7 Days

Panting, she runs through the woods darting past trees. She knows there’s only a matter of time before he catches her, but she still hangs onto a strand hope that she will be free. Her legs ache as she stumbles across the damp woods. Her body screams for her to stop and give up, but fear makes her keep running. She hears leaves crunch under each of his heavy footsteps. She feels the sweat accumulating on her face. She longs to be back at school getting busted for sleeping in class. She can feel him closing in on her. She used the last ounce of energy she has to jump over a log. By now she could tell she was slowing down and she began to panic inside. Her life flashes before her eyes as she races over sticks and brushes past tree branches. She sees all she can do in life, the things she’s capable of and the things she could experience. Suddenly she feels it, his hands grab her shoulder and she falls. Colliding to the ground she feels all the weight of his hands shove her into the dirt. He reaches for her arm and with a death grip that crushes her bones he yanks her up. As she stumbles to her feet she looks at his face, she can’t believe he could do this. Shrieks of terror flew through the trees as he drags her away. She could feel his grip on her start to loosen. This was her chance. With all the force she had, she yanked away from him in a fast motion and attempted to bolt to the side. She pushed her legs off the ground to sprint away when everything went black. She crashed back to the ground where she went limp. When she wakes back up she was in a trunk. The lights of the city flashed through the cracks of the trunk. Her head was throbbing but she knew she could not fall back asleep. When the car slows to a stop she feels as though her heart is going to explode. The car door shuts and his footsteps ring through hear ears like she is at a concert. The trunk pops open and she is suddenly blanketed with a white light from the nearby street light. He jerks her from the car and herds her towards a giant set of doors. The tears stream down her face and her heart drops. She knows what comes next. She realizes she fell for his games, and now she will be forgotten and lost in the past like all the others. Everyone will move on and grow, but she will stay trapped in time. He will stay free, able to kill again. The single shot rings through the air. Leaving her lost in time, forgotten like the rest of his victims. She lies there waiting for what comes next. She thinks of all the story she’s heard of the light you see when you die. She waits and waits for what seems like forever to see it. With blurry vision she sees him walk away, as though nothing has happened. Then she lets go, no light just a deep breath ending it.

“Melissa!” her teacher calls, “no sleeping class!”
She jerks her head up, and looks around. What is going on? How did the day restart? It can’t be a dream, it felt too real. Soon she convinces herself it was just a dream. Melissa’s day goes on and she continues it like she had once done before. Little does she know in only a matter of time she will repeat the day 6 more times. She has the choice to fix her mistakes, or be lost forever.