The Oracle

Prologue

I had a boringly simple life just a couple of weeks ago. I had a simple name, simple family and lived in a tiny village called Tinsel, yet if you were to ask anyone who was under the legal drinking age of eighteen it was called simple Tinsel. Nothing ever happened, exiting or terrible.

Yet here I find myself, hungry, alone and terrified, sitting in the middle of a dusty double bed in a room that smells like out of date tuna and cheesy Doritos, in a run-down B&B in the middle of Scotland.

I turned eighteen last week, had the best birthday a small-town girl could have ever asked for. I had my best friends to celebrate with. My parents were smiling and happy by my side. I cant forget the most important thing of all was him. My first ever boyfriend, the love of my life, the boy who changed everything about my entire existence. Cliched I know but so very true. Every time he smiled at me i felt like fireworks were going off inside me, he'd only have to stroke my cheek or brush up against my hand to make my whole body break out into goose bumps, my breath would get laboured, the butterflies in my stomach would go crazy. Feels like a hundred years away from where I find myself now.

For the past five hours I've sat here jumping at every horn from the cars outside, every shout from the revellers leaving the pubs along the street, every door that opens or closes inside the B&B.

Yet I can't help but want to just lay down and close my eyes and erase the last twenty-four hours. However, I know it's not possible just like how I know what I saw on that road was impossible. No man or woman could do any of what I saw but I only have to look at the blood on my jeans to know the claws had caught me, or look at my chest to know the bruise from the seatbelt is really there and I am not going through some psychotic breakdown.

I can't bring myself to admit what I saw, that what I know to be real or fantasy is a huge f*****g lie, the past weeks of my life were all a lie, the boy who I had given my everything to without hesitation could have killed me at any moment if he chose to do so.

I felt the tears begin again. Id shed more tears in the past day than I have in my whole life, my eyes felt gritty and sore from too many tears, throbbing pain from the bruise on my chest was just another painful reminder of what I refuse to believe I saw. My stomach grumbles loudly and I whisper a prayer that nobody outside of this room can hear any of the heartbreak and misery that's going on inside.

He told me to wait here until he came back for me, but with every minute he's gone the urge to run gets stronger. The screams inside my head to go, to run as far and as fast as possible away from him and everyone like him, somewhere they will never find me. Hopelessly I know my feet haven't moved an inch, for all the pain and betrayal I feel right now a part of me hopes and prays he'll come back for me. He'll protect me, hug me, kiss me. Show me that everything we had together wasn't a lie and the boy I fell in love with is still inside him...…..somewhere.

The urge to go to the toilet gets too strong, as I stand up I groan In agony as the many bruises, cuts and scrapes make themselves known, not having moved in so many hours has helped me forget plus the shock I was in. I breathe in deep to ready myself to take a step when that horrible familiar nauseous feeling creeps over me, sighing in defeat knowing I am going to bring up the meagre content of my stomach up also. I take one step in the direction of the bathroom when I hear the faint sound of what started all this. I stop dead and hold my breath, straining to make out any noise outside. Seconds pass and nothing, not even a mouse squeaks and I let out the breath I've been holding. I take two more steps and I hear it again.

"Aaaaaaarrrrrrrrrooooooooooooooooooooo"

I heard the howl loud and clear and so close to the shitty B&B i'm stood in, way too close for me to even think of running now, I just hope it was him.