Forever and Always Chapter 3

Chapter 3

There was little light to see by, only the moonlight coming in through the windows.

“What just happened?” Austin asked.

“Must be a power outage,” Jim answered.

I looked out the window towards the town and could see the bright lights of the shops and restaurants just down the road at the bottom of the hill.

“Wouldn’t the lights in town be out too?” I asked.

“They should be,” Jim replied, peering out the window with me.

While looking out the window at the bright lights of the town far below, I saw something move in my peripheral vision. I turned to look at it, but found nothing.

That’s when we heard something on the roof.

“What’s going on?” Angela asked, carefully coming down the stairs after putting Brittany, Rachel, and Jessie to bed.

“I don’t know,” Gabriel answered, moving over towards her, his protective instincts kicking in.

“Shh,” Jim said.

We all stopped talking and listened carefully for any noise. The silence rang through my ears louder than any noise could.

Just as I was about to speak up, proclaiming that we were all being paranoid, the front door flew open and the window shattered as someone came flying through it.  

I immediately flew into action, scooping Daniel up in my arms and running up the stairs. I ran into the bedroom where the girls were and slammed the door shut behind me.

“What’s going on? Why is it so dark?” Brittany asked.

“No time to explain. Everyone get into the closet and keep quiet,” I ordered.

The three girls complied without question and ran into the closet. I deposited Danny with them.

“Ralphie, I’m scared,” he said, clutching his stuffed dog.

“Everything will be fine. Just don’t make a sound,” I said, giving him what I hoped was a reassuring smile.

I closed the door, and not a moment too soon, as someone came barreling into the room a second later.

I got into a fighting stance, ready to face my opponent. They were covered from head to toe in black, and something that resembled a ski mask covered their face. I couldn’t make out any features, except that the person was much bigger than I was.

They started towards me, but I dodged them and brought my foot up to kick their face. It wasn’t a very good hit, since I was used to fighting in pants and was currently wearing a dress. Luckily I had taken many combat classes at the Academy and was able to adapt to most situations very quickly. I countered with a swift kick to the person’s knee, knocking them to the ground.

I smiled triumphantly to myself as the person struggled to get up and turned around to face me. But instead of coming for me again, they started backing up, towards the closet door.

“Oh no you don’t,” I said, moving with lightning speed and blocking the door. I made sure to leave a few feet of space between me and the door so I wouldn’t get cornered against it.

I got into a fighting stance and waited for him to move first. But he never did. Something grabbed me from behind. I looked around, trying to find whoever had a hold of me, but I couldn’t see anything.  It was like an invisible force had wrapped itself around me.

My arms were pinned to my side, so I couldn’t do anything to remove whatever it was that had a hold of me. Then, it started to constrict. I struggled and squirmed, but it just squeezed me harder. I found it getting harder to breath. Every time I tried to suck in more air, it just squeezed me tighter. I tried to scream to alert someone to my predicament, but all that came out was a little squeak. My vision started to get cloudy, and black spots were dancing behind my eyelids. Just as everything was about to go completely dark, I was released. I fell to the ground, trying to inhale as much air as possible, but this hurt my chest too much, so I started coughing uncontrollably.  

Once my coughing fit subsided, I was able to pay attention to the voices around me.

“You weren’t supposed to touch her!” a female voice said. It sounded familiar, but my mind was too foggy from lack of oxygen to figure out who it was.

“Whatever. We got what we came for. Let’s get out of here,” a male voice responded.

Despite having heard two voices, I only heard one pair of footsteps leave the room. I stayed laying on the floor, my chest feeling like it was going to pop.

About a minute later, Jim and everyone else ran into the room. He got down on the ground next to me and tried to help me up. But my chest hurt so much that any movement, including inhaling the smallest of breaths, felt like I was being stabbed.  

“Raphaelle, what happened?” Jim asked.

I opened my mouth to speak, but all I could do was gasp in pain and make horrible wheezing noises as I unsuccessfully tried to gulp in air.

“She can’t breathe!” Iris exclaimed.

“What do we do?” Austin asked.

“Make her sit up,” Gabriel said. He had done very well in all his medical classes, so he knew what he was talking about.

Jim helped raise me into a sitting position. As soon as I did, my chest hurt even more and I gasped as more daggers were shot into my lungs. But gasping, of course, made it worse.

I tried to lie back down, where it was somewhat less painful, but Jim stopped me from doing so. I brought my hand up to my chest to communicate that I was hurting even more.
“Someone go get her some water,” Gabriel said.

Adelaide ran down the stairs to get some water.

“Hurts…so much…can’t…breathe,” I gasped.

“Just take even breaths and try to calm down,” Gabriel said, kneeling down beside me.

I did as he said, and slowly I was able to breathe in just a little bit without my chest hurting too much. It wasn’t enough to clear my head completely, but just enough to keep me from passing out.

Adelaide came back up the stairs with a glass of water. I slowly and carefully drank it. As soon as I did, my chest felt much better.  

“So what happened?” I asked when I found enough breath to speak.

“I’m not really sure. We started to fight some guys all clad in black, but they ran out almost as soon as they had come in,” Angela explained.

“Who were they? Were they robbers?” Iris asked.

“Maybe. I guess they found whatever they had been looking for and left,” Jennifer said.

My eyes widened and I started scrambling to get to my feet. Jim tried to stop me.

“Raphaelle, you need to take it easy,” he said, trying to get me to sit back down.

“Just help me up,” I spat, shooting him a look that said he was either with or against me.

Jim reluctantly pulled me to my feet and I slowly made my way towards the closet door.

I prayed and hoped that they would still be in there, keeping absolutely silent like I had told them to. I wished with all my heart that when I opened that door, Daniel would be sitting on the ground, clutching his little stuffed dog as tightly as he could, his sisters huddled around him.

I tentatively reached for the doorknob. I held it for a moment, too afraid to actually find out what was on the other side.

But I took a deep breath, turned the knob, and threw the door open.

No one was inside.

On the ground was Daniel’s little stuffed dog. I slowly bent down and picked it up. I just stared at it in despair. It seemed so much bigger in his small arms.

I turned it over and found there was a note attached to its back.

All the blood drained from my face as I read the words inscribed upon the page.