Page 1 of Buried Souls
PROLOGUE
I run through the woods, crippling fear tearing me apart and making me numb to the outside world. I can’t feel a thing, not even the razor sharp branches that rip and nick at my skin.
“Karina!” I scream, my voice cracking.
My lungs burn. My throat is dry and aching from the hours of shouting as I frantically search for my little sister.
“Karina!!!!”
Branches seem to shift at the sound of my voice as it's carriedthrough the towering trees and into the dark. An owl hoots from somewhere behind me, and as if in answer, the forest erupts in a chorus of screeches that only add to the nauseating sensations flooding me, telling me that something is terribly wrong.
“Karinaaa!!!” I try again, ears straining for the weakest hint of an answer in that sweet voice of hers, but none comes, and like a raging bull, I storm through the trees, pleading, begging, praying, that I’ll find her safe and sound.
I should have checked on her during the night. Should have made sure that she was in her bed, warm and asleep. But instead, I was too preoccupied with fixing the leak in our old roof.
An entire day passed before I successfully patched it up.
One whole day where, for the first time since our parents died, I let my guard slip. An innocent error in judgment that could now turn into a potentially fatal mistake.
Leaves rustle and tumble on the wind that’s become frigid, the temperature dropping the further I venture from the safety of home. A heaviness hangs in the air, oppressing and suffocating. Like a collar, it chokes me, making it difficult to breathe. But I know this feeling. I’ve become well acquainted with it over the years, and so, I’m not afraid.
Not anymore.
Not like the first time I felt it.
Twigs snap under my heavy construction boots as dawn finally breaks, and I halt, the sound of rushing water reaching me in the utter stillness that has suddenly swept through the forest.
“Karina!” My voice cuts through the deafening silence, slicing the chilly autumn air. Guilt eats away at me as I recall the disappointed and sorrow filled look in my sister’s eyes after Irefused, for the hundredth time, to keep her company and sent her on her way to play all by herself.
She wouldn’t have gone into the forest, I tell myself just as my feet move again and carry me toward the cold stream that’s just around the bend.She knows it’s forbidden for her to go in alone.And yet, deep in the pit of my bile infested stomach, I already know the forest is exactly where she ventured off to.
Sudden chills wrack my entire frame the moment I emerge from the line of trees—and I come to a screeching halt.
“No.” The word leaves me on a strangled whisper.
I stumble backward, falling on my ass. I don’t even register the sharp pain as I hit the ground, the sight before me too horrific, too surreal, and I lunge forward, crawling, groping, falling, as I frantically throw myself into the icy water.
“Karina!!!” I scream the name. That beautiful, angelic name.
“Karina!!!” The name of my most precious treasure, once so full of warmth and love.
Of life.
“Karina!!!!”
My arms snake under and around the frail body as I carry it out of the water, and I stare in shock and disbelief, in complete and utter catatonic paralysis, at the unrecognizable form before me.
Ghastly pale skin with a sickening blue tint covers a grotesquely bloated face, while glassy wide open eyes stare up at the morning sky. Deep purple lips are stretched into a mortifying mask of suffering—an ode, no doubt, to the last painful moments of her short, innocent life.
“Karina!” I cry out, tears streaming down my cheeks as I bury my face in the crook of her tiny neck and hold her close.
She’s cold.
So, so cold.
Solifeless.
“Karina—” I shake and convulse, my arms tightening around my sweet sister. The pupil of my eye. “I’m sorry—” I choke on my own words, my voice hoarse and strained. “I’m so sorry!”
