Her chest was on fire, her heart was pounding. He was there, he had always been there, but who was he? What had she done? The gun shot. As the sound danced into her mind she suddenly realized that he had shot to kill her. Her own yelp conjured her thoughts, she couldn’t get them from flowing into her mind. That’s when it came clear to her vision. She didn’t know how or even if it was real, but she ran on towards her lost, forgotten house. The house that he had burned. There was one survivor of the fire, and here she was, running from the thing that had hurt her most.

Her memory became jumbled, as soon as she touched the house, she felt as if it were a normal day, that she was running home from school to get to that warm chocolate chip cookie. To see mom after a hard day of math. That all faded from her mind when she opened the door. Blood trickled down the stairs, dried blood stuck to the coals of the fire, her mother’s grand piano…burned. Everything was dead, she didn’t want to look down to see what her trashed, pink Chuck Taylor’s were crunching. The door jerked open, their eyes met. Dark, dreary, his eyes as black as coal, skin, as if it were a ghost’s. He stalked down the hall, every step seemed to bring him a mile closer. She couldn’t move, couldn’t speak. Her mind seemed to be gone, her body controlled by another. She broke out of the trance, slowly making her way to the broken stairs. Each of his steps rang in her head, one creak of the rotting wood, after another.

She ran, afraid of his eyes, which still burned fresh in her thoughts. She grasped the opportunity to hide, jumping into a pile of some sort of rubble, burying herself in the depths of the burnt remains. Every moment passed by like an hour. His voice sang into her ears, a cold, low voice commanding her to listen. “You could have once been a great hero, you may have had the choice of building us up, or brining us down. That no longer matters, your death is here. I won’t rest until my master sees your throat wet with your own blood.” Her mind swirled as her thoughts juked her this way that. Each thought jumbling with another as she thought more of it. His wrath was there, she felt her bones quiver, heard every noise she made, afraid that he would hear silent breaths escaping from the depths of her body.

His foot steps made it clear that he had gone away, but she wasn’t going to risk her hiding spot to look. She cradled herself in her own arms, the way her mother would when she was younger. She smoothed her tattered, raggedy clothes, the way her father would on a Sunday morning. Every inch of her body longed to hug them, to be with them, but somehow she knew there was something she had to finish before she left, something had gone undone for a while, and it was her job to finish it. She left the comfort of the rubble, taking tiny steps to the room she had once shared with her sister. She took what she could find, deciding then that she was going to be the hero that the monster had talked about. Everything unraveled in her mind, she had to figure it all out, she had to save what was still hers. She made her way quickly, but quietly to the remains of the stairs. She peeked around the corner to make sure he was no where in sight. She then tip-toed to her dad’s gun case. She strained to remember the combination, 0-0-0 just for kicks. The case shot open. She jolted back. Finally, shot got rid of the eerie feeling and looked into the case. Next to the huge guns that she couldn’t name, were her dad’s pistol and rifle, each with a big sack full of bullets. She rounded the corner running straight into the cold, dark remnants of the ally that her family used to play night games in. Her heart stung with the pain of remembrance. She felt the cold sweat drip down her back. Every move seemed to be the step that would change her life, for better or for the worst. Air didn’t come easily. Her body seemed to sway in the wind, she willed herself to be carried away by it into a new life, a new destiny.

Each bone asked for redemption from the torture that her life had put them through. Death was all around her, decay and lies swam around, trying to over power what was hers. But what was hers? What had he not taken away from her? What did she have? She had nothing. Her family…gone, house…gone, hope…destroyed. He took everything away from her, and he would pay. Hatred overwhelmed her as she headed off toward her new adventure. His eyes glowed green in the evening sun. Suddenly she saw them, his huge green eyes. She knew what she had to do. She fumbled to get a hold of the gun. She had never purposely hurt anyone, let alone killed someone. But there’s a first time for everything, right?

She aimed right at his head, but before she could shoot, she saw his face. This time, his whole face. The tears fell freely from her eyes as she realized who this man was. He didn’t want to hurt her, this whole big thing, was misunderstood, at least that was what she thought, until, the gun shot. Blood flowed from her arm. The joy left her as her dad shot her one last time, and everything faded to dust.