~ * ~

'And when your head explodes with dark forebodings . . .'

Last entry in Rhiannon Mary Lougher's Diary
'What is death? It is reviled, hated, despised, feared. Why? We know not what death means, we know not what death brings. We know only that death is. It exists, and yet it does not. To us, death is an ending. An ending is the cease of existence. Death is an ending, how can it exist? Death is feared, yet if it does not exist, what is there to fear? Endings are not reviled, they are not feared; death is only an ending. Or is it?
In death, the soul is released to the Otherworld. The ending triggers the beginning. Death triggers life. An ending cannot be an ending if there is a beginning that follows it; and that beginning cannot be a beginning if it follows an ending. Death cannot be death if there is life after it, and the releasing of the soul cannot be called a rebirth, because the soul was never dead. There is no ending and no beginning, only a circle in which the soul travels. There is no death, only life. Life does not begin or end, it simply exists. So what we know as death, is life, and what we know as life, is part of the never-ending cycle. Death and life are one and the same, all that is and is not. Why then, is death feared? It is life . . .'

~ * ~
Late October, 1998
Tulsa, Oklahoma

Silence. Not a sound was uttered.

Taylor's words rang in everyone's horrified and disbelieving ears.

'She wasn't dead when I found her!'

Shock - and horror - was carved into the features of every person in the room, including Tay himself.

After so long, he'd finally fallen through the thin ice he'd been skating on; finally let out the black secret he'd chained inside his heart.
'Oh God, what have I done?!' he thought.
The safe little world he'd locked himself in was crumbling before his eyes.
'What have I done?!'

"She wasn't dead?" someone whispered. Taylor didn't know who, and he didn't care. That cracked the silence that had paralysed everyone. Questions were shouted left, right and centre; 'What do you mean?!', 'What the hell are you talking about?!', 'What happened?!', 'Why didn't you tell us?!'.

Taylor wanted to bolt.

Faces.

Millions of them

All her

They closed all around him.

Trapping him in.

He couldn't breathe.

Shock turned to panic turned to sheer terror.

He could see her, the rage in her movements and the wildness in her eyes.

The final chain around the prison of his heart snapped.

And that one memory - with all the unbearable guilt - exploded on his mind.

"NO!!!"

His crazed scream terrified everyone into silence. They backed away in fear from the teenager, millimetres away from the edge of sanity.

He could breathe again. Long deep breaths pulled his mind back from the treacherous cliff he'd almost tumbled off. His eye opened a crack. The faces were gone; the memory was receding. How had he lived with it for so long? No matter. It was free, ready to pounce on him and knock him over the edge. If he didn't exorcise it.

"Tay?" Zac asked, cursing the mouse stuck in his throat that made his voice squeak. Or was it just fear? Peering from behind the lounge - where he and Rachael had dived, petrified by Taylor's screams - Zac stared, wide-eyed, at his brother.

Fists at his temples, Tay was shaking his head, rocking slightly back and forward; his eyes closed.

A single wet drop slipped down his cheek.
"Tay?" Isaac gulped when he got no answer. Tay was just playing right? He was just pulling some stupid gag that in two seconds he'd collapse into a fit of laughter and say he'd fooled us all so bad. Wasn't he?
Why couldn't he convince himself?
Fear welled up inside of Ike. What could he do?! Near panic, he looked around the room, trying to calm down and think rationally. Jessie and Avie had fled upstairs, terrified; Zac and Rachael were peaking out from behind the opposite couch, their eyes as wide as saucers; Arian and Lew, along with his parents, were simply staring at Taylor in shock, waiting for something to happen. Mackie was shrieking.
Then Isaac saw his ex-friend.
Carlton was glaring bullet-holes in Tay's skull. In Carlton's eyes, every ounce of blame rested on the shoulders of his dead sister's best friend. Hyperventilating faintly, Ike stared at his brother, who hadn't ceased rocking slightly back and forth with his fists at his temples.
The knuckles were white.

It was Walker who first regained his wits enough to speak.
"Diana, get the kids out of here," he said to his wife, then cautiously moved towards his son. Quickly calming a bawling Mackie, Diana grabbed Rachael and Zac by the hand. Neither protested as they were pulled upstairs.

"Tay? Taylor?" Walker said sternly, taking his son by the shoulders.
"No," came the only reply. It was a whisper frozen with horror. Walker's heart was racing from fear, not of, but for, the boy in front of him. He forced himself to stay calm.
"Taylor? Wake up!" there was a long pause. Tay opened his eyes.
"Dad?"
"What happened Tay?" Walker asked, relief almost bringing tears to his eyes. Taylor misunderstood.
"The faces. They surrounded me, wouldn't go away. I couldn't breathe. Then it all came back. Can't bear it, pushing me back. The edge, about to fall -!" he was working himself into a frenzy. Walker couldn't help it, he shook him.
"Stop! It can't hurt you,"
Nothing, Tay replied.
"Son, I think you better tell us exactly what happened," weakly shaking his head in protest, Tay knew there was no getting out of it now.

That one cold, bitter day that had haunted him all these years was swimming in his eyes.

He had to release it.
He had to let it go.
He had to tell someone.

But it was too painful . . .

His voice was hollow and barely audible, but Taylor began.

~ * ~
Late November, 1996
Tulsa, Oklahoma

There she was! Just up ahead. The footprints had shown up clearly in the snow. Of course it had to be her! Who else would be out in the forest in the snow? God she was running fast!
'I would be too if I were running away!' he thought.
But why? Why the hell was Rhiannon running away? What would make her run away?

From the way she'd been acting, he'd almost expected something like this to happen.

His Mom thought she'd just gotten lost in the snow, but the snow had started falling yesterday afternoon and hadn't stopped until late this morning. Mrs. Lougher had said that Rhiannon had gone to bed last night and was gone come morning.
'Yeah Mom, people really go out in snow-storms just for the hell of getting lost! BUZZ! Wrong answer! Do not pass Go; do not collect two hundred dollars!'.
Tay glanced at his watch. 2:23pm. The snow must have slowed her down a lot, but why go out in the middle of a snow-storm? Was she crazy?

He shivered.

"Rhiannon! Stop!" he called out. But Rhiannon did not stop. She ran faster. "No! Rhiannon, come back!" he desperately shouted. She simply kept running, deeper into the forest. Sighing Taylor followed. The chase, it seemed, was on.

By God, that girl was a fast runner! It seemed every time Taylor was getting close to her, she'd run faster and disappear into the trees again. She could go on all day; she had the trophies to prove it.

But why? Why was she desperate for him not to catch her. Why was she so desperate to get away?

Tay felt like he was about to collapse. How long had he been chasing her for? He looked at his watch again. 3:18pm. Almost an hour! No wonder he was exhausted! But he had to find her! He couldn't just let her go! She was his best friend!
God, did she have to run so fast?
He forced his legs to move and ran once more.

"Rhiannon?" she had disappeared. The foot-prints in the snow had just stopped. She couldn't have just vanished into thin air!
Could she?
"Rhiannon?" he called again, worried, desperate, more than a little frightened.
'Come on Tay!' he told himself, 'This is Rhiannon! What's she gonna do? Insult you to death?'.
"Maybe," he whispered and peered down into the ditch beside him. Why was he following this stupid 10 foot deep canyon that looked more like a dry creek bed? The snow was not all that thick here. He could see the stones and tree roots sticking out. An ugly thing in an otherwise beautiful place. But something was wrong.

This forest was quiet.

Too quiet.

Almost as if it held its breath.

Waiting for something.

But wha-

"AHHHHHHHHHHH!!!" The scream echoed through the forest. Terrified, Taylor was about to run when something crashed down on him. Fists rained down on his shoulders, nails raked at the back of his neck, and all the while shrieks echoed in his ears. He managed to elbow his attacker in the ribs, distracting them enough for him to throw them off his back and scramble to his feet. What he faced paralysed him with shock.
"Rhiannon?"

This was not his best friend.

It couldn't be!

Could it?

The long, dark hair wasn't long any more.
Its crudely hacked length fell barely to her shoulders, and was crusted with snow.
Her clothes were ripped; the naked low branches had made short work of them.
Her left glove was missing, the fingers a sickly shade of blue.
The cuts on her face were clogged with frozen blood.
Less than a day and already she looked like a savage.
But it wasn't that that had rooted Taylor to the ground.
It was her eyes.

They were wild.

She didn't just look like a savage, she was a savage.

Those eyes; contorted in rage, tortured with pain. He'd never seen that look before in his life, but then, the fear it instilled in him was new as well.
"Rhiannon?" the only response his fearful questioning got was screams in a language he couldn't understand, if it was a language at all.
He glanced down at the ditch beside them. Not a place he'd like to be knocked into by a crazed girl who used to be his best friend!
He took one hesitant step away, and she was shrieking, charging at him. She threw herself at him, knocking him flat. He felt the sting of her jagged nails biting into his skin long before he saw her eyes. Something else was there, something more powerful than the rage and pain combined. It was fear.
She was terrified of him.

He fought her, desperately trying to get her off him. He madly threw his fists at her, only to have her grab one and bite it. Hard.
The pain stabbed him like a hot poker.
His other fist connected with her face, knocking her away. On his feet in a second, he backed away, racking his brains trying to think of a way to calm her down and to get away from this ditch. His fists felt like they were on fire! She was writhing in pain; her cheek was disfigured, most likely fractured. Horrified that he'd hurt her so badly, Taylor rushed over and knelt beside her. Grabbing her arm, he wrenched her hand away from her cheek to try and get a better look.

Big mistake.

Enraged with pain and terror, Rhiannon leaped onto his back. Bolting upright, Taylor tried to throw her off, but she clung like a leech. Jagged nails burned across his skull, pulling at his hair until it came out in her fingers. Like a vampire, she bit into his neck so hard she drew blood. Her heels dug into his sides.
All the while Taylor was shrieking in pain. He hadn't wanted to hurt her, but by this time pain had taken over all reasoning. Fight fire with fire. Grabbing one of her hands, he ripped it out of his hair and bit harder than he ever had before in his life. The sinking pain at the base of his neck disappeared and her cry rung in his ears. He elbowed her continually as she kicked at him. He grabbed her hair and desperately tried to flip her over his shoulder and off his back; her nails were ripping the wounds on his neck to shreds.
Taylor was running. He didn't even notice. Pain had taken over. All he could see, all he could hear, all he could smell, all he could taste and definitely all he could feel. He was pulling her hair out by the handful and still she hung onto him. Her teeth sunk into the top of his ear. The pain was unbearable. One split second more and she'd bite clean through!

Then it happened.

Taylor's foot came up hard against an exposed tree root, tripping him over.
Rhiannon was thrown off his back.
He didn't hear her shrieks, every sense bar his sight shut down.
He couldn't take his eyes away from the figure that seemed to be suspended in mid-air.
It all happened in slow motion.
He could see the ground slope away underneath her.
She began to fall.
So slow, it might have looked as if she was floating.
The steep sides of the ditch reached up to cushion her fall.

Then he saw the rock.

"NOOOOO!!!" he didn't even hear himself scream as her head bashed against the hard stone.
Whip-lashed forward, her neck snapped sharply in on itself before her head hit the ground.

And did not move.

~ * ~
Late October, 1998
Tulsa, Oklahoma

"I can't even remember what happened after that, except that Dad and Ike found me and took me home," staring straight ahead, Taylor's voice was strangely blank. Empty.
Stuck in the numbness that sets in, before the pain explodes.
"YOU BASTARD!!" Carlton, who'd stood motionless and listened to a mentally unstable teenager tear apart his memory of his little sister bit by bit, now moved fiercely into action. With tears pouring from his eyes, Carlton flew at Taylor, throwing wild punches. Only a few hit, since he was blinded by his tears.
Taylor said and did nothing, he didn't even seem to have noticed what was happening.
Walker and Lew grabbed Carlton by the arms and held him back. The man, who now looked very much like a boy, stopped struggling and gave into his tears.
"You bastard!! YOU KILLED MY SISTER!!!" he screamed. Arian, somehow seeing through her tears, walked over and slapped her only son hard across the mouth.
"No Carlton, you're the bastard. You can't bear to put any blame on your sister because you know what happened to her. You know just as well as I do what happened to her! It had nothing to do with Taylor! But you have to blame someone because you won't let yourself believe it was an accident. You keep reminding us you're a man now, so why the hell don't you start acting like one?!" she slapped Carlton again. And again. Diana hurried to her friend's side and quickly put an arm around her shoulders, leading her upstairs, away from the pitiful sight in the living room. Arian didn't protest; covering her face with her hands, she broke down.

Paralysed with shock, Isaac hadn't taken his eyes off his brother.
Tay hadn't moved.
Even when Carlton had attacked him, he hadn't moved.
Stiff as a board, he stared straight ahead at the wall just above the fire place. The expression on his face was vacant, hollow. His mind had switched off.

On Taylor, it was terrifying.

He was capable of doing anything; he could go outside and murder an old, defenceless woman or an innocent child, or even his entire family, and not know or feel a thing. Tay happy was okay, Tay pissed off was not, Tay furious was something nobody wanted to see, but Tay nothing at all? No emotion, no feeling; it was almost like he was a robot. If somebody had told him to go knock himself out, he'd smash his head against a wall until he had.

Tay nothing at all was dangerous.

Taylor stood up and slowly started for the back door. Suddenly afraid, Ike went to go after him, but his father's hand on his arm stopped him.
"Let him go Ike; he needs some time alone,"
"But Dad -"
"I said let him go. Would you check on Arian and your mother?" Walker asked, the pain in his eyes turning the words into a command. Trying not to shake with fear for his brother, Ike watched Taylor disappear in the direction of the hill, then forced himself to walk upstairs.

* * * *

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