Chapter 4

                                    

                                          
Willow paced the small, dimly lit room back and forth. She slapped her cheeks until they were as bright red as her hair. She splashed water on her sallow face and sang aloud to her self. There must be a way to stay awake, she had to. For three years now, the vision had been haunting her.
                          
It scared her to think she would have to relive the same thing again tonight.
                          
But there was no ignoring the dark shadows growing larger under her blood shot eyes with each passing hour. They kept closing against her will. Her muscles ached and begged for just some rest, but she refused them. She hadn't slept in four consecutive days. Her head kept slacking and falling to her chest. It hurt, everything hurt.
                          
There had to be a way to avoid this nightmare. She had to stay awake. As she gazed at her window one last time at the smiling moon, she finally collapsed out of pure exhaustion.
                          
She had lost. 
                          
***
                          
When her vision finally came, the first thing that hit her was the heat. Searing heat that made her shirt stick to her skin and sweat drench her back. She looked up. 
There was no sun, no clouds. Just a blood red sky. She looked down to find herself on top of a high mountain. On the edge of a very high mountain. Everything she saw was completely consumed by flames. Everything...everything was on fire. The grass, the trees, even the mountain itself seemed to be burning. 
But the worst part was the silence. Nothing moved or stirred. She knew somehow that everything was dead. 
                          
Then she heard it.
                          
Laughter.
                          
Evil, twisted, chocked laughter. It made the hair on the back of her neck stand up.
                          
"You think you can beat ME child? Then you are a fool." there was a pause. Willow braced herself. she knew what happened next. The the voice continued..."A DEAD fool. You and your little 'group' are nothing but gnats to me. You will die in vain like the rest of your precious world".
                          
Then she was falling. Down down down down.
                          
She tried to let out a scream, but the sound was whisked away from her burning lungs. No one was there. No one could save her.
                          
Then it stopped. She awoke on the floor, alive. Covered in sweat, her tongue thick and her breath coming in heavy gasp, but alive. 
                          
* * *
                          
Willow slowly sat up, pulling her knees to her chest, regulating her breathing as best she could.
                          
She pulled herself up and looked out the same window she has seen bathed in moon light, shakily standing and slowly turning in a circle, surveying the small room.
                          
Willow had found the abandoned spring house in the middle of the woods about two months ago. The walls on the outside were grey and smoothed down by countless winters with untouched and untamed vines crawling up the walls. The inside was rough and tan and completely empty. 
                          
She ran her calloused fingers along the bumpy walls. Something about them was comforting to her. She sat down onto the wooden floor, smoothed over by years upon years of being trampled over and gazed at the earthly possessions she had in the world spread out over the floor.
                          
In the middle, was a torn, pink blanket with silhouettes of small animals. Next to it was an old, beaten, and tattered chest, no bigger then a jewelry box. If you opened it, you would have seen a small music box. Sitting on it was a dainty ballerina that would ever so slightly twirl to the music Willow had memorized. Next to it was a small dagger.
                          
The dagger seemed out of place next to the beautiful music box. It was about the size of half her fore arm, with a brown leather handle etched faintly on the dagger were letters. Seeing as Willow could neither read or write, they looked simply scribbles to her. The letters C-O-U-R-A-G-E were barley visible against the pale blade.
                          
Carefully, she lifted it to her nose and sniffed. It smelled like home.
                          
Whatever home smelled like.
                          
For the first twelve years of her life, she had lived in a musty, run down, dirty, hole in the wall orphanage, being beaten, abused, and yelled at. She had always been unhappy. These horrific visions had plagued her sleeping hours for as long as she could remember.
                          
She wasn't crazy. She wasn't.
                          
That of course was reason enough to run away.
                          
From that point on, she had lived on the run. Traveling, not really ever knowing where she was going, or even where she was at the moment. Sometimes it was lonely. But she liked it just that way.
                          
Alone.
                          
She places the dagger back into the chest and shut it.
                          
Lovingly, she lifted the box and wrapped it in the blanket. It was time to get moving again and this box was just weighing her down. Emotionally and physically. It was time to get rid of it.
                          
She carefully took out the small dagger and placed it in her boot. She needed it. She needed to find out what the strange symbols on the blade meant. Willow then took the box and the blanket and set them aside then used the dagger to pry up some loose floor boards. Regretfully, she placed the blanket and the box inside and put the boards over it.
                          
Maybe one day, when this was all over, she would come back for it.
                          
Maybe.
                          
Willow stood up and walked out the door, after taking a few steps she turned back to the old house and smiled. It had been the closest thing to a home she had had in a long while.
                          
Taking a deep breath, she turned and headed into the darkness of the forest.