Stage One: Hope in Darkness

Curses (Lara)

"Lara! Get up!" From the land of dreams to the land that needs them. From asleep to awake in one heartbeat. I wake suddenly at the sound of my best friend's shouts, every thought in high definition. My eyes take in every cool beam of moonlight twisting its way through the curtains of my bedroom window. Without a doubt I know I should not be awake.

Though my eyes are open I can't think of why my heart is pounding. Annabelle's tone has permeated the once peaceful land of my dreams. My mind is empty, my body wide awake. It's as if a hypodermic needle of adrenaline has been emptied into my carotid. Her voice raised up as if spread on wings, I could tell that she had moved closer. Annabelle had slipped down the hallway, hard foot beats marking her progress.

"Get up!" She shouted it with even more intensity, her tone and volume raking fear across me. Her voice wasn't the only one I could hear, outside there were more. The clock on my bedside table read two thirty three. Something was wrong, very wrong. My door was flung open with a considerable amount of force, slamming it against the wall hard enough to crack the plaster. Dust floated up, drifting through the moonlight. Annabelle powered into my room with a flurry of movement.

"What's going on?" I muttered into the muted light of my room. I moved up the bed, propping myself against the headboard and tried to look out the window. The energy in the room had become charged with a stifling fear. I hadn't seen Annabelle this afraid in a long time and considering all we went through when we were young, neither of us scared easily.

"There is no time to explain, we have to leave now!" She practically yelled as she grabbed my arm and yanked me out of the bed. I stumbled after her down the hall for a few steps before I regained my footing. Her fingers maintained their tight grip on arm, it was as if she were afraid that if she let go she would lose me forever. More adrenaline and fear pumped through my wildly beating heart. If this kept up I might just die from a heart attack.

Without stopping, and without grabbing anything but her car keys, and allowing me a second to slip on my flats, Belle pulled me outside. Still in my fuzzy pants pajamas and oversized nightshirt. The air was a cold blast against my skin as she continued our mad dash to the car. I had no control over my limbs, being completely overpowered by Annabelle. She unlocked the car and placed me none to gently into the passenger side before slamming the door and racing to get in. As soon as the driver's side door closed she started up the car, not even bothering with a seatbelt. That spoke volumes, Annabelle was as cautious as they came. She had taken quite a few engineering classes for her degree, she was always going on about how dangerous cars actually were if you did the math. I never did, I hated math.

As she pulled out of the drive and onto the road I got my first good look around. The whole neighborhood was in total chaos. Families packing and loading up their cars. I could even hear screams in the distance. One shot through the dark, the yell was a cry, albeit one dressed up as the horror movie version. What the hell is going on? I wanted to ask Annabelle but she still seemed on edge. She was perched on a razor's edge and I feared one wrong thing might tip her over the side. I couldn't do that to her, not while she was driving.

Orange light lit up the sky in the distance. It danced across the buildings in the city. I realized with a start that they were fires. The city was burning, was this what Annabelle was so desperate to escape?

"Where are we going?" I asked, I turned to Annabelle to see her staring out the windshield, the look on her face was impassive. Like she didn't care what was going on around her, I knew better. Her hands, white knuckled from their tight grip on the steering wheel are what hinted at the turmoil just beneath the surface. The car hugged the black sheet of the road, bright head lights illuminating the onward road. Anxiety made my hands start to twitch and shake. Annabelle slammed on the brakes and the car came screeching to a halt. The seatbelt I had put on snapped with the locking mechanism and kept my head from kissing the dash. I looked out and saw what had made her stop. Ahead of us miles and miles of cars blocked the way. More screams filled the air.