Destined Mate

Where am I?

Lee turned around in a circle on the same spot as she looked around, searching for something familiar, but all she could see was fog of a misty early morning. She raised her hands to her face. She could see that. She looked down to the ground. She couldn’t see her feet, but she could feel the solid ground beneath them.

Where exactly am I? She wondered, her heartbeat echoing loudly in her ears.

Don’t panic. Take deep breaths. She’d barely taken one deep draw in when the fog in front of her began to part. Startled, she took a step back. She looked to her right, then to her left, and finally behind her. Thick mist surrounded her, only the front seemed to be opening up. What was she to do? If she was to leave this unknown place, she had to move, and the only path open to her was ahead.

Gathering all her courage, Lee took one step into the opening. The fog parted for her. She took another step, and the path opened wider. With each step forward she took, the cloudy mist opened further, leading her to—to what? Her feet froze under her before she could take another step. Where exactly was she going? Where exactly was she being forced to go?

Just keep moving, a little voice in her head said. What other choice did she have? Hands fisted at her sides, Lee continued her pursuit, not bothering to try and see through the fog around her. She noticed the path only opened when she forged ahead. Despite the fear crawling up her back, patience was what she had to hold on to. That and courage.

Her foot bumped into something, and she stumbled. Quickly, with her arms stretched out she fought to remain on her feet. The last thing she wanted was to fall and get lost in this fog that didn’t allow even the slightest light through. She let out a breath of relief once she gained her footing. Knowing she wouldn’t be able to see a thing, she looked down for the hell of it. It was a step. For the first time, she could see the ground and it was a step. Was she going up a stairway? Gingerly, she lifted her foot and landed on it. The moment she did, the fog parted to reveal two more steps. She took them both, placing both feet on the topmost step.

What was that? At the landing, the fog parted even more, and she could see something. It was brown and looked like… her heart leaped in her chest. Is that a door?

Her feet moving quicker under her, Lee rushed to it, relieved that she would finally be out of the fog. She came to a step right in front of it, a smile on her face as she confirmed her hopeful suspicions. It was a door! Finally, she could get out of this horror movie setting. She reached for the doorknob and something suddenly hit her.

Why did this look familiar? She wondered as her eyes roamed over the brown wooden door with a bronze knocker and matching handle. Where have I see this before?

Something about the familiarity made her heart beat a little faster. This, she thought, shaking her head side to side, something wasn’t right.

The fingers of her raised hand curled into her palm, suddenly too afraid to see what lay behind the door.

Lee jumped with a small scream at the roar that tore through the air. She looked around her and whined with frustration. She couldn’t see anything through the fog. Worse, it seemed to be thickening, pushing her forward towards the door. She turned to face the door with apprehension. What choice did she have? With shaking hands, she reached for the doorknob again. With a spurt of courage, she pushed it open. The door swung open revealing the inside of a house. Daring not to take a step in yet, Lee peeked in and looked around. It looked normal besides the nagging sense of familiarity. Where exactly was she? Why did her heart beat so hard? Why was she so afraid to go in?

“Mommy.”

A child-like cry echoed in the empty room. She wasn’t alone. There was a child in there and she was scared. Lee could hear it in her cry for her mother. Should she go in? She couldn’t not go in. There was a child in there and she was probably alone.

Shaking off the fear with a desperate whine, Lee rushed in, giving no room for second thoughts. With each step she took, the weight of feat grew tightening around her chest like a vice. She raised her hand to her tightening throat. She needed to get out of this place before she suffocated to death. Something bad was going to happen, she just knew it; just as she knew she had been in that house before. She needed to find that little girl and find a way out of that place.

Just ahead of her, a little girl, with her back to Lee, appeared. Relieved, she rushed to her. Kneeling down beside her, she placed her hands on the little girl’s shoulders and said, “Hi sweetheart. What are you doing here alone?”

Lee noticed how shaky her voice was, despite how chirper she tried to sound. Hopefully the little girl hadn’t noticed. But the girl didn’t respond, she didn’t even turn to face Lee. It didn’t seem like she’d even heard Lee speaking. Lee moved to crouch in front of her. The little girl’s cheeks were wet with tears, her lips were turned down in a shaky frown and her wet eyes stared unblinkingly ahead. Lee turned to see what she was fixated on.

A scream lodged in her throat at what she saw. Red splutters covered the walls of the living room. Blood. How she knew it was blood, she couldn’t say, but she was sure beyond a doubt it was blood.

“Daddy.” The little girl cried behind her. Lee turned to her when her cries grew to wails. She held her arm up as she pointed out, fresh tears spilling out of her tightly clenched shut eyes.

Lee followed the direction, and her heart stopped beating for a moment. Laying against the wall was a man covered in blood. He stared in their direction, tears spilling out of his eyes, blood dripping from the corner of his mouth. His lips were moving, he was saying something, but she couldn’t make it out. All she could hear was gargling sounds. Dear God, if that man was this little girl’s father, she shouldn’t see him like this. No child should see their parent like this.

“Sweetheart,” Lee began, her voice choked with tears that filled her eyes. She turned to face the little girl, but she was gone. She quickly vaulted up to her feet and frantically searched around her. Where had she gone? Her breaths came faster as she cried, hating how confused and scared she was. What the hell was going on?

“M—Meri—lee.” The strained muffled voice filled the room.

Lee turned to the man. He held his hand out to her. Lee rushed to him, taking his hand in hers. “It’s okay, I’ll find her. I promise.”

His hand tightened around hers. She could see the fear in his eyes as he stared at her. His lips parted to speak but a gush of blood came out instead. Lee cried harder, as a dark shadow fell over her. She wanted out of this messed up place. She didn’t want to be here a moment longer, but she couldn’t leave him alone.

“Me—ri—rilee. Ru—ru—n.” He stuttered, as he stared into her eyes. His eyes were full of desperation and pain. His daughter. She needed to find—

She gasped, her entire body going rigid. Her vision blurred with fresh tears; she opened her mouth to speak but only a strangled sound came out. Lee fell backwards at the shove. He’d pushed her and it looked like it took all his remaining strength to do so.

“Run!” he choked out then looked up.

She followed his line of vision and screamed as she scrambled backwards. There, standing at over six feet was what looked like a large dog. No, it was a wolf. She was sure of it. It had blood around its mouth. As he snarled, stalking towards her, its mouth drew back, exposing bloodied teeth.

“Daddy,” Lee cried as she tried to quickly crawl backwards on her hands, pushing back with the heels of her feet.

The wolf’s head lowered as it prepared to lunge at her.

“Daddy!” Lee screamed again as she tried to quicken her movements. Her hand suddenly slipped, and she fell backwards, flat on her back.

The wolf leaped. With a scream on her lips, Lee raised her hands to shield herself.

“Lee! Lee!”

Lee suddenly came awake to a scream ringing in her ears. Arms were wrapped around her with soft cooing voices in her ears.

“It was just a dream. You’re okay.”

Lee looked around then as she fought for breath. She was in her room, in her bed. She wasn’t alone. She was in no danger, there was no wolf. It was just a nightmare, another nightmare.

But why, why didn’t it feel like a nightmare?

“Morning.” Ann walked into the kitchen in her pajamas, her short blond hair was in a mess and she was clearly half asleep. She sat down, crossed her arms over the table and put her head down.

“Good morning to you too,” Maria responded with a beaming smile on her face. She was in a good mood this morning, like every morning. She was an early bird, the fact that there was only one bathroom in their three-bedroom apartment, was also a motivation. She always woke up early to be the first one to use it. She stood from the table and poured Ann some coffee in her favorite mug.

“Where is Lee? She’s going to be late for school…and why are you always so damn cheerful?” Ann grunted back at her. Maria placed the mug in front of her and went back to her bowl of cereal.

“Someone woke up on the wrong side of the bed, again. She must be getting dressed.”

Ann’s head shot up; she had one of her evil grins on. “Actually, I had the best dream ever!”

Maria put her spoon down, leaned back in the chair and looked at Ann. She knew whatever was coming next would be very interesting.

Ann always had an overactive imagination, and her dreams were way funnier, graphic and sadistic sometimes. When someone got on her nerves, she would imagine all kinds of ways of revenge, and she would settle the score with the person in her dreams. She always woke up happier when she’d annihilated the person.

“Who did you kill now?”

“Steve…” Ann said with so much glee.

Steve was their roommate’s boyfriend and Ann hated him with a passion. He was certainly attractive, tall, wide shoulders, a toned body and a face to kill for, but he was repulsive when it came to everything else. He dropped out of high school, didn’t have a job, he was sloppy and ungrateful, he treated Lee like a mindless drone, rather than the woman he claimed to love, and worst of all, he believed he was God’s gift to women and acted like it.

Ann saw through his façade of a loving boyfriend. She saw him for who he was: an opportunist. He claimed to love Lee, but the only thing he loved about her was her money. The part that annoyed her most was that Lee was like his puppet, he pulled the strings.

Maria on the other hand, tried her best not to have any opinion of Steve. The only thing she did was try and keep Steve and Ann as far away from each other as possible. She knew Lee was attached to him, and all she wanted was her friend to be happy. But they both stepped in to stop Lee when his demands were outrageous.

“Of course, who else would it be?” Maria had that heard-it-all-before voice, but that didn’t stop Ann. She looked even more excited. She stood up to dramatize her dream, almost knocking over her coffee.

“He was on set, on a beach. He was acting as this hot surfer—he wishes he could act, he wishes he was hot—but anyway, he was on his surfboard, waiting for this huge wave. When it got closer, he started paddling, and then he jumped on his board, with one of his stupid smiles pasted on his face, ready to ride the wave, all of a sudden…”

She paused, her eyes grew bigger and so did her smile. Maria waited, she was giggling, very amused by Ann’s efforts to add suspense to the story.

“Out of nowhere, a white shark came out of the wave and caught him between its teeth. He was screaming, crying for Lee to help him, ‘Lee, help me, help me!’” She poorly mimicked Steve’s hoarse voice as she threw her hands around. She tried to crease her face to look scared, but her smile was stubbornly stuck on her face.

Maria almost fell off her chair. She had her arms around her stomach, laughing hard.

“And this is the best part, Lee stood at the shore waving at him with a big smile on her face, ‘bye Steve! I hope that shark doesn’t bring him back’ then the director turned to her and said, ‘I wish it would, we need another shot.’” Ann was waving out the window, acting the part of Lee in her dream.

Maria was in stitches, she was laughing so hard tears welled up in her eyes, spilling over onto her cheeks.

“What’s so funny?” Steve walked into the kitchen, shirtless. His presence irritated Ann; she wasn’t smiling anymore. Maria stopped laughing. She had her hand over her mouth, hiding her wide smile.

“If only…” with that, Ann sunk into her chair, back to her former mood.

Maria bust out laughing again; she stood up and ran to her room to get dressed. She also didn’t want to get caught in the crossfire, she was in too good of a mood to have it destroyed by their fights. Ann and Steve couldn’t last five seconds in a room before they were at each other’s throats.

“So are you going to tell me what the joke is about?”

“You! Did your clothes run away from you? There is a garbage bag in the top drawer, I know for a fact that will stay faithful to you.”

“What, is my chest turning you on?” The corner of his mouth rose in half a smile, ignoring her last statement.

Ann covered her mouth with her hand and made a gagging sound. “I just puked in my mouth.”

Steve was pleased to have irritated her. He reached over the table to grab the box of cereal. Ann jumped for it first and placed it on the floor beside her.

“Hey what’s your problem?”