Jacky
I opened my eyes, and everything hit me at once.
I was standing in a field. Not a pretty field-just empty, lifeless. The air was heavy, thick with something sour, something wrong. I could feel it on my skin, feel it in my throat, but I couldn’t place it at first. Then I looked down.
Anna was there. At my feet.
Her eyes were wide. Staring. Not at me. Not at anything, really. Just… empty. Like they were open because someone forgot to close them.
My hands were covered in blood. Thick, sticky, fresh. It was on my fingers, dripping off my palms, soaking into my sleeves. I didn’t know if it was hers or mine or both. Didn’t matter. It wouldn’t come off. No matter how hard I rubbed, no matter how much I scrubbed, it was there. All over me.
I froze, my chest tightening as panic crept in. I dropped to my knees, trying to get closer to her. Maybe-maybe-if I touched her, if I could just feel her warmth or something, she would come back. But nothing. Nothing happened. She was cold. Her skin felt like it belonged to someone else. She wasn’t breathing.
“Anna…” My voice was barely a whisper, but it tore through the silence like a scream. I tried again. “I’m sorry. I’m… I didn’t mean… I didn’t mean for this to happen.”
I don’t know why I kept talking. She wasn’t going to answer. But I said it anyway. Words just spilled out, choking me, as if saying them would make this all stop. But nothing changed. She didn’t move, didn’t make a sound. She wasn’t there anymore.
I felt sick. The bile rose up in my throat, but I pushed it back down. I wasn’t going to throw up. Not here. Not like this. But my body didn’t care what I wanted. It felt like my insides were trying to rip themselves out of me, like everything I’d ever done had come crashing down in this one moment. This wasn’t supposed to happen. Not like this.
My fingers brushed her cheek, and I wanted to scream. I wanted to shake her, wake her up, do anything to make her open her eyes. But I couldn’t. I could barely hold myself together.
Then there was a sound. Behind me.
I turned, and my heart stopped.
My mother. She was lying there, too. A few feet away, like she’d just dropped where she stood. Her eyes were open, but they didn’t see anything. They were staring at the sky, like she was still waiting for someone to come.
My legs went weak, and I stumbled back, almost falling. I couldn’t breathe. I couldn’t think. I couldn’t even move, not really. I just kept backing away, but the ground was littered with bodies. Everywhere. Faces I knew. Faces I didn’t. All of them staring at me, judging me. All of them… dead. All because of me.
“God,” I breathed, shaking my head. “This isn’t real. This isn’t real.” But the words didn’t make any difference. The smell, the blood, the bodies-they were all real. Too real.
I wanted to scream, but I couldn’t. My throat was tight, like it was choking me. My heart felt like it was going to break in two, but there was nothing left to break. It was just pieces now.
I kept walking, stumbling, trying to get away from it, from them, from this. But every step was heavier than the last. My legs felt like they were made of stone. I couldn’t breathe. Couldn’t think. I was trapped in a nightmare, and I couldn’t wake up.
I looked down at my shirt, and it hit me. Blood. Everywhere. All around me. I couldn’t even tell where it was coming from, but it didn’t matter. It was mine. I was covered in it. My stomach twisted, a sharp, sickening pain crawling up my spine. I felt it in my chest, in my throat, in my head. The guilt was so thick, it was choking me.
No. No, I couldn’t. I couldn’t have done this.
But I had.
I fell to my knees again. My hands landed in the blood. The warm, sticky mess. I couldn’t escape it. I couldn’t escape any of it.
“Please,” I whispered. “Please, let this be a dream. Please.”
But it wasn’t.
I could feel my heart pounding in my chest, hard and fast, each beat shaking me. My breathing was ragged, like I couldn’t get enough air. My mouth was dry, my hands shaking uncontrollably. I could feel the tears coming, but I couldn’t cry. I couldn’t let myself. I couldn’t break. Not now. Not here.
I glanced back at Anna. Her face. Her eyes. She wasn’t looking at me. She wasn’t looking at anything. She wasn’t there anymore. And it was my fault.
I’d failed her.
I had failed everyone.
The blood, the bodies, the silence-it felt like it was closing in on me. I couldn’t breathe. I couldn’t think. I wanted to run, but where? There was no place left to run.
“God, I’m sorry,” I choked out again. But it didn’t help. It didn’t bring her back. It didn’t fix anything.
I heard a noise behind me again, and I spun, my eyes wide, heart racing.
Nothing. No one.
I couldn’t take it anymore. I couldn’t handle the guilt, the weight of it all pressing down on me. It felt like I was sinking, like I was drowning in it. I wanted to scream, to hit something, to do anything to make it stop. But I couldn’t.
My hands dug into the ground, and I pushed myself up. I had to stand. I had to. But my legs gave out. I collapsed back to the ground, my face buried in my hands, and I couldn’t stop shaking.
The tears finally came. I couldn’t hold them back anymore. I let them fall, hot and fast, streaking down my face. But it didn’t change anything. Nothing changed. Anna was still gone. My mother was still gone. Everyone was still gone.
And it was my fault.
“I’m so sorry,” I whispered again, this time to no one, to everyone. But it didn’t matter. They weren’t here. They couldn’t hear me. They were gone, and I was the one who had taken them.
I don’t know how long I stayed there. Maybe minutes. Maybe hours. Time didn’t matter anymore. All that mattered was the silence and the blood, and the fact that I had no way out.
No way to fix this.