Page 24 of Memories Like Fangs
I knew exactlywhenI was.
Behind me was my Mom, my Uncle Everett, the high-rooted trees, the lake and its waterfall, the entrance with yellow daisies, my childhood home, the last moment I ever saw my Mom alive.
Ahead of me was the day my mother had died and when I almost died.
How was I here? How had I been sent back?
I didn’t have to look back to know who chased me. The shouts of the hunters behind me splintered the air. I could hear the click of their guns, theschwingof their blades, the loading of their arrows in their crossbows. They were close, too close. I didn’t remember them being this close. I didn’t remember there being so many of them. I didn’t remember this much chaos.
Suddenly, it hit me.
Something went straight through my back and out of my stomach, sharp, brutal, searing, and wrong. It stung like murder, making me feel like I was being torn in two by a monster made of fire. I couldn’t breathe through it. The pain made my knees buckle beneath me as fast as the yanking backward of what was now embedded within me. I cried out, unable to move away from the agony. My vision swam from my anguished tears, but I couldn’t help but look down to see what the cause of this was.
When I did, I couldn’t help but gasp, even if it was around the pain and made me feel more of it.
There, jutting from my stomach, was a harpoon dart. The pole stuck from my back out the other side. Blood and rain were slick on the harpoon’s barbs, but I could also see the swirling and smoking blood magic pulsing underneath. The barbs of the harpoon dart held true, sinking further into my stomach and biting into me more.
Just like earlier.
Earlier in my current day.
It was the same harpoon.
The same pain.
This hadn’t happened before. This wasn’t my memory. This was wrong. I tried to reassure myself, to maintain my sanity to the best of my ability.
This wasn’t real,I argued to myself as my brain tried to reconcile what I was feeling with what was happening.
This wasn’t real.The fresh and screaming wounds of my past and present twisted themselves together into this moment.
This wasn’t real.This didn’t make sense, but it didn’thaveto make sense. There was only hurt. Blinding. All-consuming.
This wasn’t real.But itfeltso real.
Thishadto be real.
The harpoon pulled me, bringing me back to the present. I screamed and sobbed, my tears falling in large drops to the ground. The mud soaked into my already wet clothes as I landed on my side. My hands clawed at the ground and still slipped as I tried to get up. Laughter rang out around me.
Sharp.
Cruel.
Familiar.
Then, two shadows seized my arms and pulled me up to my knees abruptly. The sudden movement made the wound in my stomach scream. My sobs threatened to choke me, and I wished they just would.
The sharp end of a blade touched my chin and pushed it up. I blinked through the rain, tears, and pain to see.
It was then that I saw them.
And my heart sank.
These weren’t the hunters from before. Not the ones I remembered from that day. They were dressed the same as the hunters from my actual past in their camouflage clothes, heavy boots, and thick gloves. These hunters carried weapons from guns to swords to crossbows, but their weapons didn’t have that pale glow of the magic from my memory. No, these were tainted with blood magic. Worse of all, these hunters weren’t wearing masks or hiding their faces behind dark, thick goggles. I could see their faces clearly.
Her eyes stared into mine. Where there was usually so much warmth there that I felt like I would be dry by just being near her, these eyes were just… cold and dull. I could find home in her eyes in reality. But now, the hazel had no life to it. There was no love there. They were just bottomless pits, reflecting nothing but my own terror.
This… This wasn’t my Quinn.
