Chapter Two-- The Story Of How I Died (Trigger warning)

Trigger warning: Sexual assault and grisly murder. Viewer discretion is advised. I apologize if her backstory is upsetting.

My actual name is Victoria Williams, and I died about two months ago. Let me tell you about how I got to desperately running through the woods for my life.

I was always known to be clumsy and unlucky. Spilling coffee on my laptop in the middle of a cafe with unsaved homework, to tripping down a flight of stairs and breaking my ankle. I always took my shortcomings with stride, smiling and turning it into a joke. I've always believed that if I can make people laugh, my life would be okay. I always looked for the good in people, while forgetting a darkness that lurks. The day that I died, I finally was forced to understand it. Darkness of lust, and darkness of wrath.

It had already been a pretty rough day. My work as a nurse in a pediatric ward is ususlly pretty calm but this day I had been sent to cover the ER. I was an intern, but we were flooded to the brim with patients. I was almost in tears as misfortune after misfortune happened and I was on the front lines to witness it. Stabbings, mugging, broken bones, overdoses, countless cases flew by me and before I knew it I was standing outside on a stormy night. I felt hopeless and depressed after today. Usually this was something I could brush off, but today for some reason I felt like I reached a breaking point. Like the tragedy was finally getting to me. The other nurses told me it's normal, and I would grow out of it. You just become numb. I just didn't think it would happen this quickly. I tried to smile, but if the world was against my my phone began to buzz violently. I looked at the glowing box and cringed with I read the name.

This is the last I needed today, I thought and groaned. I begrudgingly pressed the talk button.

"Hello mother." I said coldly.

"Hello. How are you?" My mother's voice was brimming with entitlement and disinterest.

"Well, I--"

"That's great. You're brother just recently got accepted into the University of Toronto." I already knew where this was going.

"That's great mom. Can we talk about me for a minute, I had a rough day."

"That's so selfish to only talk about you," Her sharp words cut me deeply, "You're brothers achievements are just as important." I knew was going to be talking to a brick wall but it was worse than before. She kept going on about my brother, and how great it was he got into the university. I could just let out a sigh, which then got her to stop.

"You can't be happy to talk to me?" She growled, and I could hear more voices in the back. Most likely my father and brother.

"I would if you don't ask for money." Silence on the other end of the phone. I hit the nail on the head with that one.

"I just think it would be nice for you to support your brother." My moms voice was like venom, and the voices in the back got more irritated.

"I already support him, I pay you guys two hundred out of my paychecks. I can't do more."

"You can give us five hundred."

"A month? I guess I could do another fifty but no more." I almost felt relieved they were asking for so little this time.

"No not five hundred a month, five hundred a paycheck." I felt my blood run cold. I was already living on a razor edge, paying student debts, rent, insurance and my parents I had no extra money. I even struggled to eat sometimes.

"F-Five hundred a paycheck? I can't do that!" I gasped loudly.

"You have to, your brother needs help." She said angrily and blunt. I grew more infuriated, especially when my brother spoke up from the back.

"Stop being such a bitch Victoria!" He barked out. The rain got harder as if it could feel my pain. On instinct, my thumb pressed hang up. They tried to spam call me back but I just clutched my phone. They the texts came flooding in but I held strong. My world had fractured once again. My brother was the golden child and my parents were making me help fund him. I was invisible, and almost hated. If he needed a heart transplant I was sure they would give him mine. The only people I could count on was my boyfriend, best friend and myself.

Or that's what I thought. My fractured work became completely unraveled when I got home. Bodies tangled together, moans, groans and bed rocking. I could only stand there stupidly, dumbfounded as Riley drilled himself into Quinn. I felt like my entire world was crashing around me, a violent and bursting sounds in my ears. I didn't realize that it was me screaming at them, throwing clothes at them and knocking things over in a rage.

"How the fuck could the both of you do this to me?" I screamed, tears rolling down my face like the rain pelting the streaky window in the bedroom.

"H-Hold on babe," My boyfriend of six years Riley removed himself from my best friend of fifteen, Quinn. We were like shadow and light when we grew up together, her pale softness to my darkness. Blonde hair, blue eyes, clear skin and colourful clothes to my dark hair and eyes, red and ragged skin and dark clothes. We were always the opposite but we still loved each other. Now, I could feel both thier love for me burning a hole into my heart as I stood there. Lightning flashes across the scene, and I couldn't help but almost collapse. I caught myself on the doorframe, feeling bile rise up my stomach and I covered my face.

"Vicky... I'm sorry..." Quinn sniffed. Her tears made my stomach churned, and their victim complexes made me feel nothing but boiling rage. They looked as if they were the people who were wronged, not me. It sickened me to my very core, and I stared at them on disbelief. I could only manage a breif moment before my body acted on its own. I spun on my heels and ran out of the bedroom. As they covered their body parts and begged to explain, I bolted out of the apartment. I didn't remember running down the hallway and to the elevator, but all of a sudden I was there. My skin was cold since I was just wearing my undershirt from nursing. I was so entranced with what I had caught, I had forgotten I had taken off my nurse scrub top and raincoat before I entered the room. I didn't care though, as soon as the elevator doors open I bolted through the glass lobby and out the door.

Just my luck my boyfriend is a cheater.

The sky had been thundering for an hour previously, pouring down rain like pellets. It hit my skin hard, tearing at my skin and hair. It weighed down my clothes heavily as I raced through the streets aimlessly. Cars zipped by me, but my ears were drowned out. All I could hear was ringing in my ears and thunder from the sky. Maybe that was why I didn't notice him. That monster lurking in the shadows when I stopped for a breath, rain covering my eyes and making it difficult to breathe. I tried to catch my breath, but the rain was so thick as I was gasping for breath I felt like I was drowning. As I stopped for a moment, every emotion hit me at once. I couldn't stop the vomit that was racing up my throat from falling onto my shoes below me.

"Fuck..." I managed to get out before another wave of bile spilled from me. I felt weak. I felt like my body was being torn to pieces, and all that was left was a sad black hole. As the rain pelted me like rubber bullets, it was like I had a second of clarity from the muddled thoughts.

How clumsy of me to forget my raincoat, I thought to myself as the rain ran down my face as if cleaning me from sin.

I pointed my head to the ground, holding a metal pole with a speed limit. The area around me dark from the raining sky, the closest street light about twenty feet in front of me near an intersection. I lived in the Centretown area of Ottawa, surrounded by houses, alleyways and stores. I had forgotten to take into account the alleyways, because just as lightning flashed and blinded me, rough hand wrapped around my mouth and waist yanking me back quickly. I tried to scream, but I was pulled into the shadows and swallowed whole by the alley. Cars continued to whip by, oblivious to my struggle. I tried to bite on the palm, only for the person to scream. Suddenly I was thrown sideways, head knocking so hard against the brick wall that my vision darkened. I didn't even realize that I collapsed on the ground. I rain pelted my face, as did warm liquid running down my face. It was difficult, but I only got a glimpse of my attackers face. Fat and oily, covered in sweat and scraggly hair. I could never forget his beady black eyeshadow, staring at me like I was food and he hadn't eaten for weeks. His crooked teeth were twisted into a snarl. He lifted his meaty hand up and suddenly the right side of my face burned and burst as I was struck. I tried to gasp, but more blows came to my face, chest, stomach and arms. I could barely fight back, only croaking screaming.

"Please... stop!" I managed to weakly bleat out but it was for nothing. It was like he was drowning me out, or perhaps even getting off on my crying, screaming and begging. Between blows he tried to grope me, but as I weakly fought back he grew more frustrated and kept hitting me. Blood mixed with rain, and it splattered on his double chin and balding forehead. I had almost become numb, struggling to breathe.

"You should have been a good girl." He whispered over the rolling thunder. I heard a soft click, and I tried to weakly pull myself across the asphalt.

I want to live I don't want to die. I wasn't able to flip over because he was crushing my pelvis by straddling me. I felt like a turtle laying on my back, unable to get myself up once more. I could only watch helplessly as lightning flashes across something shiny in his meaty fist. That was when it happened. My right eye suddenly burned, and an almost exploding sensation happened at the same time. A inhumae noise filled the air, my screams bouncing off the walls. He twisted the knife deeper into my eye socket and I could feel the piercing metal digging into my flesh. I couldn't help the bile that spouted from my mouth mixed with blood. I couldn't count how many times he took the pocket knife out and smalled it into my chest and stomach. All I could feel was my tearing of flesh, the crunching of bone and the pounding if his fists on my skin. As my eyes faded into the darkness, I wanted to scream. I wanted to cry and beg God to let me live. I wanted to ask why I was destined for such a short lived and miserable life. What had I done wrong to deserve this? Instead, I got no answer other than the deafening silence I was finally craving. The sweet release of death, and I shuffled off this mortal coil.