Strange Eyes
Twelve

When I awoke, the heat was back.

It was devastating. Unbearably stifling. I couldn’t breathe.

Quickly, I gasped as I got up out of bed, the fair light of morning coming in through the window as I threw the sheets away from my sweating body. I was out in the hallway, my vision blurring as I staggered towards where the yellow light had been the night before. Somehow, I just knew to go there.

I clutched at my throat. That was the first time I thought of my parents in the hours that I had been gone. Who knew how much time had passed. It all blurred together as I thought of them, coming up out of their mindless daze to look desperately for their missing daughter.

If only they knew.

No one was there. I held onto the back of the couch as the heat spread up my spine, making me sweat profusely. It burned through my skin, straight through bone. It was unbearable.

I found myself pushing open the back door, walking straight out onto the beginning of the property. The air was cold. Frigid. It brought on a temporary relief. But I knew it was coming. The moment when the heat would become too consuming. A horrible dread filled me to the brim. Frantic, I looked around again, for anything. Anyone. The world was closing in. It felt as though I were holding on by a thread, staring into the blinding abyss, the darkened unknown.

One moment, I saw the trees swaying. The fall leaves against the ground, yellow and brown. Then, the hands were on me. Catching me. A swell of voices that were unfamiliar to me swirled in and out of my fading ears, speaking a language that I didn’t know how to comprehend. And then, I was gone from the world, the blackness consuming me.