. Angrily, she doused everything in her range with the flammable liquid, back tracking towards the way she entered. The teenager made sure everything was coated and dripping wet before leaving a trail going out the back door before tossing the empty container far off into the backyard.

"I'll probably go to jail for this." Adrian mumbled into the wind, pulling out a pack out cigarettes and a zippo. Letting out a sigh before she lit the cigarette, she eyed the trail of gasoline before tossing the zippo towards the porch, watching flames spread into her childhood home.

For a while, the girl stood there, cold autumn air blowing her hair back as the smell of the burning home stung her nose.

When sirens started blaring in the distance, Adrian decided to take her leave, turning on her heel toward the other end of her backyard. Intent on hopping the fence into her neighbor's yard to make a break for it, something else caught her eye.

"What in the fuck..." The girl turned slightly to the left, where the largest tree in the backyard stood, taller than any other in the area. Actually, it was two trees that split at the trunk and separated into the sky. Right behind it, there was a hole in the ground, about three or four feet wide. How deep it went, she couldn't tell.

"How much damage did these assholes do...?" Adrian stepped over towards, eying it warily as she leaned over.

"Holy shit." The closer she got, Adrian noticed it was clean cut inside, as if the dirt had been sculpted in a square shape all the way down, until she could see no more. Leaning even closer seemed to be an even worse idea, when some dead leaves and dirt gave way to have the girl tumbling down into the darkness.

"Fuck!" Panic seized her limbs as she froze, keeping her hands covering her face as she fell for what felt like hours before she felt nothing.

Slowly uncurling her limbs, the girl opened her green eyes to what looked like a beautiful night sky surrounding her, nothing else.

"What is this place?" She looked down to see no ground beneath her. "I've gotta be fucking hallucinating." She tightened her grip on her duffle bag, the only thing solid in this realm hut herself; before a voice echoed around her.

"Do you want to forget?" An angelic, deep feminine voice rang out.

"Forget what?" Adrian glared at nothing. "What is this shit?!"

"While you embark on this journey, you will face many trials... Do you wish for your shoulders to be lighter?" The voice replied.

"Shoulders lighter?" Adrian laughed bitterly. "Bullshit."

"Your heart is filled with anger and sadness," The voice almost sounded depressed. "but your soul is pure. They need you."

"Soul? That would imply there was some sort of higher fucking power out there that killed every fucking person that was close to me. "They" would probably mean people that are serving this higher power." The teenager growled. "Not interested. Wake me the fuck back up."

"You're not sleeping. Your soul has already given me the answer." The voice faded off.

"What the fu-" Adrian was cut off by the void surrounding her turning a blinding white.

Not knowing what else to do, she threw her hands in front of her, not even flinching when a pink light erupted from her palms and surrounded her as she felt something materialize beneath her converse clad feet.

Looking up, she saw a bright blue sky, unlike the one she had saw minutes before.

Before the girl even fully stood up, everything went black.