Trapped Morgan Green
“Isn’t it sad Jessamine?” Brayden, my best friend, said suddenly. I rolled onto my side and propped up on my elbow, facing him and looking out at the field of white daisies that stretched out around us. The daisy field had been our private place, our haven in this world of turmoil, for as long as I could remember.
“Isn’t what sad?” I asked him, watching him serenely as he lay stretched out on the grass with his arms tucked casually beneath his head, his calm green eyes searching the endless blue sky above us. He smiled thoughtfully and turned to face me also.
“I’m already fourteen, and you’re thirteen. Just a few years and we’ll be out in the world, all on our own. Yet here we are, stuck in this town, where nothing interesting ever happens.” He had a far-away look in his eyes that he got when he daydreamed, which was quite often. I had grown used to his dreaming, adventurous nature in the many years we had been best friends, just as he had grown used to my cautious and distant nature. In many ways, he was the complete opposite of me, but he brought out a wild streak in me that no one else could.
I hesitated and chewed my lower lip in thought. “I am grateful for what we have here.” I finally replied. Brayden rolled back onto his back and looked at the sky again.
“I know, I am to, but don’t you ever…I don’t know….wish for something more?” He ran his hand through his dark hair, pushing it out of his eyes where it always fell.
I thought about this also, and then nodded slowly. “Yes, I suppose I do.”
We fell into a comfortable silence for a few moments, and then Brayden said something that caught me off guard: “Jessamine, do you think that we may spend the rest of our lives together?”
“Sure, we’re best friends; I hope we’ll always be.” I replied, but Brayden just shook his head.
“No, I mean as maybe…more than friends.” He sat up and hugged his knees to his chest, his eyes serious as they locked onto mine. His words shocked me and it must have been written on my face, because regret passed over his and he looked away and muttered what sounded like “nevermind.” I reached for him as his expression became distant and closed- off. I didn’t know what to say to this, because I had never really thought about being more than friends with him, but the more I thought about the possibility of spending the rest of my life with my long- time best friend, the answer occurred to me.
“Well, maybe we will. Maybe I want to.” I leaned closer to him and intertwined my fingers with his. He looked at me and the remorse was replaced with contentment. I knew what he would see as he gazed at me: large eyes that he had said many times were always filled with wonder and more silver than the cross that adorned my neck and pale skin framed by long, auburn hair that gave me the appearance of a porcelain doll. I was petite and felt fragile next to his tall frame. As he continued to look at me, my mind seemed to go numb, so when he closed his eyes and leaned closer, I couldn’t form a coherent thought to save my life. I closed my eyes also and waited, my heartbeat quickening. He came closer to me, and I could feel his cool breath on my cheek. I almost pulled away, thinking this was wrong, but then I decided that I wanted to kiss him, just before he was within an inch of my lips.
“Brayden!” it never came, though, because he jerked away as the sound of his name rang out across the field. I sucked in suddenly and turned away, quickly standing up as his mother came into view at the edge of the field. “You need to come home now!” she yelled to him. Brayden stood abruptly also and dusted off his jeans, a disheveled look on his face. He started to walk away but then turned back, catching my eyes again.
“Just wait until tonight, Jess.” He said as he turned back and ran away. I didn’t know what he was talking about, but decided that I would find out later. I was used to him doing things such as this all the time.
It took a moment for me to calm down as I watched him disappear away from me. As soon as I did, I began to walk back toward my house, running my fingers over the soft petals of the flowers and thinking about what had just happened. The whole thing left me in a state of vertigo, making me feel light- headed and confused. The scene re-played over and over in my mind, completely dissolving the world around me. I guess I was so distracted that I didn’t see what happened. The daisies were smooth and waxy, which is why they shouldn’t have been able to cut me, but one did. A sharp pain cut through my hand and I gasped, looking down at it as blood welled up and dripped onto the flower, staining its pure whiteness with scarlet red.
“What in the….” The flower didn’t have thorns, so I couldn’t see what could have cut me. I was confused but continued to walk. I hadn’t taken five steps when an odd noise sounded behind me. I whirled around and didn’t see anything at first, only seeing a sea of white swaying in the warm spring breeze. Then there it was: a small spot of black standing out against it. I gaped at it in confusion. Was that a pile of ash lying there where the blood- stained flower was? No, surely not. With this thought, I glanced back once and then ran home, not looking back.
Back at home, after a worried scolding about being more vigilant about not injuring myself from my mother and getting my bleeding hand nursed, I lay on my bed, staring at the ceiling fan and following its spinning blades with my eyes. I had my IPod on and the headphones sent deafening but blissfully distracting music blaring in my ears. I didn’t pay much attention to what song was on, being too wrapped up in my muddled thoughts to comprehend anything except that it was a rock song. Brayden had always found it ironic how little me, looking so innocent and childish, could be interested in music like this. I guess we’re all full of surprises, though.
The sunlight outside my large window was slowly dimming, eventually shrouding me in complete dark dusk. The music, although loud, had begun to fade into the background and calmed me as the familiar sound enveloped my subconscious. The thoughts of black suddenly appearing in a field of white puzzled me and I wished that I would have gone back to investigate, but that was not the only thing; I did not know what to think about my earlier encounter with Brayden. Did I really want to risk our friendship because of an almost- kiss? I honestly didn’t know. Also, I still didn’t know what he had meant by: “Just wait until tonight, Jess.” As the night proceeded on, and I still didn’t get any sign as to what it might be, I finally let the welcome abyss that was sleep take me far away.
************
“You do not create, only destroy….” A sinister voice whispered in my dream. “You turn the world to ash and dust….” It was pitch dark; I could see nothing at all, only hear the eerie words that seemed to be floating around me. “Whatever you touch only dies….” I searched desperately for a light anywhere in the black, terrified of what hid in those infinite shadows, as I tried to block out the taunting. “Now our vengeance…..” A small orange spark flickered in the corner. I ran toward it. “IS A MUST!”
“No!” I screamed and covered my face with my arms as the formerly innocent spark exploded into a giant fire, finally letting me see my surroundings. All I saw, though, was misty, black figures swarming everywhere, chanting the words again and again. They spun faster and faster, allowing me to see nothing past them besides the agonizingly hot orange flames leaping up from the ground, which I then recognized as being the daisy field, as they spread quickly and turned the beautiful daisies into wilting weeds. Seeing this, I got flashes of the blood- stained flower from earlier, bursting into flames and then disintegrating into a pile of ashes.
A scream sounded near me other than my own, mixing with the spirits as they yelled louder, on an endless cycle, “You do not create, only destroy! You turn the world to ash and dust! Everything you touch only dies! Now our vengeance…IS A MUST!” I covered my ears and sunk to the ground on my knees, and also tried to see where the screaming was coming from. It sounded familiar, but I could not place it. I strained my eyes and fell forward, attempting to crawl out of the whirling, sadistic mass, but the mass caused a crippling wind to press me down onto my stomach. “You do not create, only destroy! You turn the world to ash and dust!” It continued to wail. I was being deprived of oxygen, so my lungs ached more with each second that passed. “Everything you touch only dies!” I curled into a fetal position and looked helplessly toward whatever it was that was screaming. “Now our vengeance…” Just before I closed my eyes in defeat, I saw a flash of tormented green. Another vision of the burning flower came. “IS A MUST!” Then, an unexpected noise sounded: Tap, Tap, Tap. The longer the noise continued, the black mass slowly started to fade, as did the chanting and roar of the fire. Tap, tap, tap. The noise was becoming louder. Tap, tap, tap. The dream- world disappeared.
I shot up in my bed, sucking in a painful breath of air and then coughing hysterically for what seemed like forever. I hated these re-occurring nightmares that left me screaming until my throat burned and had no logical explanation. They started out as just small things, but were getting much worse. They could possibly cause me to suffocate, which terrified me. When I had re-gained my composure, I noticed how my headphones had fallen out of my ears, and after a glance at the clock saw that it was midnight. I pushed a curl off my face that had been matted to my forehead and looked over at my window, where the noise was coming from, seeing small specs hitting it. I turned to the side and dropped to the floor, shaking as I fearfully crept across it. When I got to the window, I threw it open. A welcome burst of chilly wind came through and cooled my hot face. I walked out onto the balcony and peered down at the source of the commotion: Brayden.
I sighed in relief. “Brayden Cole, what are you doing here?” I stage- whispered. Brayden smiled mischievously and motioned with his hand for me to come down. I glanced around and then looked down at my white nightgown self- consciously.
“What you’re wearing is fine, Jess. Come down here!” he said back quietly. I glanced around again and then, when I was sure that no one was watching, I tiptoed to the edge of the balcony and tangled my hands in the vines that grew down the side of the house. I knew it was strong enough to hold me because I had used it many times to sneak out. Using my upper body strength, I hoisted myself onto the bar of the balcony and threw my legs over, allowing my feet to get caught in the vines also. I cautiously and leisurely climbed down as far as I could go, then jumped down the rest of the way and fell into a crouch. I stood and ran to Brayden.
“Why are you here?” I asked him in a low but skeptical voice. He grinned again and took my hand, gently tugging me along as he walked to a destination beyond my knowledge.
“I told you to wait until tonight.” He replied, his voice innocent but the look on his face blatantly the opposite. I hesitantly allowed myself to be led by him.
On the way, I gradually began to realize where we were going. My suspicions were confirmed when the field came into view. A full moon hung overhead in the clear night sky, and the daisies were silver in the moonlight, giving the scenery a spooky feel. I took comfort in the warm softness of his hand gripping mine as we ran through the flowers to our secret place away from civilization.
The field was large, so it took a few minutes to get there. I looked around as I was pulled along, and did a double take as I thought I saw something with glowing eyes coming toward me. When I looked again though, there was nothing there. I silently reprimanded myself for letting my nightmare from earlier tonight get to me.
Then our hideaway was there in front of us: an abandoned wooden house that we had found a few years before. Brayden turned to me and grinned again as he pulled a lighter out of his pocket and lit it, opening the creaky door and stepping inside. I followed, feeling stealth and adrenaline pump through my veins because we could get caught out here at any time. Brayden used the lighter to light an old candle that had been dripping wax on the dusty table it sat on and was coming close to just being the wick. It sent a yellow glow on his face, highlighting the angles of his cheek bones and jawline. I stood quietly by the door watching him. He went over to the wall and then slid down it, stretching out his long legs and crossing his arms over his chest. I sat in front of him and then observed how the flame of the candle sent long shadows on the dilapidated walls. Seeing the small flame reminded me of the spark in my dream, so I made a point to stay far away from it. Brayden and I sat in silence for a while, and then he spoke up.
“Don’t you think that the ghost stories about this place,” he gestured around himself, indicating the daisy field and the woods surrounding it, “are ridiculous? I mean, we come here all the time, and nothing ever happens.” I got a flash of my dream and the eyes I had thought I saw in the field, but mentally shook myself to forget about it. Remembering it gave me a headache. It took a second to make me realize that he was waiting for an answer and I was just sitting there, lost in my own thoughts.
“Yea,” was all I replied. I thought of the myths and legends, which said that witches would supposedly come out here and do séances, luring evil spirits to do their bidding and answer questions. It was just that, though: a myth; tales to scare children and adults alike, and make this boring town seem like a more interesting, enticing place. Brayden and I had never believed such things.
“It’s probably just folklore that some idiot came up with when he was bored. I can just picture it: ‘This town is so dull. Oh, I know! I’ll make up a scary story so that everyone will think that it’s somewhat cool. It’ll be about witches, ghosts, and magic!’” He wiggled his fingers in the air and had a fake look of awe on his face. I laughed, which caused the headache to worsen, so I quickly became quiet again. “I remember one story that I once heard.” he leaned his head against the wall, his expression composed of amused disbelief. “I think it was my dad that told it to me. He told me that there were four witches, and they had decided to sacrifice an innocent girl to their god, or whatever it is that they worshiped. So they went out here to the field, drew a pentagram in the dirt, bound and gagged the girl, and then put her in the middle. They then proceeded to crowd around the pentagram, chanting and doing God knows what else, and then the leader of the coven took out a ritual knife. She cut the girl, and her blood was soaked into the ground as if by magic.” He laughed and rolled his eyes.
“Then what?” I asked, hanging onto his every word, though feeling a little scared. My headache was getting even worse, and I was seeing spots. I looked at Brayden and saw the flame of the candle dancing deviously in his eyes, thinking that I saw something else in the depths of them. I blinked and it was gone.
“Well things didn’t turn out so well for the coven. They thought that they were going to get rewarded for their sacrifice, and that the girl was just some person that didn’t matter. Sometimes when you try to sacrifice a living thing, though, it backfires tremendously. That’s what I’ve heard, anyway.”
“So what happened?” I wrapped my arms around myself, feeling a sudden chill in the air.
“They were summoning the thing they were sacrificing for, but instead of taking the offering, it possessed the body instead. Apparently, it wanted more blood, so it killed the witches and burned their bodies, trapping their souls in the field forever and ever! The possessed girl was never seen again.” He had a mocking tone to his voice, and laughed again at the horror story. It was obvious that he didn’t believe a word of what he had just recited. “Ridiculous, right?”
He said something else, and then began to tell another story, but I had stopped listening to him because my vision was impaired and my head was throbbing. I clutched it, wishing the pain would fade. All around the room, the shadows on the walls were warping into menacing shapes and swaying back and forth. I gasped and shook my head, putting it between my knees and squeezing my eyes shut, trying to make them go away.
Brayden looked concerned. He reached out and touched my knee. “Jessamine, are you okay?” he asked me with worry coloring his voice. I whimpered in reply. Behind my closed eyelids, I could see the fire from my dream again, burning the daisies, but this time it was taking on the form of a star. It was a pentagram, I realized. I opened my eyes and looked up, but shut them again when I saw that the shadows seemed to be reaching toward me. I heard chanting, coming from nowhere and everywhere at the same time. At first I couldn’t make out what was being said. Slowly, though, I could decipher it.
“No…” I pleaded at anything that would listen. “Please, no…” Brayden had moved beside me, grasping my shoulders firmly and saying something to me, but I couldn’t hear him. The vision of fire had imprinted itself in my mind, as had daunting, dark apparitions. I choked back a scream. From what sounded like very far away, I could hear my name being said over and over. It was easily drowned out by the chanting.
“You do not create, only destroy!” It was saying, just like in my nightmare. “You turn the world to ash and dust!” I opened my eyes again to see that the shadows really were reaching toward me now. Translucent hands stretched off the walls and grasped blindly for anything they could touch. “Everything you touch only dies!”
“No!” I said again, but this time I screamed it. “Please!” The hands pulled at my hair and scratched my skin. Brayden still sat there, looking at me fearfully. Could he not see the horrendous things trying to get me?
“Now our vengeance…” I looked up just in time to see one particularly terrifying ghost creep up behind Brayden. It was not like the others; it had red hair that whipped around its pale face, though it was transparent. The look in its silver eyes was pure evil. The shock hit me like a pound of bricks as I knew what I was looking at. The ghost that I was staring at looked exactly like me. Then as I saw the deep cuts covering her, I knew something else: she was the girl that had been sacrificed and then possessed. I gasped and then screamed.
“Brayden, behind you!” I scrambled backwards, doing anything to just get away from that thing that looked like me. I bumped the table the candle was on. The candle fell off the side.
“IS A MUST!” A loud roar sounded as the flame hit the ground and exploded into a full- blown wildfire that should not have gotten so large so fast, licking up the sides of the wooden house and spreading to cover the floor. Brayden’s eyes widened in fear. He yelled and leaped up, trying to get away. The shadows jumped off the walls and swarmed all around, attacking Brayden. I screamed again as the fire and the spirits consumed my best friend.
“Jessamine!” He cried. I tried to run to him, but the spirits wrapped around me and held me back. Tears streamed down my face and every inch of me burned from the lashing of the spirits and the growing fire. I managed to break away fleetingly and grabbed the door knob, but the door would not budge. The spirits grabbed me roughly again and I tried to hold on, but the old knob snapped off in my hand.
“Help me!” I wailed feebly. The smell of burning flesh was sickening. I could still hear the agonized screams of Brayden, being masked by the malevolent shrieking of the demonic dead. Soon, though, I could not see him anymore, and his screams died down. When they did, I cried even louder. Then the spirits that had swarmed him were coming for me, with the most malicious one, the one that looked appallingly like me, leading them. They crept toward me, dragging fire along with them. Their long, ghastly fingers ripped my clothes and my hair. I was knocked down onto my back, and the last thing I saw before the fire and the spirits enveloped me completely, was the evil look-alikes of mine. I closed my eyes and succumbed to the endless pain, screaming at the top of my lungs until the world faded to the freedom of darkness.
********
The patient’s wails sounded through the hallway of the psychiatric ward. The doctors were used to this kind of stuff here, so they only did what they could to stop it, and then went on with their business; usually, anyway. This was a different story.
“What in the world is going on?” Dr. Ragmon, the new lead- doctor asked the nurses outside her room. He looked into the barred window on her door to see the unstable patient strapped to a bed and thrashing violently, shrieking and screaming deafeningly. Her singed red hair spilled around her and her silver eyes were wide, vacant, and frightened, like doe’s eyes. Her once flawless skin had burned, but had long since healed, leaving scars that covered her whole body.
“I don’t know, Sir! She was fine and then she just started screaming uncontrollably!” One of the nurses fretted.
The nurse who was beside her nodded in agreement. “She keeps going on and on about ghosts, saying a chant that’s very creepy, and is repeating that boy Brayden’s name. You know, the one she killed last year?”
Dr. Ragmon considered this, but then decided to do what the nurses should have already done. “Give her a shot of Thorazine to calm her down.” He said. Just then, the patient’s original doctor, Dr. Neere, strode up, holding a clipboard.
“Ahh…Jessamine Black.” He looked solemnly into the window. “I see the dreams and delusions have worsened.”
“What happened to the girl? What is her story?” Dr. Ragmon asked. “I hear she killed her friend, this Brayden Cole.”
Dr. Neere shook his head sadly. “It’s quite a strange but sad tale. She was at an old house behind a field, and from what the authorities could figure out, she stabbed him and tried to sacrifice him to some unknown, dangerous power. His body was found lying in a pentagram that had been charred into the floor. Then she set fire to the house, but could not get out. When a townsperson saw the fire, it was too late for the boy, but they were able to get Jessamine. However: when they found her, she was delusional and had gone insane. The fire had also left third- degree burns on her. They brought her here, but ever since she has remembered that night. An altered version, though.”
“What do you mean?” Dr. Ragmon listened intently to the other man.
“She believes that ‘spirits’ were what killed her friend. Even says that one looked just like her. I believe that she’s just seeing the sadistic side of herself; the side that came out particularly on that night. The knife she used had her fingerprints on it, and it was proven that she was the one who started the fire. Poor thing lives in a dream world. She’s been like this for months.” He shook his head again and gazed once more at the girl, now calmed down and sleeping from the drugs. “I must be going now.” He inclined his head respectfully toward him, and then turned on his heel and walked away.
Dr. Ragmon stood at the door for a few more minutes, watching the sleeping patient. “It’s so awful how a young girl could lose it so drastically.” He thought to himself. After he was sure that the nurses had everything under control, he too walked away to check on the other patients in the asylum.
“No one knows fear like I do,
Sometimes it’s too much to take.
I should know because I am trapped in my nightmare,
Never to awake.
Yes, my friends, you may call me delusional,
I don't know the technical term.
I have sunk into the shadows of my mind,
Never to return.”
. 
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