Pernicious- True Evil

Chapter 3

Astra wasn't sure where she was, but she had a hard time opening her eyes. It took all of the strength within her to finally open them, allowing light to pierce the inside of her corneas. It felt like a thousand tiny needles were jabbing into her brain all at once, but she refused to give herself relief, forcing her eyes to remain open, glued on the softly lit skies above. It looked like it was morning or maybe it was evening, but either way, the sun was not fully up in the sky. It was warm here—too warm for the spring, causing sweat to drip down her forehead.

Her body was against the base of a cliff inside of a deep canyon. The sandstone walls looked like God himself had painted the rocks in vibrant shades of red, orange, white, and tan. Her legs were stretched out in front of her, slightly spread apart as her back leaned upon the smooth walls that seemed to reach to the sky.

She was sitting at a dead end with one path in front of her that split into two paths just a hundred yards away. Though she was in a wider area, she could tell that some areas of the paths in front of her became narrower. Thick, swirling, purple-grey clouds loomed ominously over her head while a burst of lightning cracked in the distance and flooded everything around her in white light. She could smell the electricity in the humid air. The storm's anger screamed from the heavens and threw its fist down onto the ground.

Her muscles felt like ground meat, with every infinitesimal movement causing her body to beg her to stay still. A loud ringing screamed in her ears, overpowering all the noises around her. The ground appeared to be moving the same way that maggots writhed inside of a corpse. With thick humidity lingering in the air, her lungs weighed heavily in her chest, while her hair stuck uncomfortably to her head.

What happened to her? The muscles in her throat tightened. She tried to remember but her mind was trapped in an eternal fog, with every thought slipping away into the milky atmosphere.

Slowly, her lips parted. She attempted to take in a deep breath, but her lungs felt like a balloon refusing to fully inflate. A sharp pain radiated from the wound inside of her jaw. How did she get that and why was it so hard to breathe?

She lifted her arm as if it was made of cracking porcelain and shut her eyes as she ran her bleeding hand down her side. Her eyelids tensed as her fingers dipped into a gash on her thigh. The warm, soft fat left her fingertips sticky with blood.

She needed to call someone. She needed to get help. Her fingers slipped in the pockets of her jacket and her pants. Where was her phone? She looked around her. Nothing. It was gone.

Her mind raced as reality shattered the fragility of her mind. Every fiber inside her screamed she needed to hide but she couldn't grasp why. She wasn't sure how she became injured or how she got there but what worried her more was the feeling she was being watched, which came over her like waves of the ocean, drowning her mind with horrible delusions of who was near.

A low growl of thunder in the distance gave a warning that a storm was approaching. There was nothing worse than being lost somewhere in the middle of bad weather.

"I need to get up... get up... please get up..." These words were repeated like a mantra, as a pathetic attempt to encourage herself to move somewhere safe.

Her jaw tensed underneath her lips. She hoped that when she opened her eyes, she would be home in her bed. But as her eyelids split, the dark pits of her cornea forced her once again to see she was in an unfamiliar land.

How did she get here? Was someone cruel enough to kidnap her and leave her stranded in the middle of nowhere? Who or what hurt her?

"This can't be real," she whispered as she looked down the paths and inhaled the musky air into her lungs. Her fingers dug into the warm ground. "This has to be a nightmare."