The Red Winter

Chapter 2

The rain drops onto his face as his big, calloused hands left mine and hit the ground, arm
bouncing. The feeling of love becomes stronger as he goes limp. Blood continues to seep through his suit as I press my hands to the chest that holds the heart that would beat for me. His welcoming eyes, the beautiful emerald green that I have gotten lost in countless amounts of times, stare right through me. Directly into my now empty soul. The two things about you that I saw first. The two of the most welcoming, bright, warm things that I fell in love with were now closing for the last time. A guttural scream clawed itself from my from my gut as lightning fills the sky. The curly hair that I would run my hands through everyday straightened as the rain touched it. The color, like my heart, darkens.
“I’m so sorry,” the words, barely a whisper, found their way out of my mouth. “You deserved so much more than this!” My tears mix with the rain water as they run down my face in streams.

Thunder sounded as I tilted my head back and released another scream of pure pain from deep within me. A scream coming from someone that will never be the same. A scream that sounded around the world. The world shook as my blood red hands smashed against the concrete
ground, not caring about what happens to me. The stars dimmed as I brushed the hair out of his
face and pulled his chest to mine. The pain in my chest was like nothing I have ever felt before.

All I wanted was revenge. All I wanted was to find the people who did this and make them pay. I
wanted them to suffer. To scream. To beg for mercy as I pulled the trigger. “Lucas I will find them. I will find the ones who did this to you… I promise.”

“You did this to him.” A calm voice came from all around me. “You were the reason that trigger
was pulled. You are the reason his life was cut short. YOU, SINNER, ARE GOING TO PAY! You will feel his pain. Your skin will be torn along with every muscle and nerve in your body. I’m going to-”

“Who are you! Who are you and what do you want from me?” Anger and terror were combining
and I didn't know what to do. Lucas was dead in my arms. The love if my life was gone and I was
being blamed.

“You thought your night was going great didn’t you? He showed up to your house all dressed and ready to go. The dance you shared in your doorway so no one would see you two together. The glances throughout the night and the little smiles. The cuddles when you got home and lovey dovey comments. You make me sick!” His voice was getting lower and more raspy by the sentence. “He left that night and you couldn't pick up the phone. What. A. Shame.” He was
mocking everything, everything that made us who we were.

“SHUT UP!” I began to cry harder. “You know nothing about us! You have no right!” We hated our secret relationship but we didn’t want to risk getting tormented. Everything that we hated about ourselves he was making fun of. “We are people just like everybody else. You can not just show up and say the way we live our lives is wrong!”

“I am the Savior of this town which means I have every right to get rid of sinners like you! As long as your kind lives then I will always be here.” He took a quick breath and continued to talk. This time his voice was warm, welcoming. “The water holds my life. Purification is my cause. This town will be reborn little by little. Life by life. Sinners have no place here. You all deserve to live in fear." As those words sunk in everything disappeared and I was sitting up on an uncomfortable bed, clenching my chest and drenched in sweat for the second time today.

“Lincoln? Lincoln, are you okay?” The Nurse, Mrs. Nightingale, was standing next to me with her hand on my back, rubbing it up and down in a soothing manner.

I wasn’t able to respond to her. The dream was still vivid in my mind and I couldn't even begin to think of the correct answer to her question. Instead of talking I just waved her off and nodded my head. It was so real. The pain is still lingering in my chest and the voice… That voice has never been in one of my dreams since this morning. All these years and things haven’t changed. Everything was the same… Not one thing was out of place, until now. The memories are more sharp, the love for him more real, the pain more painful. Now there is that voice… The voice of a man who calls himself the Savior. I have talked to him twice. My unconscious self has had conversations with him, but how am I remembering all of them? Dreams shouldn’t be like this. The confusion of the situation caused me to clench the bed sheets with my free hand. I’m going crazy. That is the only solution. I imagined Mr. Jeffrey saying those things. I imagined the figure across the street, and the dreams. All of it has been figments of my imagination. They have to be.