Rachel summoned a power, dove back down to the ground, landed atop the alligator, and with her feet, crushed it, sending it into the ground. The alligator sunk all the way into the moist earth, feet below the ground, until it was no threat to her.
Rachel hurried away, and glanced over her shoulder, and saw the alligator’s feet sticking out above ground, kicking, helpless. How had she done it?
Rachel hurried, faster and faster, deeper into the swamps, feeling lost, desperate, hopeless. She was beginning to feel that she would never find the cemetery.
Rachel ran, scratched by branches. She wanted to get out of here.
Crying, Rachel ran and ran through swamps until eventually, out of breath, exhausted, she stopped running and slumped beside a huge tree.
A thick fog rose up, and she could no longer see in front of her.
Rachel slumped down against the tree, leaning back against it, a huge ancient oak tree, ten times as wide as her, and she lay there, and closed her eyes tight. She listened to the sound of the bats and the alligators, and God knew whatever else, and she cried and cried, willing for it all to go away. She curled herself up in a ball, clutched her knees, and wished for the whole world to disappear.
*
Rachel dreamt troubled dreams. She saw herself running through fields of flowers, and as she looked down, the flowers all turned tombstones. Dozens of them, then thousands. Stones turned to crosses, ancient rotted wooden crosses, all crooked. Then the crosses grew hands, impossibly long hands, and reached up and began to grab her.
She screamed and screamed, fighting her way out of the thicket of claws.
Rachel blinked and found herself descending steps, deeper and deeper, beneath the earth. There was a soft glow at the end, and as she reached out, she saw a lone figure standing down there. His features were obscured.
As she came closer, her came into view. It was the boy she had been seeing in her dreams.
Benji.
Something was happening inside her mind, and she was beginning to remember who he was. There was something important about him. She knew he was important her. She just did not know how.
“Rachel, my love, it’s me,” he said. “Benji. Don’t you remember?”
She reached out and touched her fingers to his face, felt his features, his delicate skin, his strong cheekbones, his high forehead. His skin was so smooth, pale, perfect. The touch of his skin electrified her. She ran the back of her hand along his cheeks, then leaned in to kiss him.
But as she did, suddenly Benji disappeared, collapsing into a ball of light. She kissed the light, and he was gone.
“Benji!” she screamed out.
Standing before her now was a boy, with very different features than Benji. Another boy she recognized. She knew his name immediately: Rob.
Rob held out a hand for her, and she reluctantly reached out and took his hand. He pulled her the other way, back up the stairs, in the opposite direction of Benji.
“Come with me,” he said. “It’s okay.”
“But who are you?” she asked.
“Don’t you remember? I’m your first boyfriend. The one you loved first. I want to take you out of here.”
Rachel looked up the stairs, then turned and looked back down.
Benji was gone, just a ball of light now.
She wanted to go after him.
But Rob was yanking her up the other way.
She pulled her hand away from Rob, away from his fierce grip.
“I don’t want to go with you,” she said.
Rob’s face suddenly collapsed into a ball of tears, and as she let go of his hand, she found herself falling, backwards, screaming, into the ball of light.
Rachel woke screaming.
She jumped up to her feet and sat upright. She looked all around, wondering where she was. She realized she was still leaning against the tree. It was still night, and she was covered in sweat.
Rachel heard a weird hissing noise, and she looked down, saw a huge snake, slithering right towards her, it’s long tongue but inches away from her feet. She quickly retracted her shoe, and sat there very still. It slithered faster.
Rachel slowly stood to her feet, and backed up. She watched as it came right for her.
Something strange happened. Time slowed down, and she could sense the vibration of the snake. She sensed its anger. Its intent. It was about to strike her. She could feel it. Before it even did.
Rachel suddenly leapt up into the air, high above the ground, faster than the speed of light, a second before the snake struck.
It struck where she had been, but it just missed, striking air instead, as she hovered high above it. From up here she could see it was a huge snake, twenty feet long, as thick as her leg, and she realized that she would have been dead.
She hovered in the air, and grabbed a branch. Hanging right beside it was a vine, and she reached out and grabbed it, and held on tight as she swung, hurling through the air.
Rachel swung through the fog and the mist until finally she saw dry ground. She dropped and landed, far away from the snake, and hurried off again, setting off at a quick pace.
Finally she pushed through the trees and reached a clearing in the swamp. It was dry ground, solid, and she was shocked to see there before her, glowing beneath the moonlight, dozens of ancient graves. In the center was a gigantic marble mausoleum, rising up, twenty feet from the earth. It looked ancient, as if it had been there for centuries. Her heart leapt. She could not believe it.
She had found it.
Rachel hurried through the cemetery, towards the huge marble structure, torches around its gates. She knew she had to go inside, sensing that whatever she needed to find was behind those Gates.
As she reached out to grab the handle, suddenly, she heard a voice:
“And just where do you think you’re going?”
Rachel spun to see a girl standing there, facing her. It was a girl she hated. She did not know why.
“That’s right,” the girl said. “It’s me. Violet. You thought you could escape from me.”
“What do you want?” Rachel asked, on guard.
Violet did not respond. Instead, she stepped up and backhanded Rachel hard.
Rachel cried out in pain, as she felt the back of Violet’s hand smacking her so hard across the face, it made her spin.
Rachel collapsed to her knees, blood in her mouth, the sting of it ringing in her head.
Rachel looked up, shocked at the girl’s strength, but she had no time to react.
Violet reached down, grabbed her by the back of the shirt, and threw her.
Rachel found herself flying through the air, landing face first in the mud, rolling, smashing into a tombstone. She spun, breathing hard, and saw Violet bearing down on her, leaping through the air, sprouting wings, fangs and claws extended, and diving right down, to pierce her.