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A cold substance surrounded her from every side. It was a liquid, but it tasted a tad metallic. She didn’t know where she was, why she was there, how she got there. Her memory was fuzzy, and her sight was black. Her limbs slightly ached with pains from invisible claws. Her eyes held closed by an invisible weight. But she knew she had stayed this way for too long, so she started to fight. She lifted her head against the weight, and tried to squint her eyes open. She could see a tiny light above her, but she couldn’t hear anything. She reached her arms out and felt them break the surface of the liquid to feel the chilly air surround them, as the substance dripped off her hands and slipped back into the pool. She brought her hands down a slight bit and felt something hard that she could grasp on either side of her. She gently moved her legs, but one of them didn’t feel quite right. She felt walls around her on every side, but still didn’t know why. She gripped the tops of the short walls, and shakily lifted her head out of the liquid.
She felt the nip of the air on her cheeks and she sat up. She inhaled the cool air, letting it flow down her raw throat. Her head was throbbing as she opened her eyes fully. She was in a very dark room, with nothing except a tile floor and a small light coming from underneath the door. She looked down at the liquid she was lying in. It was slightly transparent, but had a small red tinge to it. And she could see the faint outline of her legs through the substance. And she also realized that she wasn’t wearing any clothes. Even though she was all alone, she wondered how this happened, who put her there, why did they put her there? She slowly stood up on her trembling legs and stepped out of the box she was in, it had glass walls, for some reason. She stepped onto the cold floor and felt ever so slightly off balance. She wondered why. She walked over to the door with the slight light underneath it. She felt around for the handle and instead found a towel hanging on a rack next to the door. Better than nothing.
She thought, grabbing the towel and wrapping it around herself. Then she reached for the door handle and opened the door. Light pooled into the dark room and she blinked to get used to the brightness. It led to a bedroom. It looked familiar to her as she walked around. She found a closet. She grabbed the handle and opened it. There she found some of her clothes, along with someone else’s. She grabbed one of her shirts and slipped it on. And when she went to put her pants on, she noticed that her right leg didn’t look quite right. Then she realized it was a prosthetic leg, it was fake. What happened to my leg?! She thought in panic, studying the fake leg. It didn’t exactly look real in any case, it had a picture of the ocean drawn on it, with large waves, foamy at the tops as they crashed down. It’s...beautiful… she thought,wondering who the artist was who drew this masterpiece. She looked for a signature, and found a small scribble of a name in the bottom left hand corner. It was extremely small, and hard to read, but she figured out the name eventually. Dracula . The name rang a bell, but she didn’t know exactly who that was. She put her pants on and walked over to a large mirror in the corner of the room. There, she saw her face. I look...terrible. She looked starved, she had healing scars all over her face, and her hair was a mess. She looked at her hands and saw they were cut up as well, with a bunch of little healing scars all over them.
What...what happened to me?
She headed back into the bathroom and found the light switch. She saw the little tub where she had been unconscious and saw that the liquid was just some water, but it was slightly red due to her gashes leaking a little bit. She went over to the sink and brushed her hair to get it under control. Even though she had short hair, it could still look messy if she didn’t brush it. She did her makeup the best she could and walked back into the bedroom. She heard something move on the side table. She turned her head and saw a small shape crawling around behind the lamp. She got a little closer and the creature revealed itself. It was a tiny black spider with a bright red gem on its back.
It seemed overjoyed to see her and ran over to her. “Oh..hey there…” She half-mumbled to the spider as It climbed her pant leg and walked onto her hand. She was about to ask why it was in the room, when It climbed onto her face and pressed a leg against her forehead. She didn’t know what it was doing, until her vision vanished. Suddenly things started to flash passed her eyes, and sounds filled her ears. She was in a car, driving, laughing with someone else next to her. A figure in dark clothing with a feminine laugh was sitting in the passenger seat, reading something off of her phone, which was making them laugh hysterically. Mavis . She thought, the names flooding back into her memory. They were speeding down a curvy road on the side of a cliff, with rain pouring down all around them. It seemed like smooth sailing, until she noticed a bottle in the cup holder. Beer . She thought, suddenly realizing that they were both drunk.
And within a split second, a mudslide from the amount of rain fell onto the road, and they didn’t see it coming beside them. And when they did, it was too late. It slammed into the side of the car, sending them tumbling down the side of the mountain. It was a blur. The sound of glass shattering and the rain thundering around them throbbed in her ears as they continued to fall. She blacked out. When she regained consciousness, she felt the wet earth beneath her, as the rain continued to pour, the smell of burning metal and tires was drifting in the air as she opened her eyes. She saw what looked like a big burning blob about ten feet from her, and when she looked down the puddles of rain around her were stained red as she saw her right leg was a bloody mess. And it felt like a semi truck just parked on it. She couldn’t move, as if she did she’d be paralyzed by pain and pass out. She saw Mavis in the corner of her eye through the pounding rain, she looked alright, just a bit shaken up by the crash.
“M...Mavis..” She managed to choke out of her ripped up throat. Mavis seemed to hear her and lifted her head off of the ground. She turned her head and saw her lying on the ground, massacred by the glass and fire.
“...mom?” Mavis shakily asked, seeing what had happened to her and quickly regained her senses, “WE NEED TO CALL AN AMBULANCE.” Mavis grabbed her cracked phone off of the ground and tried to stand up and dial 911, while Ericka remained helpless, doing her best to stay conscious. A few minutes passed, when the faint sound of a siren started to wail through the rain, as the blue and red lights flashed closer and closer. Then things started to get blurry, a bunch of voices started to yell.
“DOWN THERE!”
“OVER THERE!”
As the lights and sirens appeared to be right on top of them. People started to rush to their aid, but she couldn’t tell who was who, or what they looked like, they just looked like hazy blobs. She felt something cold on her chest as what looked like a man hovered over her, yelling something at her. But she didn’t know what. It was all muffled as she started to slip away from reality. Another car pulled up next to the police and other first responders. A few people filed out and two of them ran over to the crash sight. The police said that no one was allowed into the crash sight as it was too dangerous, but the people didn’t care, and ran around the police. Turns out one of the people was Johnny, and as soon as he saw that Mavis was alright, he gave her a huge hug. And the other person was Drac, but he wasn’t so lucky. When he saw Ericka sprawled out on the ground, covered in blood and dirt, he rushed over to her. But the paramedics told him to stay back as they were going to put her on a stretcher and rush her to a hospital to see if they could save her. If . She didn’t understand what was going on as she passed out, but the last thing she heard was him saying,
“Everything is going to be ok.”
And a glimpse at his terrified eyes.
She was suddenly thrown back into the present and lost her balance as well, sending her crashing through the bedroom door leading to the hallway, scaring a few guests as she slammed against the wall. I’m supposed to be dead. She internally screamed, pushing off against the wall and sprinting down the hallway, trying to get used to running with a fake leg.
I’m supposed to be dead. I’m supposed to be dead. Why am I here then? She continued to internally panic as she continued to run down the hallway, and down the stairs. The guests kept sending weird glances at her, them also thinking that she was supposed to be dead. She was about to run down the last flight of stairs to the lobby, when she froze. She saw Drac sitting on a couch, not working. But mourning. He thinks I’m dead. She thought, a sickness welling up inside of her. She missed his warm embrace, his soothing voice, sparkling eyes...and without thinking, she tried to bolt down the stairs without looking, leading to her missing a step and falling down the rest of the stairs. When she reached the bottom, she felt a bunch of eyes on her, and her entire body was pulsing with pain. She lifted her head to see someone standing next to her. She looked up to see Drac looking down at her. Before she could even react, he put his hands under her arms, lifted her up and tightly hugged her. She wrapped her arms around his neck and buried her face in the crook of his neck, quietly sobbing. “You're alive..” he said scarcely in a whisper, his voice breaking.
“Why wouldn’t I be?” She asked, stopping her crying, and slightly pulling away from him.
“Well…” He hesitated, catching her attention, “...you flatlined two days ago.”
Don’t drink and drive.