Chased

    He’s getting closer and closer to me. I can feel him just a couple of feet behind. I can hear the distinctive echo from his hectic footsteps stomping against the marbled floor. They’re both a reminder of why I should increase my pass, but I’m so tired now.... It’s useless, he’ll get me. God, what have I gotten myself into?

     I should’ve listened to them; they warned me he would come for me. He knows when you’re at your weakest, chases you down, and shreds you into pieces. He breaks you.

     He’s going to break you if you don’t run faster. Run, run, run–I can’t, though. I’m so, so tired. What if I just rest for a second...? No! I snap myself out of the haze, trying my best to control the rate in which my heart is beating.

     That’s when I feel his hand grazing the fabric of the blouse I’m wearing in one of his attempts to get a hold of me, so I push myself harder. I know he’s fuming me with his stare, and I hear him grunt. “You can keep running,” he says under a growl, and I try to put more distance between us. “I’ll still catch you.”

     “I want to see you try,” I murmur, throwing my body against the cafeteria doors to my right in an attempt to catch him off guard, and I do. I hear the squealing of his rubber shoes coming to an abrupt stop back in the hallway, so I take more and more strength to reach the nearest exit. I know that if I cross the entire canteen, the main hall will come into sight, and if I run down all the way to its end, I’ll be able to get out.

     But thinking about it is the easy part, because I soon hear the metal doors opening again.

     “C’mon, Cassie!” He yells at me, though I block his words. “Even if you get away, I’ll still find you. I will always find you.”

     The tables and chairs look blurry through my peripheral vision, and I realize I’m running faster than ever. I just want to get out of here. I want to go home. Run, then! My thighs burn, my knees wobble, but I keep on pushing them. And that’s when I finally see it as I cross the other set of doors. It’s so beautiful.

      I read the glowing, neon green letters on the wall in the end of the hallway: Exit.

     My heartbeat spikes to the maximum rate, threatening to burst out of my chest in any second. Just this last effort, I encourage myself…but then I notice it. They aren’t there anymore. His footsteps behind me…. They are gone.

     I don’t want to look back. It feels like the dumbest thing to do and I am so close to the exit now…but I still do. He’s not there. Everything is stone silent. The aligned rows of lockers extend all the way back to where the canteen doors are, receiving only the slightest of lights from the few windows on the walls. It is as if time has…frozen.

     I hear something far away into the hallway, so, decided, I turn back around to finally reach the doors. The doors that’ll take me home. The doors that’ll lead me to my safe haven. But when I do turn on my heels, my eyes crash into those bottomless, glowing, blue eyes of his.

     How?! I yell in my mind, and even though I try to scream for real…nothing comes out. I’m paralyzed. He’s in front of me and I cannot do anything but feel my short breaths becoming shallow and insufficient when it comes to filling my lungs with the proper amount of air.

     Without warning, I feel his ice cold hands taking hold of me with a tight grip. I try to squeal or produce any sound that could remotely alert someone that I’m here…but it is useless. I can’t. “You looked back,” he says quietly, cocking his head to the side slightly, and I notice how my body melts into the floor, allowing him to crawl over me.

     All I can do is stare into his eyes….

     My vision blurs with tears, and they start streaming down uncontrollably. “Tell me that you want to forget about me…” he whispers into my ear. “Tell me and I’ll let you go.”

     But it is impossible. I cannot say anything. It feels as if someone poured cement into my throat and now I can’t even breathe properly. I just shake under his body, helpless to whatever he’ll do next.

     “Say my name, Cassie.” He demands in a sternly, low voice.

     I fight so hard this time, refusing to let myself fall into the hole in his eyes are. The tears burn, and it almost feels like I’m choking. I can’t breathe anymore, so the only thing I manage to spit is a shallow, “No.”

     The cement in my throat begins to take over the rest of my body, pinning me completely to the ground and causing the shaking to stop. Now, now I’m just choking. I’m choking, I cannot move…yet he only seems to get more amused about it. So he leans once again, obligating me to feel his frozen breath on my ear.

     “I’m The Past, Cassie…. And, God, have I missed you.”

     There’s no use on fighting anymore, watching as everything around me fades slowly into a pitch dark. And I know it. Now I know it.

     I belong to him.