The Broken Circle Prologue Draft #2

I’m running through the cold, wintry air that burned into my skin. My limbs and joints are numb, and the biting wind grazes my cheeks. My frosty legs are aching madly, but I keep putting one foot forward, throwing myself into the race. It was a race against myself, against what I felt.
The tears froze in my eyes; I was unwilling to let them drop. What was the use? Nothing could make things better – nothing. Suddenly, I was sprinting through a deep, dark tunnel, the blackness threatening to engulf my whole. I felt claustrophobic, suffocated in this space. I couldn’t breathe, but I kept on moving. It was the only way to keep me sane.
A sharp decline tugged at my body and soon, I was sliding on my pair of torn, faded jeans. Sliding down and down into empty space, not knowing where I was going, what would happen to me. The enclosed cave-like walls whirred past me; the wind howled loudly in my ears; my heart kept beating and beating…
Landing on my denim-clad bottoms, I looked around me and slowly stood up. I tried to take in the rest of my surroundings, but I couldn’t. Everything else was just a blur, except for the one right in front of me. My skin prickled and I felt warm again, tingles shooting up my back and straightening my spine. What was happening?
Why had I been running this race all the while, if only to meet the one person I was running away from? Yet, my heart sent little flutters that unwillingly rumbled my chest. My frame shook under my emotions – they were so powerful, so uncontrollable. I was almost scared of it. It seemed as if my entire being had melted into the sight of him.
Those chocolate-brown eyes, dark black hair, that intense gaze that made him look like an otherworldly creature… I couldn’t look away, but I couldn’t stand the pain of seeing his beauty. It was a phenomenon, being trapped in my own body without having control over my soul. Fantasy and horror molded into one, confusing me and my thoughts.
Nothing came to mind. What should I do? Where can I run? Could I run? Questions floated about in my head, passing by too rapidly for answers to appear. If they could appear out of thin air, but they couldn’t. I didn’t suppose they could. Because everything scattered in infinite directions when he took a step closer to me.
My breathing quickened, my palms turned clammy and my pulse raced. He couldn’t possibly be doing this to me, and yet he was. We were so close now our bodies were almost touching. He reached down to take my hand, his eyes holding mine all the while, and then his lips moved. The most beautiful, delicate sound flowed out of his mouth, like the best music in my ears.
“Kathy, I…” It was then that my hearing drifted away. I frowned. I couldn’t tell if he had been saying my three most treasured words, and this frustration nagged at me. He’d been so close. What happened? And then he started melting away; my vision turned black. Slowly, slowly… the agony of it all burned me.
I was left in the blinding darkness. He was no longer there; I could no longer see. I wanted to scream, kick, fight, pull, shout, yell, shriek! But no sound escaped. I was trapped in the realms of my own mind and nothing could get me out. I was stuck in this black abyss forever…
I woke up, thrashing and screaming in my bed. The sheets were all tangled up between my legs and my arms were flying about. As soon as I realized where I was, I quickly became quiet, taking deep, calming breaths. I hated this nightmare. I’d been having it for slightly over a week now, and I hated it with all my guts.
It reminded me of him, and I was traumatized by the fact that he was just slightly out of reach when I’d lost him. I never wanted to lose him; he was the one who disappeared from me. I clamped my eyelids tightly together, pushing away the remnants of my sleepless night, and of him. I wasn’t supposed to think of it, and I would not.
Reaching over to my bedside table, I brought a glass of water to my lips and took a long, unwinding gulp. Warmth flooded back into my system and I smiled. It felt good to be in charge of myself again. I liked having control over me. It soothed my nerves. I got out from under my thick, magenta blankets and off my cream-coloured bed sheets.
I walked over to my wardrobe. I didn’t really have anything on today, so I just grabbed a pair of faded jeans and a purple shirt with the rainbow peace sign. As soon as the hot water hit my back, I relaxed my tense shoulders. All this stress was taking a huge toll on my neck and upper torso; it was just so hard to ignore the pressure of life.
I washed down the fruity shampoo and soap and stepped out of the shower, toweling my hair furiously. I tangled through it with a comb and then ran my condition-slathered fingers up and down the dark brown mob. A spray of my favourite strawberry perfume and a thick coat of gloss later, I walked down the steps of my house’s marble staircase with the wrought iron railing.
My family was already up, watching True Blood – the latest vampire TV show – on HBO. The visual effects were stunning on our new LED Samsung 32” plasma screen, and the low bass blared through our high-definition speakers. They left a mess of breakfast plates on the dining table and I sighed.
Seating myself at the wooden rectangular table covered with a frosted glass top, I dug into my cereal with cold goat’s milk. My ears listened to the hushed voices of the vampires, my mouth concentrated on swallowing the chewed up food, but my mind was wandering into forbidden places.
I’d disallowed myself from thinking about him. My stone heart had been hardened during the time that passed between us. I’d vowed I’d never hurt myself like that again; I would bleed no more when a cut showed up. And yet, here I was, eating the cereal that was mixed in tears of anguish.
My tears. I blinked, swiped at my wet, streaked face and stood up. The chair scraped against the wooden floor noisily. Sweeping up my half-finished bowl and the other empty bowls littered around, I brought them all into the kitchen. I marched in with my whole army of clanging crockery and set them in the stainless-steel sink.
While cleaning up, I tried my best to keep my mind contained. I knew I couldn’t think about anything related to him, and since just about everything did, I tried to stop thinking at all. Instead, I focused on rinsing, soaping, washing, drying and then arranging. My body moved mechanically and, to my dismay, so did my mind.
I just couldn’t help it. I used to be able to ignore everything I was feeling; shove them all into some compartments in my brain and lock it in there. But it appeared as though everything was tumbling right out, accompanied with a mindless gut-wrenching feeling. Tingles started at the pit of my stomach and ran all the way up my spine and nesting at the back of my neck.
I shivered. These weren’t good tingles – they were bad. They reminded me of the times when something horrific had happened to the people I loved. It was this gut feeling of loss, as if my body knew what was coming before I did. I hated feeling this way, but I couldn’t control it. Call it some sort of sixth sense, but I ignored it all the same.
Just then, somebody shuffled into the kitchen, interrupting my thoughts, but not the feelings. I wasn’t sure who it was, so I kept my lips pursed together, drying the last bowl in the sink, when a hand pressed down gently into my shoulder. I didn’t bother craning my neck to turn around and see who it was.
After placing the green plastic bowl carefully at its allotted place, I slowly angled myself to see the person behind. “Mum?” I greeted, sounding more like a question. In actual fact, it probably was a question, albeit an instinctive one. Her eyes were watery and her shoulders slumped over her, limp. It reminded me of a certain lifeless form…
One foot went in front of the other and I was soon leading my mother out to sit on the burgundy leather couch. The television program had been paused and everybody turned to look at me. Those terrible tingles grew greater and now felt more like monkeys, leaping through the jungles, jumping from tree to tree, hanging from different emotions all at one time.
“Sit,” my dad gestured to the foot stool. I quickly grabbed it and sat. “What’s going on?” My family exchanged frightening glances at each other and I gulped. What was this bad news that everybody knew except me?
“Honey, the Martinez family are in a little bit of trouble,” my father started, his voice running low and deep. It felt as if I was on a reality TV show in slow-mo, everything just flying past me. “And…?” I urged him to continue, although I didn’t really want him to.
“And we need to help them. I know you might not agree to this when you know the full story, but you’ve got to hear me out-” I interrupted him and screeched irritatingly. “Just what is going on?!” My voice trembled a little and then annoyed me even more. My father sighed and put his head in his hands, his fingers massaging his forehead. My mother looked strangled and pale, and my sister shook when she opened her mouth to speak.
“Kathy,” she took a deep breath, “Alex is in the hospital. It’s a life-threatening situation and he might die anytime. The Martinez’s need our support right now.” Time definitely stopped them. I could no longer hear the words my sister uttered, or the shallow breathing of my parents. Nothing could outweigh the torture of the fact that my nightmare had come true. He was slipping away from me right there and then, all over again, and there was nothing I could do now to stop it.

--The Broken Circle; Prologue 2