Freya Pierce and the Eye of Nowhere

HER face is what makes Freya Pierce wake up in the morning. Her pale white eyes, those maggots crawling on her wounds and flies coming out of her mouth. Her wicked laugh and her tormented screams, it echoes through her heart. It must be hard for Freya Pierce to wake up from the same nightmare every morning. Her pillow is wet, her heart is punching in her chest and her head is spinning. She looked around her bedroom and saw the clock beside her — it’s already 7:21 am. Freya stood up and dressed up for school — she didn’t even fix her bed. She wears blue pants, a black hoodie and dirty sneakers. With her jade-colored backpack, she went down stairs quickly approaching the front door. She smells the salty and sour aroma of pepper and garlic coming from the kitchen, someone must be cooking Adobo. Before Freya reaches the front door, a voice coming from the kitchen interrupts her; “Skipping breakfast again?” A middle-aged brown asian woman is in the kitchen, stirring through her right hand and holding a phone — talking someone in ‘Bisaya’ — through her left hand. This must be the mother, Veronica Pierce, a filipino immigrant who spent most of her time taking care of her family. Before married an American guy in LA, she was a waitress. Before being a waitress she was a janitor, was a cook, was a secretary and was an entertainer. Basically she had more jobs that anyone could have. She has the perfect motherly figure. But behind the face of a persevering woman is a devastating past of her 18 year old self, that she has buried decades of her life. “I’m good.” Freya said, and walked away but Veronica Pierce stopped her again. “Anak! You should eat before you go to school plus I cook adobo for lunch” At the dining table, a middle-aged caucasian man with a goatee beard, a fat belly and a prosthetic left leg is having a bottle of beer instead of a cup of coffee, quietly reading the local newspaper — this must be Jimmy Pierce, the father. He used to be in the US army. He was strong, intelligent, one of the best actually — the pictures and the medal of honors on the walls say it all. But an explosion in one of his missions took everything from him. Made him a miserable, boring man for the rest of his life. He couldn’t take a day without being drunk. Besides Jimmy is a 10 year old skinny with a bowl haircut, who’s eating waffles for breakfast. This is the younger brother, Billy Pierce . A geek, comic book enthusiast, curious and a sweet young man. “No thanks Veronica.” Freya said. She wears headphones and walks away through the front door — she didn’t even let Veronica finish talking to her. Through a bus, Freya arrived at school. A pop-punk song is playing through her headphones. As she walks through the hallway, banners are everywhere about the spring break. She went to her locker to get books for her first period. Suddenly, her body bumps to her locker; someone pushes her from behind. She heard laughter from the group of girls. “Freak!” one of the girls said and laughed. As she turned around, she saw four girls walking away from her. It was Deniece Hunter and her witch friends who pushed her. Since middle school, Deniece has always been bullying Freya for a lot of reasons. Deniece is a devil with the face of an angel. Freya hit her once in the head with a baseball bat when they were in middle school. Deniece has crossed the line for teasing her family, specifically about Veronica. It made her so angry and in one snap, Deniece found herself lying in the ground with her blood dripping through her face. But this time, Freya didn’t do anything. She just walked away and went to her first period. The bell rang for the lunch break. Freya, as usual, eats alone in the corner of the school cafeteria. Everything was fine, until the crowded cafeteria became empty. Everyone’s gone except for Freya. She stood up to look for everyone. “Hello? Somebody?” She shouted and she only heard her own echo. All the colors around slowly fade to gray. It becomes colder and darker every second. Freya hears something — someone is whispering. She looked around and saw a lady sitting facing the wall at the corner of the cafeteria. The lady has very long messy hair with dry leaves and mud on it. She wears a white dress and her body is shaking. “Hello?” Freya said as she walked slowly towards the lady. “Are you okay?” The mysterious lady kept whispering until Freya touched her shoulder. “She is coming.” the lady said softly. Freya is confused, “Wh-who’s coming?” Stutters as her lips are weakened by fear. The lady turns around, revealing a decaying face. Eyes are pale white, maggots are crawling in her decaying face and flies are coming out of her mouth. Freya stepped back, her legs were noodles, her spine was frozen and her heart was screaming in horror. “SHE IS COMING! SHE IS COMING! SHE IS COMING!” The terrifying lady screams on repeat with her voice shifting in different pitches. Freya is covering her ears but the more she tries to unhear it the louder it becomes. She was helplessly screams in fear but then suddenly a cold water drips all over her face, she smells lemon. The screaming from the lady’s gone, the only thing she hears is laughter. As she opened her eyes, she saw Deniece with her friends laughing at her. “What’s with you, freak?” Deniece said in laugh, her friends covering their ears and screaming — they are mimicking her. Freya looks around, everyone was there all along. She looks at her wet clothes with ice melting and slices of lemon on it. “Have you completely lost your mind?” Deniece said then throws a plastic cup on her. Freya stood up, ran away in shame. Wishing that this is just part of her horrible nightmare. “Look at her! How pathetic. She has no friends, her real parents threw her away and her adopted mother is a w***e!” Freya stops to walk as she hears those words from Deniece. “I heard that she was a stripper in the Philippines. Married an American pathetic guy for a green card! No wonder why she’s a lunatic.” Freya walked towards Deniece with her frowning eyes and crumpled eyebrows. “I told you! Do not bring up Veronica and my family.” Deniece smirks, “What are you gonna do about it? Cut my head open again? Oh my god! I’m so scared!” Everyone laughs. And everything went dark and slow for Freya. Freya clenched her fist tightly — shaking as she clenched it tighter. Her eyes are filled with rage. Freya couldn’t move her shoulder, doubting to punch her as she knew it would make things worse. Freya looks at Deniece’s eyes instead and cursed her with her mind; “I hope your angel face will turn into face of demon.” And for a moment her fist sparks with red light but no one noticed, not even her. Deniece noticed that Freya’s eye color turns in to scarlet for a second. Deniece steps back a little with her creasing eyebrows. Freya runs away, putting the hood on her head to hide her teary eyes from everyone. The theatre room is always her haven to weep. She feels pathetic and weak, she couldn’t do anything to fight for herself and for her family, especially Veronica. Cigar butts and bottles of liquor are all over the place. People are dead drunk, scattered on the floor of the Hunter’s residence. Meanwhile, in Deniece’s room is her and a man with a perfectly chiseled body and with devilish looks, they are wildly kissing each other. Deniece pushes his pumped chest and falls down onto the bed. She sits on his thick thighs and undresses her bra in front of him “You want this, Babe?” Deniece said, intimately rubbing her breast infront of her boyfriend, Theo Dean. “That’s my angel.” Theo pulls her head into him, kissing each other tongue to tongue. The sound of lust and the smell of alcohol are all over the place. But the scarlet eyes of Freya flashes on Deniece’s head. That interrupts her for a moment. “What’s wrong?” Theo asked. “Nothing.” Deniece bends her body on Theo. Theo rubs every curves of Deniece’s body. Deniece feels the lust pulsing through her veins. She whines as he drives. In a moment, everything feels perfect. But all of the sudden, Deniece feel something burning inside of her body; like a destructive flame. She tried to keep going but the pain is growing. “Ugh! Theo! Stop! It hurts!” She begs but Theo doesn’t stop, instead he drives faster. “That hurt huh?!” Theo whispers to Deniece with his heavy breath. Deniece is whining in pain. Her head is floating, her vision is getting blurry. A blood-curdling laugh and screams of dread is echoing in her head. “Stop!” she moans in pain. Theo pulled Deniece’s hair on to him, he grabbed her neck, aggressively rubbing his chiseled body against her. “You’ve been a bad angel, Deniece.” Theo said in a very low pitch voice. Deniece turned her head around and saw the decaying face of Theo. She screams in horror. Theo opened his mouth revealing blood-stained teeth and a long wounded tongue with maggots on it. He put his tongue in to her mouth. She chokes as it crawls through her throat. Meanwhile, the real Theo was sitting squivers as he watched Deniece’s naked body floating in the air. Her eyes are rolling into places. The Jasmine scent on her body turns into a rotten egg. Her smooth skin turns into desert; its fairness turns into darkness. A pair of horns grow on her forehead. Her perfectly curved body deformed as her spine excessively expanded until spikes appeared on her back. Her angel face has completely turned into a demon face. Deniece’s body fell back on the ground. As she opens her eyes, she sees Theo is screaming, afraid of something. “What happened? Why are you screaming?” Theo crawls backwards from her as she is about to approach him. “Stay away from me, Demon!” Theo screams, pathetically cries in the corner of the bedroom. Deniece accidentally looks at the mirror and she sees a horrifying demon. She screams with the thousand souls in her vocal cords. Looking at the stranger in the mirror. Freya awakens to echoes of screaming. As usual, she dressed up for school, didn’t fix her bed and went downstairs. Freya was about to leave the house but she noticed that Veronica was crying. Jimmy besides her patting her back and Billy is eating his pancakes. Freya walks towards the dining table, sits beside Billy and eats her breakfast. Jimmy stood up in front of them with his unhappy face telling them that Veronica’s mother in Siquijor is dead. Jimmy told them that this spring break, they will have to visit Siquijor for their grandmother’s funeral. Freya feels heaviness inside of her heart as she sees Veronica’s weary eyes. She wants to give her a hug but for some reason, her body is too heavy to walk towards her, to lift her arms and wrap it around her. Freya didn’t tell Veronica anything to Veronica. She quietly finishes her breakfast and doesn't even say goodbye to her before leaving the house for school. Cigar smoke and rock songs in the stereo. Jimmy recklessly drives through the suburbs. In the passenger seat is Freya, silently observing outside through the dusty window. Billy is on the back reading a comic book. All of the sudden, Jimmy cautiously drives as they approach a house surrounded by people and police cars; In-between are police lines and barricades. Jimmy pulls over, through the window he asks one of the police officers what happened. The police told them that a girl is missing and as he showed her picture, Freya’s eyes widened and suddenly grabbed the picture. “Do you know her?” Jimmy asked, Freya didn’t respond. In a moment, their attention draws to a loud scream; “Devil! The devil is here!” It was coming from a guy with an athletic build and beautiful face. Two police men are trying to hold him tightly as he wildly moves and shouting the same words over and over again. Freya recognizes the guy, it’s Theo Dean — the football MVP; boyfriend of Deniece. Her heart beat echoes through her head as she sees Theo completely losing it. His screaming reminds her of her nightmares. Theo sharply looked at her from the distance ; “She’s coming!” He said in a strange voice sending chills in her spine. Her body numbs and a high pitch rings in her head. From a very low volume she heard a familiar voice calling her name; it grew in echo. “Freya?” The echoes stopped, turning into one soft voice from Jimmy. “Are you okay?” Jimmy asked as he noticed her daughter staring at nowhere. Freya nods and looks at Theo. He still cries the same words about the devil. The police got him in the police car with handcuffs on his wrist. It was the last day before spring break and the whole campus was filled with riddles as Theo Dean went insane and Deniece Hunter mysteriously vanished. Conspiracies are all over the campus. Police are investigating the school. Some students were asked by the police. Nobody can tell what happened that night, not even Deniece’s friends. And as the days go by, it remains a mystery. The rattling sound of metal reflects through the dark hallway of an old building. A creaking noise of rusty metal bars was heard as a mysterious man in a lab coat opened a gate to a cell. A sobbing sound from a thousand souls he hears as he walks through the cell. “What do you want from me! Let me go!” People in lab coats were watching them in the other room through the surveillance camera. “Don’t be afraid, the Indigo is here to help you” the man told the mysterious thing inside the cell. As the light turned on, a hideous devilish-like girl revealed — it’s Deniece Hunter. HER face is what made Freya Pierce awake; Her horrifying scarlet eyes, her enormous evil horns, her raven desert skin and the agonizing souls stuck in her throat. “Freya, we’re here.” The solemn face of Billy is what Freya sees first as she awakens from one of her nightmares. Freya looked around and saw Jimmy getting their luggages in the trunk of the taxi. She saw Veronica from the distance, crying and hugging her sister in front of an old bungalow house. People are playing cards on the tables around the house. Some people wear pieces of white cloth tied up on their head. A tarp is hanging in front of the house with the picture of Veronica’s dead mother; they must’ve arrived in Siquijor. Veronica called Freya and Billy to meet her sister, Mylene. Freya shivers as she is grounded by some sort of electricity as she takes a step out of the taxi. Her body feels lighter and lighter as she walks. Mumbling sound of the unknown she hears in the wind. The middle of her forehead feels like it’s going to break causing a sharp pain on her head. “What’s wrong?” Billy asks and holds her hands. Freya looked at the innocent face of Billy and suddenly the pain fades away in an instant. “Headache. But it’s gone now.” Freya and Billy with their hands holding each other walks towards Veronica and Mylene. They ‘mano’ to Mylene and then they meet the other relatives of Veronica. It was an exhausting day for Freya and Billy. On a wooden bed Freya stares at the cobwebs on the ceiling as she vividly reminisces her recent nightmare about the devil face. “You barely talk to us.” Billy asked, breaking the dead silence in the 4 rough cemented wall room. “You used to be fun. What happened?” Freya doesn’t know what to say, as she herself didn’t know why she’s been cold to her family. Jimmy entered the room through the wooden door calling them to have dinner. “I’m good. I’m not hungry” Freya said. Billy left with Jimmy leaving Freya alone in the room. Creaking sound of wood was heard as Freya laid down. She closed her eyes. She didn’t see darkness, she saw ‘her’ face. Burning houses, bloody swords and dead bodies. The smell of chaos steaming through her soul. Freya found herself lying on the ground with a rune written on it. A woman in a black robe is walking around the rune whispering in strange language. Tears were coming out from the eyes of Freya as she couldn’t move or scream. The dark particles wrapped around her body are making her weak. “Fieri debet” the mysterious woman said and then turned into ashes. After a moment the dead bodies around Freya awaken. Grumblings as they creep toward her. With their decaying hands they are trying to reach her. Freya couldn’t do anything but to close her eyes. She felt a touch from a small hand on her shoulder. She saw Billy as she opened her eyes. “Are you okay? You’re acting stranger than usual.” Freya looks around. Everything’s back to normal. “Is it the headache?” Billy is worried. “No. It’s something else.” Freya paints as she talks. “Dad told me to call you for dinner. Are you coming or gonna pretend you’re not hungry?” “I'm not hungry.” Freya denied but her stomach growled. “You’re such a liar and a weirdo!” Billy says to Freya and pulls her hand forcing her to get up the bed and eat dinner. Billy finally convinced Freya to eat dinner. Freya’s nightmares are getting worse day by day. She’s seeing things that she couldn’t explain. Hearing things that torture her in her sleep. Even when she’s awake, those things are hunting her. Freya feels like she’s stuck on her nightmare. And she couldn’t do anything to escape the unending loop of suffering. The heaven mourns as one buried underneath the carved stone. In the center of the garden of dead, people wearing black suit gathered. Teardrops from the sky drips all over the umbrellas. As Veronica Pierce with her family watched the casket of their late mother decends to its final destination, the sinking emotion overflows the place. Freya held Veronica’s hand. Veronica was surprised and happy at the same time as for the first time in a long time, she feels Freya cares. Freya cares. She is just afraid to display emotions. She doesn’t want people to look at her like a pitiful orphan girl. Through the sparkling waterfalls flowing thousands of wonders and through the waves of tall trees whispering the sonnet of tranquility, you can mesmerize the beautiful face of Siquijor. But beyond the rich nature is the mystery of this healing island. Rumor has it, Siquijor was an island of witches. But the people of Siquijor buried its sick history and scarred reputation through healing. Veronica together with her family explore the healing island, 2 days after the burial of her mother. They went to the famous Mt. Bandilaan where the healers of Siquijor doing an old tradition of miracles. On the top of Mt Bandilaan, bottled salve and wooden amulets are everywhere. Through a glass of water with a black stone in it and a bamboo straw, the healer is doing “bolo-bolo” to Jimmy. While everyone watching Jimmy doing traditional healing by a healer, Freya surprised as a cold hand from an old man held her right hand. “There’s something dark in you. I can feel it.” The mysterious old man put his freezing finger to her forehead, pointing at it. “She’s here!” Those eerie words send chills to her spine making her body shiver. Everything went dark for Freya. The force of gravity pulls her body on the ground making her feel heavier than ever. “Are you okay?” The concerned voice of Veronica brought her back to reality. She saw Veronica holding her right hand instead of the mysterious old man. She checked around her looking for the old man but he mysteriously vanished. Until sunset, Freya is perplexed with the creepy words from the old man. In the seas of wonders, she is drowning. Freya feels cracking pain in the middle of her forehead. It seems like there’s something inside it that desperately wants to get out. Upon arriving home, Veronica gave Freya medicine for her headache. “You know, we are always here for you.” Veronica said while Freya was taking the medicine. “I’m always here for you. You can always talk to me about stuff.” She added. “I’m okay Veronica. It's just this headache since we arrived here, it’s getting worse.” Freya said while massaging her forehead. “Do you need a doctor? I can take you to a doctor right away '' Veronica is worried, feeling the temperature of Freya with her hands. “No I’m good” Freya gently removes Veronica’s hands on her. “Well. If you need something. Just tell me.” Veronica stood up to go to bed. It’s almost 11 in the evening; “Goodnight … Mom.” Veronica smiles as she hears the word “mom” from Freya. It’s the first time since Freya learned that she’s adopted. “Goodnight” Veronica kissed Freya on the forehead and went to bed. For a while, Freya feels safe. She feels lighter. It almost feels like a dream. but then, nightmare begins — “It’s time.” A sinister murmur of the wind gave her chills. It’s coming from the outside. She followed the voice. Through the achromatic space, she walks. The unfriendly wind touches through her soul and shivers to its coldness. From the distance, she saw an old Balete tree. The vertical crack on its trunk is emitting dark particles. It’s calling her. The closer she gets, the louder she hears the whispering in the wind. “What are you doing?” Freya stopped as she heard the voice of Billy. The tree was still there, but the crack on it and the voices disappeared. “Nothing. I just needed some fresh air.” Freya walked back inside the house. Freya forgot to close the door. She was about to go to her room but she noticed that Billy didn’t move. He was just staring outside the front door. “Billy? Aren’t you going to your room?” Billy didn’t talk, standing still gawking at the depths of darkness. She quickly closes the door and finally Billy talks. “There’s someone there —“ Billy slowly turns her head to Freya. Her heart beats fast and eerie music plays on her head. “— in the tree”. “He…Her face is —” Billy stutters as he speaks. He couldn’t express what he saw. “Why are you still awake?” Jimmy interrupts them. “Billy! I told you to sleep already! Go to your room.” Billy quietly walks towards his room, Freya as well. It was a creepy night for Billy and Freya. But as the night got deeper they fell asleep in peace. But not until the nightmare got creepier; Thunderstorms and lightning. In the midst of dark wood, there is a mysterious Balete tree. Freya vividly can see it through her dream. She heard the rattling sound inside its trunk; the whispering and the rapsy caws as well. Freya was still sleeping when a rune appeared on her forehead. A lightning struck on the trunk of the mysterious tree leaving a broken mark on it. The rune on Freya’s forehead turns into a broken mark just like the mark on the Balete tree. As the broken mark on the tree grows, the mark on her forehead grows as well. The broken vertical mark on the tree opens and dark stranger creatures come flying away from it. Freya awakens screaming with the tormenting pain on her forehead. Upon waking up, the broken mark on her forehead opened as well; revealing a sinister third eye. Its eyeball doesn’t have white part on it, it’s just pure black — the darkest shade of black a man could see. It releases a humanoid form of shadow and dark particles. She screams as she feels something is pulling out from the inside of her body, like a tooth pulling out from her mouth. The third eye stops to spout things; the shadow and dark particles are gone. Freya feels strange. Slowly, she looked at herself in the mirror and screamed as she saw the third eye on her forehead. Is this another part of her nightmare? Maybe — She’s not sure anymore about reality. But she knows as she feels that stranger things are coming their way. The real nightmare has just began. - End of Chapter 1 -