Chapter 1: The Field Of Ash
I breathe gently as my head rests on my overstuffed pillow. My eyelids have given out on me and closed against their will. Blurs of bright colors pour into my mind, creating pictures of vivid places in my imagination. The sweet scent of nature flows into my nostrils as I run in the endless green field. I suddenly stop. There is a figure in the field with me but they are a distance away and I cannot make out who they are. “Hello?” I call out. My voice was lost with the wind. As I step forward, exaggerated colored butterflies surround me while flying to the ocean blue sky in unison. A smile comes across my face at the beauty of these simple creatures. The sky then becomes dark as the butterflies disintegrate and the once green grass turns to ash beneath my bare feet. Wind begins to blow roughly against my body. I try to keep the wind out of my face as I approached the figure across the field of ash. A cloud of smoke swallowed me when I tried to touch the figure without a face nor body. It had just been a blur that was now smoke. The wind unexpectedly died. I gazed around the darkness, attempting to find light. A pinch of light was on the other end of the field, glimmering in the smokiness. I run to the light with incredible speed. Tears were streaming down my cheeks. I was afraid of the murk I was running through. The light consumed me and I end up in my kitchen. The ceiling fan ticked at every spin. It hung slightly from the ceiling, almost falling off. Someone was sitting at the small round table with their back to me. The only gleam was coming from the fridge that was cracked open. “I never asked for this. All I wanted to do was help.” The person sitting at the table uttered to themselves while twitching as if being shocked by tiny bolts of electricity. “Amir.” I recognized the voice of my best friend. “Just wanted to help.” He said, his back still turned to me. “Amir.” I took a step forward. My feet stepped into a thick cold liquid that seemed to ooze in between my toes. I lift up my foot and wipe the substance off cautiously. My heart began to bang against my chest as I noticed the liquid on my hand was blood. “Amir!” I grabbed my friend’s shoulder. “Just wanted to help!” When he turned around, he was missing several teeth and his face was severely scarred. I fell into the pool of blood out of fear. A bone was sticking out of his neck and dried up blood covered to left side of his neck. “I never asked for this!” Amir creepily crawled to me, showing triple-jointed abilities. “Never!” He was close to my face as he yelled. I abruptly wake up in my bed, sweating torrents out of my pores.