The skin of my back twisted and burned as it was cut and torn in a line that stretched from the nape of my neck to the arch in my back. The line of fire grew worse as my own blood poured from the acidic gash, the warm fluid pouring over my back, drenching my hair, flooding the floor, filling my mouth as I screamed.

My scream grew louder, desperate to expel the pain, to just pass out, to escape the prison and let death or whatever came after this take me.

But he wouldn't let me.

He kept me alive as I screamed, kept me alive as he ripped me open, as I began to feel my spine break apart.

I knew it wasn’t real. I knew it was a memory trapped in a dream, but the pain was so real. I had been trapped in a purgatory of pain. The agony stretched through memories of joy, blending in confusion as my subconscious trapped me. Trapped me in moments.

Trapped me on this table, the feeling of my own blood beginning to fade.

The scream continued as the pain began to fade, although the burn remained, this time in lines that crisscrossed over my chest.

This pain was familiar, I realized. This was the same as in the hospital, the same as my hand...

Pressure swelled over my chest as the world swam again. Everything shifted upright as my hands flew to the pain in my chest, only to peel away covered in droplets of the brightest red.

I stared at the blood, my confusion swelling as the hollow tone of a hundred voices echoed through the dark around me.

“It is only when she is with you that she will be able to accomplish all that she must…”

The haunted tin of the voices faded out, replaced by the abrasive sound of static as the same image of blood and stone screamed its way back into my mind.

The image flashed bright before the voices returned, the blood-covered stone expanding into a wide cavern. The space was massive, the high ceilings twinkling as multi-colored lights drifted through the dark, dancing over smooth hewn walls and a wide pool of glass. My soul jumped at the imagery, something deep inside of me pulling me toward it, toward the pool, desperate to be swallowed whole.

I didn’t move.

I stood still, blood speckled fingers held before me as the same voices came again, their origin becoming apparent as the pool shimmered, a hundred figures standing along the edge. Dark capes were pulled over them, obscuring face and limbs until they were nothing but grey masses against black stone.

“This child is power.” The voices were a song as one man stepped through the wall of monks as though they were nothing more than fog.

His features were weathered, although he appeared to be no older than the mid-20s that I was. His green eyes were on me, staring into me as he continued his advance.

“Power that is strong enough for you,” the voices hummed in unison before they began to chant, the same static as before rampaging through my memory.

“For you. For you. For you.”

The memory of the wide cave vanished in a swirl of smoke. Although the voices continued, the green-eyed man didn’t move. The room around him shifted, leaving him standing in the middle of a room from several centuries before.

Brilliant paintings covered the walls, the murals leaving everything bathed in flowers and trees. The room was a garden, but I had a feeling that was the point, seeing as the massive four poster bed had the same motif. The hand-carved flowers that decorated the wood mirrored in every other piece.

It was beautiful, and I had a feeling it was supposed to be calming. But looking at the anger that had overtaken the man, was smothering it.

I felt only dread.

“For you. For you.” The chant continued from somewhere in the distance as the man stepped toward me, his eyes growing harder as he rushed me, hand clenching my face as he shook me.

“You filthy whore! You think you can flirt and I won’t notice. You think you can stare and I won’t see?” The grip of his hand against my chin increased, dirty nails digging into my skin as I called out in a tiny yelp.

“For you. For you.”

“You are mine.” He spat, specks of wet littering my face.

“No.” a weak feminine voice croaked, the sound rattling from my chest, although I was sure it had not come from me.

It was not from me.

“You are nothing to me. I already have your magic. You give me nothing else.” His hand shook me with each word, each syllable ripping my heart apart before he threw me on the bed, his hands clawing at my clothes.

At my dress.

“For me. For me.” The chant increased as my heart rate did, my confusion growing as whatever hell I had found myself trapped in moved faster. This was not my memory. This was not my life.

It couldn’t be, no matter how real it felt.

I gasped as a hand pressed against my back, the pressure acting like a switch as everything faded right back to that cave. Right back to the man that had thrown me down on the bed. To the man who was beating me.

He stood calmly, no trace of a smile present as the chant continued to drown the air.

Something wasn’t right. Something wasn’t fitting.

“You will love her.” The man from the bedroom said calmly as he stepped forward, his green eyes shifting to black as he stared through me. “But you cannot have her.”

“You cannot have him!” The same man’s voice hissed in my ear as a different memory took hold. The same man, this time haggard and broken as he screamed at Joclyn and I. She stiffened as we clung to each other, her hand clenching against my back as her own anger sparked.

“The length of the royal line was not in the sight,” his voice roared as Joclyn’ stiffened against me, her hands growing warm.

The memory faded back to the cave with a snap, my tension growing as the truth behind the green-eyed man slowly began to unravel. I didn’t know who he was, but this pride I felt toward him in this memory was wrong. It was all wrong.

“You will fail.” The monotone voices pulled me back into the cave, the tension in me growing. Another flash of the same ornate room as before, the sobs of a woman obscuring everything as I stared into a mirror, stared at that same man as he assaulted me.

“Do you feel her?” The flat voices of the cloaked people beside the glass pool spoke over the horrifying image I was forced to watch, forced to relive as I lay trapped under this man, an unseen pressure locking me in place. “Do you see her?”

“I do.” My own voice pulled me from the horrors in that room as a weight pressed against my chest, pressed into the painful scars in such a way that I wished I could call out.

Wished I could scream.

No sound came, only pain and the smell of smoke and flowers. The combination was familiar.

The combination was intoxicating as it mixed with a swell of joy so acute I never wanted to let it go.

So I held it closer.

I held her closer.  

I held her in my arms, pulling her into me, breathing her in as I placed my cheek against hers.

“Do not be afraid, mi Lasko,” I whispered as everything began to calm. The huskiness of my voice filled with an accent I did not recognize, laced with a language that I did. “I know you have seen everything…”

A flash of the room, of the mirror as the same man plunged a fist onto my back. The impact blossomed down my spine as the image evaporated, the pressure of Joclyn against me never leaving.

“I know you are scared, but do not be…” I continued in a hushed whisper, the words whispering through the tangles of Joclyn’s hair. “Know that I am here to protect you, to save you, and to love you.”

The mirror again, the room reflected back to me as the image shifted, the mirror moving closer as I stepped toward it, everything burning, everything numb. The numbness left as the mirror did, the panic of the room seeping into the calm memory of the cave.

“Even if you will never love me, I will still be here, right by your side.”

I pulled her to face me, my touch gentle as I cupped her chin, her dark curls framing her face in a long tousled mess as she looked to me, the bright silver of her eyes glimmering.

“You’re beautiful.” I could barely get the words out, my heart so full it was restricting my breathing.

I leaned toward her, needing to feel her, needing to taste her lips against mine. I could feel the hunger, feel the need multiplying. But instead of pressing my lips to hers, I turned, pulling her hair back and gently kissing the raised mark I had seen before, the red brand hidden behind her ear.

A jolt of electricity moved through my body, the feeling the same that I had felt in the hospital bed, the same as I had felt so many times before. This moment was the first time I had felt it, I realized. This was the moment I knew…

The cave left again as a tangled mess of blonde hair, same as mine, appeared in that mirror, the reflective glass finally coming into focus as I did.

But it wasn’t me.

It was the same long straight lengths of my hair, it was the same brilliant blue color of my eyes, the shade iced over with a devastating pain.

But it wasn’t me.

The woman’s face was streaked with tears as she looked at herself, as she placed her hand against the mirror, the hard surface fogging up against her touch.

“I don’t want this,” she gasped, her voice broken in a pained sob. “I don’t deserve this.”

“I love you,” my own voice was a whisper as it broke through the woman’s pain, the words accompanied by a single flash of Joclyn in my arms, of the one that I longed for. Those all-encompassing emotions suddenly felt stagnant against what I just witnessed, against the pain of the woman that I could still see shadowed in my mind.

“I love you, Joclyn.” The ghost of my voice echoed as I held her, as I lost myself against her.

My heart beat louder as her name cemented in place, no more just the whispers that Kaye had heard while I slept.

This was her.

This was the girl that I longed for.

This was my Joclyn.

“I love you, my Joclyn,” My voice came as the memory shifted, Joclyn now laying in my arms, her shirt covered in blood, her face smeared with it.

She smiled at the words, her blood drenched fingers soft against my face, “I love you, my..."

“You need to run!” A scream broke through the memory, turning her last moments into smoke as a new panic cut through me, the scream pulling past memory and plunging me back into reality.

“I’ll be fine,” Joclyn whispered in my mind, her voice echoing in my head as I saw her again, wearing the same blood soaked clothes as she sat in a cave, hand over her stomach.

“Run!” The shout shattered my dreams, the single word erupting as the girl in the mirror returned, her mouth open in a scream before she punched the glass, shattering it.

The tinkling of broken glass rang loud, mixing with the sound of rubber shoes against linoleum as more yells broke through my memory.

“Now, Kaye.” A voice, a woman, yelled. “He has been in a coma for years. You are wasting our time.”

I felt a hand on my shoulder, the rough touch different than my memories. It shook me once before it was gone, replaced by footsteps that pounded in my skull. Blood spread over the wall of rock, before it too faded to black, before whatever memory-driven hell I had been trapped in faded away and the sounds of footsteps melted into the sound of screams.

The sound of guns.

The bangs pressed against my skull like a hammer, they shook my bones as a flood of pain swelled over me, filling every part of me.

“Run!”

The shout came from the direction of the hall outside of my room at the hospital, the sound mixing with screams and sounds of retreat.

Terror slapped me so hard that I gasped in air, only to find the passage blocked. Everything was blocked. Mouth open in a silent scream, I could feel something snake down my throat. The machines I had grown so used to echoed the sound of my terror as my eyes snapped open to the pitch black, eyelashes fluttering against dark fabric.

Panic grew. Beeping increased. In my panic, I clutched at my face, at the heavy fabric covering my eyes, at the stubble that was all that remained of my hair. With shaking fingers trailing in horror to my mouth and the massive contraption that was attached there.

Muffled sounds of panic exploded from me, joining the terror in the hall as I began to claw at the tape and pieces of plastic that held the thing in place.

Everything shook in my desperation to escape whatever had been done to me, fear and panic bringing only a moment of hesitation before I pulled the tube from my throat.  

My chest screamed in pain, my throat burning in agony as I yanked, every inch of the massive tube clearly felt as I removed it.

Rough ridges scraped over soft tissue, a scratchy scream breaking free as the tube did, leaving my throat sore and gasping. Bile poured from me, as I ripped the heavy cloth from my eyes, needing to see, only to be blinded by the bright light that flooded me.

Overhead lights flickered in my skull as I looked around in a panic, trying to focus on the door - to focus on anything. It all spun in a blur, the motion only exemplified by the thunder of my heart in my ears.

Lost in a fog of horrifying dreams and confused reality, I slammed my hands onto my head, palms wide over the uneven remains of my hair. I attempted to focus past the blur, desperate for answers of what horror I had awoken in. There were no answers, only the promise that something was wrong.

Something was horribly wrong.

I needed to move.

I needed to move now.

Rushing to exit the bed, I fell over the railings, the lack of restraints making the motion quick and painful as I collided with the floor. An agonizing pain blossomed in my hand as blood began to cover it, the red fluid pooling over my skin at the unceremonial removal of an IV.

Breathing tubes and an IV. I had no idea what was done to me, what had happened, but the absence of my restraints made sense.

You don’t restrain what can’t move.   

I grit my teeth, only to jump at the sound of cannon fire that broke through the panic. The sound was not far from me, the multiple shots of a gun bouncing off tile and linoleum as it echoed in the hollow hospital.

I wrapped a napkin around my hand, yanking at the tiny white pads that covered my chests until the never ending beeping shifted to a high pitch moan. More cables, more tubes. I pulled them all, nose and throat burning as yet another tube was unceremoniously removed.

I would have screamed, would have yelled, but I grit my teeth, desperate to keep the sound inside, and to keep me hidden from whatever nightmare was happening just outside my door. As the screams began to fade, yet another gunshot rang against the linoleum, only to fade into a sound more confusing and more frightening than the tormented dreams I had just woken from.

A snarl.

A gnashing of teeth.

A flap of wings.

The sounds should have been unfamiliar. And yet, I knew exactly what they were.

Chrlič.

Any fear I had before was nothing compared to what I now felt.

I could hear them now, I could hear them scratch and screech and scream. The sound cut into me, the scars on my chest heating as that same burn buzzed under my skin.

Trying to get out.

I pushed it away, the electricity adding to the fear that just hearing them was igniting. The more I heard them, however, the more the heat grew. The heat igniting a power and confidence deep inside me, that before the dream, before holding Joclyn in my arms, before watching her die- I never would have thought to be mine.

Staring at my hands as they burned, I tried to stand, knowing that I had to do something.

Knowing that I could.

My knuckles shone white as I gripped the bed rail, legs shaking as I pulled myself to stand. Shaking, dressed only in a hospital gown, hair shaved short. I faced the door, eyes wild as I waited.

I was aware of how crazy I looked.

I did not care. I was ready.

Screaming rang in the halls, another bang of a gun followed by the squeak of shoes.

My hand tightened against the rail as the door swung open. The sounds of screams and wings grew louder before it slammed shut, leaving the room in muffled silence as I stood facing the door and the back of the woman the door had spit out.

She stood with a knife in her hand, the weapon awkward against her leg as she waited, her long dark hair swinging down her back.

My heart jump-started, screaming that it was Joclyn, that it was her. Any hope was dashed as she turned, brown eyes widening amongst a wall of freckles as she saw me standing there, shock lining her face.

“Jan! You’re alive!"

It took me a minute to recognize her. I had only known her for minutes after all. Even with such a small amount of time, it was obvious that something had changed. Was she taller? Were her freckles darker?

I hadn’t remembered those.

I wasn’t sure.

“Kaye,” I asked with the same accent from my dream, my voice scratchy from the harsh removal of what I now saw as an intubation tube. “What happened? What is going on?”

“We need to go,” she continued without waiting for any response or offering any explanation as to what had happened to me.

There were more important things.

“Where?”

“Not here.” Her voice was stronger than I remember, the giggly girl hidden away behind the blood that covered her fingers, smudges trailing behind her cheek as she moved her hair out of the way. “Anywhere but here.”

My heart jumped at the bright color, at the mirror of Joclyn bleeding in my arms. I stared at her, waiting for more memory to come, waiting for more of an explanation. There was nothing but gunshots.

Bang.

Bang.

Silence.

The last gunshot lingered in the halls, filling the void of screams and steps that had rampaged for the last few minutes. Everything was tense as I waited for them to return, every weak muscle throbbing painfully. There was nothing.

Nothing but the sound of Kaye’s ragged breathing as she turned back toward the door, the look in her eyes sending my pulse skyrocketing as the heat in my soul began to boil.

We waited, breath in chests as the silence dragged on, only to end with a high pitched screech as a tiny dark figure slammed into the fogged glass of the door.

Jumping at the sound, Kaye backed away from the door as she gripped the knife, stepping before me with an obvious intent of protection.

The motion bristled uncomfortably. She should not be protecting me, I should save her. Yet, I could only stare at the door, stare at the glass as the same dark figure hovered there, hitting its body against the pane until it cracked.

The pane split from top to bottom, cracking like lightning over the surface. With each hit the cracks spread further, long electric fingers stretching to each corner.

“No,” she gasped, tears breaking free as moved the knife before her, the tiny thing looking ineffective as she began to shake. “No. No."

The rhythmic bang ended as a high pitch scrape smothered the silence. A shadow of a single claw dragged down the glass, the sound like nails on a chalkboard as it chipped apart the pane, one piece after another falling to the ground.

Slow.

Deliberate.

As if the monster knew this game.

“Kaye,” I gasped, the raspiness of my voice making it almost unrecognizable.

I motioned her toward me, knowing that I could protect her from the flying demon, although I didn’t fully understand how. One glance from her shattered any delusion of being able to do that. I could barely stand, and unless there was a gun hidden under my bed, the knife that Kaye was struggling to hold was our only weapon.

Together we jumped as the thing smacked against the glass again, the motion sending a ripple of glass to the ground.

The Chrlič was no longer alone. At the sound of its cries, of the glass tinkling against linoleum, more dark shapes began to join the first, each addition twisting up my spine.

“Kaye,” I hissed again, but this time she listened, knife still held before her as she rushed to my side.

Hospital bed between us and the door, the wide messy mattress created the illusion that it would somehow protect us from the creatures that were moments away from breaking in.

“Don’t let them bite you,” Kaye said through streaks of angry tears that were staining her face.

We jerked as the things rammed into the glass, more tiny shards of glass tumbled to the ground as the crack spread. As tiny mud brown claws began to work their way through.

The air rained with the pops of cracking glass, each break snapping through me in a flare of electricity. Power ran over my skin, twisting in my bones as a twisted sphinx-like face peered at us through a quickly widening opening.

The size of a baseball, its fangs dripped with venom as it screamed at us, blood-red eyes looking between us. Calculating who to bite first.

The scream expanded as the others joined in, Kaye stepping back further as her knife continued to shake. Electric sparks flew over my skin at the sound of the call, a vivid memory of the same monsters, the same creatures bursting through my mind. Thousands of them raining over us, flooding through the streets of an ancient city. Destroying everyone in their path.

Prague.

My home.  

The memory left as the Chrlič screamed again, the heat rumbling through every muscle as its arms began to pull itself through.

“Don’t let them bite you,” Kaye said again, repeating the instructions to herself. “Don’t let…”

The glass exploded in hundreds of shards, the pieces scattering over linoleum as the tiny monsters burst through, their brown skin streaked with the blood of those they had already killed.

Kaye screamed as they did, the sound echoing in my head as she swung the knife wide, sending two of them tumbling into the wall.

The heat in my body erupted, my yell joining the others as the heated pain burned. As it pulsed. Trying to break free.

“No!” Kaye screamed, the knife continuing to swing as a few more of the things pushed through the shattered opening in the door, rushing right toward us in a swarm.  

One of the flying bats dodged Kaye’s incessant swings, claws and fangs bared as it soared right to me.

I reached up to stop it, to grab it, to do something. Anything.

Instead, the electric heat exploded.

A ripple of red and yellow soared from my fingers, exploding through the room like the sound of a gun. The Chrlič’s calls echoed before two of them fell, their bodies limp as I destroyed them.

As whatever was inside of me destroyed them.

Kaye let out a soft scream as she fell to the ground, looking at me with a combination of fear and shock as she shuffled underneath the hospital bed.

It was a look I returned, our eyes meeting for just a moment before I turned back to the creatures, everything around me exploding as the heat continued to pop and swell.

Dressers exploded. Creatures were thrown away from me by an invisible hand, only to slam into walls and fall to the ground in a lifeless heap.

And the light, the light continued to pour from me.

Just like in those images.

I wasn’t sure what was happening, but the creatures did. Their eyes had grown maniacal from the first spark, their screams increasing as a new danger I hadn’t expected began to brew.

They knew what this was and they weren’t scared of it.

They were ready for it.

And they weren’t going to hold back.

Sparks of light erupted in the air around me, ribbons of color trailing close behind as three more of the creatures fell to the ground with a soft thud. Five more moved to take their place, their bodies soaring fast as claws and teeth gnashed in preparation.

I moved my hand, still trying to understand what made the power come, but instead of life and death, there was a tiny spark of red and a hopelessness that filled me with dread.

I stepped back as the creatures flew faster, my assumed success now promising doom before a tiny moment sparked in my heart.

A memory so faded it was more emotion than moment.

Joclyn and I, fighting the same creatures, light erupting around us as one after another they fell. As she laughed at the game. As she slid her hand into mine.

My magic exploded at the rush of emotion, more than a dozen falling to the ground as a ripple of light moved away from me. It slammed into the walls, cracking plaster and sending portraits tumbling to the ground.

“Vilỳ,” I gasped, the memory sparking the word deep inside of me.

I knew them.

I had fought them.

More of the things burst through the broken glass, called to us by our screams and the screams of the others. They soared around me in a spiral, moving closer in their preparation to end me. I heard Kaye scream in fear, but the sound was faded against wings, against my shouts, against the explosion that burst from me.

I continued to fight them, light and power surging from me as I tried to control it, as I tried to defeat them. Without knowledge, however, the power began to fade, unable to fight against the numbers that were now swarming through the broken glass.

That was swarming around me.

Wings brushed against me, claws pulled at my skin and clothing as I began to shout. I grabbed the beast closest to me and threw it away from me. Red sparks flew behind it, the bright pops of light that erupted from my fingers as the heat that ran through me dissipated.

They kept coming, so fast and so many that they were little more than a wall of grey, blocking out the light and any hope that we had. I tried to fight them, tried to let the explosions out.

As I tried to save us both.

My fight pulled in memory as the same dark alley swam before me, lines of the monsters heading right for me. Instead of a spark of light, however, instead of releasing the power that was inside of me, there was only a single word.

“Zdechnout.”

My head rattled as I dropped to the ground, hands overhead as I waited for the bite to come, amazed it hadn’t yet.

“Zdechnout” a woman spoke from somewhere in my memory, this time louder, the snap of a voice I had heard before following right behind.

It was that same man, that green-eyed monster who had beat the woman. He looked right at me as my memory approached him. The sarcastic voice of the woman he had mauled slapping at my nerves, “One down, ten million to go.”

Claws pulled me from the moment as they ripped at my hair, my hands moving fast as I continued to swat the little monsters away while stubbornly refusing to accept that this could be the end.

“Zdechnout” The word came again, practically screaming in my head as the memory I saw before repeated itself, a Vilỳ hitting the ground like a lead weight at the sound.

It didn’t make sense. But nothing did, not light from my hands, not little monsters that would rip you apart.

So I yelled. I screamed.

“Zdechnout” The one word exploded out of me as the claws left, the gnashing stopped, and dozens of little thuds hit the ground around me.

I uncurled from my protective position as Kaye did, the two of us sitting on the floor, looking around at the bodies that now surrounded us, the things twisted as if they had never had life in them at all.

As if that one word had sucked it all out of them.