Resurrection: A Dark Fantasy Tale (Kindred #1) Read online

  My world went from comfortably dark to painfully bright. My formerly private patch of grass was flooded by sunlight. I was surrounded by a crowd. Someone was disturbing my sleep, telling me to wake up. Someone else was throwing up in the distance. One person was calling the police. Another was asking for my name. A stranger laid their coat over my indecency. I appreciated the thought behind the kind deed, but the mere touch of soft fabric on any part of my broken body was enough to send me into another fit of pain that I kept inside. I wanted to return to my land of darkness, where no pain existed. This world had too many sensations.

  After drifting in and out of my world of darkness, I awakened to find myself in a hospital bed. Days later, when they finally released me, I was on so many painkillers that I barely qualified as conscious. My family became another small crowd for me to deal with upon my arrival home until Kayla politely shooed them away.

  My bed was covered with “Get Well!” cards and flowers and candy, none of which I could appreciate in my current mental state. Kayla cleared it off for me and helped me lie down.

  “They found me in the grass,” I told her, the words falling out of my mouth. “They beat me.” Kayla turned toward me, a look of concern growing on her face.

  “I know, Dina,” she said.

  “They were flying,” I said. “On brooms. They moved me with their minds.” Kayla remained silent.

  “They’re never going to find them,” I said. “They’ve escaped forever.” I told her everything then, even the details I had neglected to tell the investigators who had paid me a visit in the hospital. As expected, she tried to hide her disbelief, although it was still obvious to me. I allowed myself the luxury of tears for the first time since the incident. She brought me a smoothie with a straw and left me alone to rest, which was what I really needed. Some time to deal with myself before I handled anything or anyone else.

  My first night back home was one of the worst in terms of my recovery. The body length mirror on the wall across from my bed gave me my first good look at the entirety of my damaged body. My face was swollen and bruised almost beyond recognition. Below the bandages, invisible to the mirror but clear in my mind, was the strange symbol of a triangle within a circle etched in my stomach. One of the many marks that night had left on me. I wanted it to scab over and heal so that I could forget it had ever been there in the first place.

  That night, as the incident that had left me bedridden played within my mind, the tears came in gushes and waves, then small trickles and streams. Even when I had no more tears left to cry, my face never left that painful expression. Sleep reluctantly came to claim me and take me back to that world of darkness, but only after I had fully exhausted my supply of tears.