Chapter 3 – Memory and Shadow

1/26/2020 --:--

“Oh shoot I’m late!” Ryan thought as he rushed to get ready for school. Ryan hurriedly shoved his textbook into his backpack and rapidly brushed his teeth. Hurtling down the stairs, he rushed to the door and opened it to see the school bus driving away. In desperation, Ryan tried to wave down the bus as it disappeared into the distance. Glumly, Ryan let the door close behind him once he trudged back inside.

Suddenly, he remembered his mom, Mrs. Davis, was not going to work that day. “Hey mom,” Ryan asked “Could you drive me to school today?”

“Sure” Ryan’s mom replied “I have to go run errands today anyway”

“Thanks” Ryan sighed, relived he might arrive on time.

Mrs. Davis grabbed her coat and car keys as Ryan rushed out to the car. Starting the ignition, Ryan’s mom swiftly backed the car down the driveway and headed towards Ryan’s school in the icy January morning. Driving quickly, Mrs. Davis said “I hope school goes well for you today, I understand you have been having a hard time there.”

“Mmph” grunted Ryan in sullen acknowledgement of his mother’s gross understatement.

“Ryan,” his mother began hesitantly, “I know your father and I ha--“

Ryan would never know what she was going to say as a semi-truck, hitting a patch of black ice slammed into the right side of Mrs. Davis’s small car where Ryan was seated. With a horrible crunch of the aluminum car body, the glass windows of the car exploded as the airbag failed to deploy. Ryan’s ribs shattered with a snap. The shards of bone from Ryan’s ribs pierced his lungs and heart as his face and eyes were cut by the flying glass shards.

Ryan’s head slammed against the dashboard. The last things Ryan saw and heard was a warm red flow filling his vision and a horrible mangled gurgling/screaming from punctured lungs…his own scream. Everything went black, cool and comforting darkness.

Ryan woke in a dark, dusty and wet place. He struggled to his feet, but found he was uninjured. “Where am I? What happened?” thundered through his brain. Immediately after these thoughts, Ryan heard a deep rumble, like a cat’s purring except this rumble was deeper, menacing instead of comforting, and it was warped somehow. Warped like when an audio device or toy is low on battery. Ryan felt a shiver skitter up and down his spine. It was a primal, evil sound.

Unable to pinpoint the direction the sound was coming from, Ryan began to look around frantically. By now his heart was pounding and his mouth was dry. The air was laced heavily with fear, his fear. Ryan suddenly spotted movement out of the corner of his left eye. He turned and looked in that direction. It was then that he spotted the eyes, goopy, black-red eyes. They were color of dried blood except more black.

The creature snarled and rushed at him in the dark. Ryan fell back hard onto the ground screaming in terror and pain as his flesh was shredded under a storm of slashing blades, claws and teeth. Ryan let loose a final agonized scream that echoed into the darkness. Ryan woke with a gasp.

Sweat drenched his sheets, shirt and pillow. “It was just a nightmare” Ryan said, relived “A horrible, vivid and terrifying nightmare.” He rolled over and looked at the clock on his bedside. It read 3:00AM. Ryan rolled out of bed and changed sheets, shirts, and his pillowcase. Still very tired, Ryan eased back down into bed. Unable to sleep, he began to think about his nightmare. This led him to remember his best friend’s recent death.

Ryan was not able to push the thought away fast enough and he started thinking of all the times his friend Michal had shared with him, the good and the bad. Michal, his friend for ten years on whom he could always depend. Ryan began remembering all the times he had a

birthday and only Michal had shown up, but it did not matter because of how deep their friendship was. Ryan remembered how things never really felt lonely when Michal and he were together.

Even though neither of them had any other friends, Michal was to Ryan better than ten friends. Michal had been a comrade and a brother whenever Ryan needed him. “Now,” thought Ryan “all of that is gone and I am alone.” These hard and painful thoughts brought back Ryan’s emotional turmoil, and Ryan wept. Hard, bitter gut-wrenching sobs shook his body as tears streamed down his face and onto his pillow, and cries of a wounded soul poured into the lonely night. Until at last exhausted, Ryan found sleep.