Rescue: Part 7

It was the Shaman!

Amelia felt herself being dragged through the tunnel that led to the outside world. Quickly everything was illuminated by the iridescent moon.

The Shaman let go of her, “Fight,” he demanded.

“What? Why?”

“You look just like her. For that you must die. Fight me!”

“You’re raving mad!”

“Fight!” He screamed a battle cry and jumped at her. Amelia barely had enough time and energy to draw her sword. She held it up, but halfheartedly. She was so weak.

She parried his attacks slowly weakening. Finally, when all hope was lost she gutted him.

“You look just like her,” he said warmth abandoning his body quickly.

“Who?”

“Rebecca Clearwater.”

“Who is she?” Amelia said surprise dawning on her face.

“My girlfriend,” he said gasping for his last breath. He groped for her hand and found it pushing a cold, hard item into her palm. She slipped the item into her clock and took a deep breath. Despite what he had done, she regretted his death. And then he died.

The girlfriend who betrayed him, Amelia realized. But why did she have her pen name? And why did she have her daughter’s name? Did it relate or was it just a freaky coincidence?

“Amelia are you okay?”

Katie’s voice brought Amelia back from her wonderings.

“Yeah I’m fine.”

“Your bleeding!”

“I’m fine.”

“Why are you bleeding?”

“Let’s just say I was weakened for a reason. You were right. Can we go home now? I’m tired.”

“Yes of course.” And the six girls piled into the car. They had won!

When Amelia got dropped at home last Katie stopped the car and Amelia was about to get out when Katie stopped her.

“What happened out there?”

“I almost got killed.”

“Yeah but did he say anything?”

Amelia relayed what happened and they sat in silence for a minute while Katie took everything in.

“So what did he put in your hand?”

“I don’t know.”

“Well look.”

“Ok.” Amelia removed the vial from her pocket. The vial was filled to the rim with a airy, silvery liquid.

“His memories,” Amelia breathed.

“Wow,” Katie whispered, “Are you gonna look at them?”

“I guess I’m supposed to. You want to come?”

“You sure? There may be something you don’t want me to see in there.”

“What wouldn’t I want you to see?”

“I don’t know.”

“You’re my best friend my life is an open book to you. Come on.”

Amelia got out of the car and hoped Katie would follow. She relaxed when she heard Katie’s car door close. Amelia started walking towards the front door of her house and smiled when Katie caught up with her.

They went into the house and Amelia went into the kitchen and got a flat bowl and then walked down the stairs to her bedroom with Katie close behind. She entered her room and went into her closet and typed in the passcode. 1-4-7-3. The door blew Amelia’s hair out of her face as it opened. She took a deep breath and stepped inside.

Amelia walked over to the table and placed the bowl on it and dumped the contents of the vial into the bowl carefully.

“After you,” Katie said.

Amelia stared at the silvery, stringy contents of the bowl and took a deep breath. She placed her face on the bowl and was confronted with an icy water feel. Amelia’s stomach turned as she began to fall. After many minutes of the sensation her feet fell firmly on the ground and her head began to stop spinning. Katie fell next to her and grabbed Amelia’s arm to stabilize herself.

They had fallen in on a wedding. It was extravagant. There was a young woman of about twenty-two and a man of about thirty getting married. She wore a long white dress and he a dashing tuxedo. They were exchanging rings and then they kissed with such passion that it brought tears to the congregations eyes. Amelia looked around at the church, they were at Trinity Menlo Park. Her head began to spin but she grounded herself concentrating on the transforming scene around her.

The newly married couple buying a house in Queens, New York and working to make it beautiful.

The man beginning to have affairs and finally sticking to one girl no older than sixteen.

The young woman crying over a pregnancy test. She was pregnant with his child. The young pink bundle being brought into the household of the couple now having been married for ten years. The wife taking pity on the lured in sixteen-year old and taking her in. A toddler of about three standing in a room with her mother, the young woman now nineteen. In a man-free household raising her daughter.

She looked into the girl’s eyes, “I will never leave you, we will be best friends forever.”

A car, holding the young woman, getting hit by a drunk driver.

The ex-wife of the couple breaking the news to the toddler that her mother is gone. The toddler began to wail in agony.

The ex-wife and orphaned child moving to California to begin a new life together.

The man impregnating another young girl eleven years later.

The young woman dying in child birth.

The man sending the child down a river in California naming her Rebecca Clearwater, after the mother of his first child.

And finally the man losing all his money in a harsh lawsuit and moving to the mountains to become a Shaman.

Amelia and Katie warped back and were back in the secret room.

Amelia bent over crying uncontrollably.

“You were the little girl weren’t you?” Katie asked gently.

Amelia nodded.


The End