Sunday, August 16, 2015

Part 8 - The Surprise

Hayden reluctantly let go of Kenzie’s hand as the witches formed a circle around the bed she rested in. They lifted their hands and placed their fingertips together as they began to chant. Austin and Hayden could only watch.


Hayden wanted to thank Austin for all he’d done to help, but he was afraid that speaking would break the witches’ concentration. But he felt like a distracting burden just sitting in that lab, hovering and watching the coven’s every move. He thought he saw the incantation go out of sync and he nearly jumped out of the chair and howled in frustrated angst.

He swore if anything happened to Kenzie, he’d never forgive himself. Despite what she said, he still blamed himself for this happening to her. He prayed to the creator that she’d be all right. He’d asked the witches if there was some sort of potion they could brew up instead of taking blood out of Kenzie’s body, but they knew of nothing that could turn someone into a supernatural creature, though some witches and scientists elsewhere were working on it. But that wouldn’t help them today, and this had to be taken care of now.

The rhythmic beeping sound of the heart monitor was torturous to Hayden’s eardrums. The monotonous chanting of the witches was putting him on edge. How long was this going to take? As he scrutinized the witches again, he saw blood begin to drain from the IV in Kenzie’s arm and into a blood bag hanging on a pole. It was a good thing no vampires were around, even though Kenzie’s blood tasted putrid to them due to the werewolf blood.


He clasped and unclasped his hands. He shifted positions in the chair. He toyed with his shoelaces. He fiddled with his bracelet. He tugged at his hair. This was pure agony. Waiting was one of the worst feelings in the world.

He wanted to get up and leave the room, but he had to be present in case his blood was needed. Thankfully, Austin had already drawn it as a precaution.

Suddenly, the beeping noise stopped and became a solid, sharp hum.

“She’s lost too much blood,” Miranda declared hastily. “Austin, we need Hayden’s blood, now!”


Hayden nearly threw Austin across the room, he was moving so damn slow. His supernatural speed would have gotten to Kenzie’s side in half the time.

But Austin did finally make it, and Miranda took the reins by injecting Hayden’s blood into a transparent tube that led to Kenzie’s arm. Hayden couldn’t remember the last time his heart had pounded so rapidly.

The witches resumed their spell after the monitor began beeping normally once more. In another five minutes, they ceased their chanting and stepped away from Kenzie. When he got the okay, Hayden shuffled over to her side and rested his hands over hers, not even bothering to pull up the chair.


“When will she wake up?” he whispered to the others in the room.

“There’s no guarantee,” Miranda replied. “It takes time for someone to wake up after a blood transfusion, plus we have to wait for the anesthesia to wear off. It could be a few minutes or several hours. There’s really no way to tell. Everyone’s different.”

Hayden squeezed his mate’s hand. He knew she was stronger than any normal human, even now with only one supernatural blood type pumping through her veins instead of two. He just had to keep believing it when he inwardly convinced himself that she would come out of this unscathed.

As if she were reading his thoughts, Kenzie stirred. It was a slight stir, one that would have easily been missed had someone not been staring so intently at the figure in the bed. But Hayden saw it, and he sensed it before Kenzie’s eyes slowly opened.


“Kenzie?” Hayden asked quietly. “Are you okay?”

Kenzie looked around the room, momentarily forgetting where she was. But then she saw the blood bag and it dawned on her. She turned her gaze toward Hayden and smiled as Austin wheeled the blood bag away.

“I think so,” she said, though she felt and sounded weak. She tried to sit up, but her head started spinning.

“Best not do that yet,” Miranda instructed. “Just rest until you get your strength back up.”

Kenzie acceded and returned to her supine position. Hayden continued to hold her hand as he finally sat in the far more comfortable chair.


As she waited to regain her strength, Kenzie made idle talk with Hayden. She informed him, and everyone else in the room, that while she’d been under during the process, she hadn’t had a dream at all. Miranda concluded that the anesthesia wore off sooner because of the supernatural blood in Kenzie’s body. Austin told her that they’d had to do the emergency blood transfusion during the span of the incantation, which caused Hayden to glare at him with a stink eye.

As soon as he mentioned this, Kenzie noticed something – she was feeling, sensing, something, but couldn’t determine what it was.

“What’s that smell?” she asked.

“What smell?” Paige replied, furrowing her brow and putting her own nasal cavity to use.

“I don’t smell anything,” Austin added as he also began to sniff out whatever Kenzie was talking about.

“I do,” Hayden affirmed. “It’s some of the chemicals in here. I’ve been smelling it since we came in, but I didn’t say anything.”

“I didn’t smell it before…but now I can.”


“That means it must have worked,” Sasha determined. “You didn’t have any supernatural abilities before, but now you have the werewolf senses.”

“Not all of them,” Erika corrected. “She’s still wearing her glasses.”

“What about your hearing?” Austin asked Kenzie.

Everyone stopped talking to allow Kenzie to listen. She was going to squeeze her eyes shut and concentrate, but she found that she didn’t need to. She could hear doors opening and closing from other portions of the lab, and someone slyly dropped a pin from the opposite end of the room as she wasn’t looking.

“Werewolf hearing ability confirmed,” she declared. “But I definitely can’t see without my glasses.”

“So it seems you only got part of the werewolf abilities,” Hayden surmised. “I wonder if you’ll get the transforming part.”

“I guess we’ll find out soon enough. When’s the next full moon?”

Austin checked a nearby calendar. “Next week.”

“Then that’s when we’ll find out if I get to experience that part of being a werewolf, too.”


Paige handed Kenzie a wand like she’d done before, but the wand didn’t emit any signs of magic this time around. Her witch blood was officially gone, drained from her vein and into a plastic bag that would be properly disposed of by the witches.

Hayden migrated to sit on the bed and grasped Kenzie’s hand. They’d done it. They’d succeeded in saving Kenzie, and she’d come out of it just fine. He had to admit that he’d had his doubts, but seeing his mate’s blue eyes shine back up at him lifted a great weight from his shoulders.

Now all that was left to do was wait until the next full moon to see what would happen. And after that, the surprise.

*********************************************************************************

Kenzie was back home now in Moonlight Falls with Hayden and Sage. The latter didn’t treat Kenzie any differently, just like when she’d discovered she was a “tribrid.” The night of the full moon was imminent, due to show itself that night.

Kenzie was still learning to adapt to life as a hybrid with limited werewolf abilities. Werewolves were able to shift into their wolf form whenever they chose, except during the full moon, when their bodies couldn’t control themselves. Hayden had shown this to Kenzie a few times, and she’d seen herself as a werewolf in her dreams, but when she tried to do exactly as Hayden had done, it was in vain.

However, she’d inadvertently sliced her finger open on a knife while preparing dinner one evening, and the cut had healed itself quickly. It seemed that she’d also retained her superior healing ability. And of course, when she and Hayden had seen her finger heal, they were both ecstatic. It was hard for Kenzie to finish cooking anything after that.


The nausea hadn’t returned, either, and nothing abnormal happened when Kenzie had an emotion spike. She seemed to be completely cured and she felt refreshed and more relieved than she had in a long time.

At last, the moon began to climb into the sky. Stars studded the thick blanket that hovered above them, and they both prepared themselves for the inevitable transformation.

Hayden transformed when the moon was at its peak, just as he always did. Kenzie remembered the last time she’d waited for this – she’d been petrified, having been bitten by a werewolf with no way to stop the impending shift. But she’d waited all night and nothing had happened, apart from the bite mark healing itself on her arm. This time, she was anxious for not knowing what was about to transpire, but she was no longer afraid.

And she had to admit, when a couple of hours passed and she still hadn’t transformed, just like last time, she felt vastly relieved.


“So you get some of the superior senses, but you don’t have to transform,” Hayden avowed. “That’s great news!”

“Even better news is that now I can definitely keep being a detective, since I’ll have the superior senses people want when they hire one.”

Hayden smiled and bent down to kiss Kenzie on the forehead, who didn’t mind at all even though he was transformed. It was one of the many reasons he loved her.


He only had one more thing to do to make everything perfect.

*********************************************************************************

Kenzie was sitting on the couch watching TV one day when Hayden approached, a look of seriousness on his face.

“What’s up?” she asked him as she turned the TV off.

“I need to talk to you about something.”

“Okay…”

Hayden sat next to her on the couch and pulled her legs across his lap as he cradled her in his arms.


“I didn’t tell you how worried I really was,” he began, “when that werewolf bit you. And then you kept getting sick, and then the aftermath of all that…I had never been so scared in my life. Not when I first transformed, not when my parents died, not even when Jillian was turned into a vampire. Kenzie, you are my life. I couldn’t begin to imagine living without you, and I was petrified beyond belief that I was going to lose you during this whole blood transplant thing. I’ve told you before that wolves are monogamous; they have only one mate for life. I believe that applies to werewolves, too, or at least most of them. I genuinely believe that I’ve found my mate, and the one I want to be with forever. And that mate is you.”

Before Kenzie could say anything, Hayden got down on the floor and held her hand in his. Her heart rate sped up, fully audible to the both of them, like a pounding drum. Was he…?


“I didn’t tell you the full truth when you asked what I was going to say in the doctor’s office,” he went on. “When you thought you were pregnant, and I said it wouldn’t be the worst thing in the world if you were. What I was actually going to say was, it wouldn’t be the worst thing in the world if we were going to have a baby, because I want to have a family with you. I want to marry you.”

With that, Hayden reached his hand into his pocket and pulled a box out of it. “I have to say,” he continued, “It’s hard keeping a secret when you’re living in the same house as a detective. But I guess you’ve been a little preoccupied lately. Which is great, because I wanted this to be a surprise. I talked to your father a few months ago, and got his blessing, as well as your mother’s.”

He presented the box to Kenzie, who was sure her heart stopped beating for the second time in two weeks. Hayden opened the small velvet square to reveal a beautiful ring with a large stone the color of the moon framed with diamonds.


He took a deep breath as Kenzie gaped at the ring. “Kenzie Howell, will you marry me?”

Kenzie was completely taken aback. She wasn’t expecting this. As a child, she’d envisioned how a handsome man would one day propose to her, but those fantasies could never compare to the real thing.

She felt like she was grinning like an idiot, but she was just that happy. She finally said, “Hayden, yes, of course I’ll marry you!”

Hayden jumped back up and planted a huge kiss on Kenzie’s lips.


Kenzie couldn’t suppress the grin that continued to grow on her face. When Hayden slid the ring onto her finger, she held it out in front of her, allowing the diamonds to catch the light and send tiny rainbows throughout the room.

“It’s a moonstone,” Hayden explained. “It’s surrounded by diamonds, but the main stone is a moonstone. I thought it was appropriate, considering, you know, werewolves.”

Kenzie just grinned wider. It was perfect. She wasn’t one of those girls who had to have a huge diamond to be satisfied. Just knowing that Hayden loved her enough to spend the rest of his life with her was enough.

She pulled him down on top of her and tried to devour his mouth with hers. He laughed and accepted the challenge, and eventually they started their honeymoon a little early.


Kenzie felt so blessed and so lucky. She’d survived countless perilous situations, saved friends (some more than once), found the perfect man for her, who just proposed to her, and she’d overcome a werewolf bite and inherited and embraced enough of her werewolf nature to be fitting for the life she wanted to live.

All that was left to do now was live happily ever after.


THE END

Previous Part

Wednesday, August 12, 2015

Part 7 - The Purge

Kenzie made a decision. It would be far from fun, being hooked up to a makeshift hospital machine while witches performed an incantation to rid her body of a certain blood type. But it was better than the alternative. She didn’t want to lose herself. And more importantly, she didn’t want to lose those she cared about.

Paige and her coven were set to arrive the next day, so Kenzie and Hayden stayed another night at the Crowley house.

Before the coven’s arrival, Kenzie had to make another choice. She and Hayden were discussing it now, in bed in the guest room once again, with Kenzie hoping she wouldn’t have to make another mad dash to the bathroom to vomit, as she’d been doing quite frequently all day.


“It’s entirely up to you,” Hayden assured her. “Don’t make any decisions of this magnitude for anyone but yourself.”

“I’m just scared either way. I’ll be a hybrid, and supposedly hybrids have the abilities of both species they’re part of, but does that include the bad things, too? For a witch, that would mean random freaky happenings every time I had an emotion spike. For a werewolf, I’d uncontrollably transform during the full moon, and I’m sure I’d look hideous.”

“You would never look hideous. Ever.”

“Thanks, I appreciate that.”

Hayden propped himself up and looked into Kenzie’s eyes as he wiped a tear off her cheek.


“Besides,” he said reassuringly, “there’s no guarantee you’d get all the bad things, too. I’ve heard legends that hybrids only have the good parts, but not the bad. So you may get magical powers but your emotions wouldn’t cause any adverse effects, or you may get superior senses but you won’t transform during a full moon. Let’s try to think positive.”

“I’m scared, Hayden. I’m going to have blood taken out of me through a spell. It would be bad enough if a doctor did it. But…”

“Actually, we considered having Isaiah come to supervise, since he has doctoral training. But Austin said that Miranda has medical training as well. So she’ll be here for the spell and the medical equipment portion of this thing.”

“Hayden, you were so against this at first. Why are you all for it now?”

“Because I agree that it’s better than the alternative. I don’t like it one bit, but I refuse to lose you. If there’s any way at all to save you, I’ll do it. I don’t care what it takes. Besides, it’s the least I owe you, since it’s my fault this happened.”

“How the hell is it your fault?”

“I should have sensed that bastard in Moonlight Falls. I should have known that werewolf was there. And then he bit you, and that’s what triggered all this. I’ve beaten myself up for that every single day, and I’d like to literally kick my ass for not protecting you.”


This time, Kenzie sat up as Hayden lowered himself back onto the bed. She looked him square in the eyes as she averred, “Hayden Howland, what happened was not your fault. Maybe it was fate. I learned things about myself I never knew before. As long as I have you, I’ll be okay. I know you’re here with me, and I know you’ll do whatever you can to keep me safe. I love you, Hayden. I love you so much.”

“And I love you too, Kenzie Howell.”

Kenzie leaned down and kissed him tenderly.


Hayden wrapped his hand around her neck, making her heart melt.

“Kenzie,” he said when they took a breath, “I have the utmost confidence that you’re strong enough to get through this. And when you do, I’ll be right there with you. And there’s something I have for you when this is all over.”

“What?”

“It’s a surprise. You’ll see.”

“Well, now I have even more of a reason to get through this. But you know I hate needles and the like. I’m still scared.”

“I am too. I won’t deny it. But I have faith in you, Kenzie. I swear to the creator I won’t let anything happen to you.”

Kenzie knew that Hayden was trying to be brave for her sake, but what could he do to protect her? Yet somehow, she believed that him being by her side would be enough. And she really wanted to know what the surprise was that he had for her. She had a very important reason to fight now, more so than before.

Hayden suddenly sat up and nibbled her ear, making her giggle. He was always trying to lighten the mood, and she did appreciate it.


“Hayden,” she whispered, “you know what you were suggesting last night? How about I take you up on that offer now?”

“In a guest room in our friends’ house?”

“I’ll do the laundry myself. It’s common courtesy since we’ve stayed in here for the past two nights, anyway. And I want to have something to remember, just in case.”

“You’re going to be fine, Kenzie. I’ll make sure of it.”

“Then give me something to remember for when I wake up.”

“Well, I suppose I shouldn’t disappoint my mate, then.”


Hayden teasingly stuck Kenzie’s hand into his mouth and swirled his tongue around her fingers. Kenzie giggled once more before letting gravity take its toll as she collapsed back down onto the bed. Hayden climbed on top of her, and proceeded to give her the night to remember that she’d wanted. She just prayed she’d be able to remember it after the next day’s events.


*********************************************************************************

The coven arrived mid-morning. Kenzie had been dreading their arrival, even though she knew this was the only way she could be cured.

Austin affirmed that he’d tried combining her blood with other elements similar to how he developed vampiric sunscreen, but to no avail. Even the pure fairy blood that had helped develop the cure for vampirism had no effect on Kenzie’s “tribrid” blood. This truly was the last resort.

Cheyenne stayed home with Mason, but Austin’s presence was required in case a scientific method was needed. They all migrated to Austin’s lab, where there was plenty of equipment available, including a bed, though it was normally used for test subjects.



Kenzie was lying across the bed with Hayden clutching her hand tightly. The coven was preparing their chant while Austin assisted Miranda with hooking up all the medical equipment. A science lab had such things in stock as well considering the test subjects they had. Luckily, Wolfson’s doubled as the town’s hospital, so there was a plethora of supplies available for either profession.

Kenzie hardly slept a wink the night before, despite Hayden successfully tiring her out. Her mind was racing, but it wasn’t just because of what was about to occur. She’d been thinking of which blood type she’d keep in her system and which she’d expunge. After weighing the pros and cons of each in her mind, she’d finally made a decision.

But she wasn’t prepared for what Miranda told her next.

“Austin did some calculations,” she said, “and it’s possible that, even with this spell, too much blood could be taken out of your body. If that happens, well, you know what that will mean, so I’ll spare you the specifics. Theoretically, if you had enough of a certain supernatural blood in your system, as in more of one of the two types you have, it could override the other one and you’d be okay. But it’s safer to try to extract some out rather than try to put more in. So, in the event that too much blood gets removed, we’ll need to counteract that. And the only way to do that is to inject more blood into you, just like a regular transfusion. But it has to be supernatural blood, because human blood won’t be strong enough. As for which type of supernatural blood…well, have you made a decision?”


Kenzie gripped Hayden’s hand tighter in her own. She had finally made a decision, but she hadn’t even told Hayden yet. It was time he found out what she’d decided.

“Werewolf,” she said simply. Hayden gaped at her, but she ignored his look of shock. “I thought about it all night. It’s not that being a witch would be bad, but I think the pros of a werewolf outweigh the ones of a witch. And the cons, well, I’d rather transform during a full moon and be part of my boyfriend’s pack than worry about every little emotion causing some sort of uproar. Plus, as a detective, I haven’t been having the best of luck getting cases since everyone wants supernatural creatures. As a werewolf, I’d have superior senses, and maybe even superior strength. It’s like this was meant to happen; I was bitten by a werewolf, and I healed super fast, and I’m dating a werewolf…it’s where I belong. I have my own ‘pack’ of friends and family. It’s who and what I am.”

“Kenzie,” Hayden stammered, “are you sure? Remember when you asked me what it was like to transform the night you were bitten? And everything else we talked about?”

“I’ve thought it over, Hayden. I want werewolf blood in my body with my human blood. I’ve felt closer and more drawn to wolves than any other creature. It’s what I want.”


Hayden leaned down and planted a kiss on Kenzie’s forehead. She smiled at him and squeezed his hand once again. In a way, she was looking forward to what this change might bring to her life.

No blood samples were necessary since Kenzie’s blood type was literally all over the place. Austin injected her with an anesthesia. She started to feel woozy almost instantaneously. She held Hayden’s hand the entire time before her eyes fluttered closed and she drifted off to sleep, though she was sure she felt her boyfriend’s lips on her head before she succumbed to unconsciousness.


Sunday, August 9, 2015

Part 6 - The Solution

Cheyenne had been right about Austin working in the garage the next day, which was a Saturday, meaning he was off work. He examined Kenzie’s blood sample thoroughly, applied various concoctions to it to see what would happen, and finally he ended up calling Paige to discuss more supernatural theories.

Kenzie was on edge all day, and though he tried to hide it, she could tell that Hayden was as well.

At one point in the early afternoon, Austin finally came back inside, a look of newfound determination on his face.

“I talked to Paige,” he announced to everyone in the living room, “and she said she’s been working with her coven on theories since Kenzie first mentioned this happening, which was before I even found a cure for Jillian. Kenzie, as you know, your case is very unique. A hybrid hasn’t been in existence for a long time, at least not a reported one, and the fact that you’re a three-way hybrid – or, as I’ve dubbed it, a ‘tribrid’ – is rarer still. In fact, there haven’t been any documentations about such a creature before, unless you count a chimera.”


Kenzie wrinkled her nose. She’d heard of the mythical creature that had the body of a goat, head of a lion, and tail of a dragon. She hardly considered herself such a thing.

“Anyway,” Austin continued, “since your condition is so unique, the coven has been very fascinated with it. You know they always want to see what new things they can uncover that are associated with magic in some way. So Paige had a suggestion, but I’m afraid you won’t like it.”

“What is it?” Hayden asked warily.

“Well, whatever the case is with Kenzie, she isn’t getting better. If anything, she’s getting worse, what with the dreams she keeps having and then the nausea and simultaneous throwing up. Obviously her body isn’t designed to handle this type of thing. And based on what I’ve seen under the microscope, our conclusions are the same – Kenzie’s blood is literally battling itself, as each blood type is vying for control over the others. The werewolf bite triggered all this, thanks to the saliva getting into her bloodstream.”

“But that makes no sense,” Kenzie argued. “I was fine when I was bitten; I even healed faster. Why would my blood start doing this now?”

“Because of the prolonged period of time your previously dormant supernatural blood has been awakened. The longer it’s in your body and fighting for control, the more dangerous it will become. Your sickness is your body’s way of rejecting your own blood. Paige’s coven suspects that eventually you may start vomiting blood too, as a means of getting rid of one type. But in actuality, you’ll be throwing up all three types of blood, so that wouldn’t help. Your body is trying to rid itself of what’s making you sick, just like when you have the flu.”


Kenzie pulled her legs up to her chest, as though to conceal herself. Hayden clenched his fists next to her and sucked in his breath audibly. Cheyenne just held onto Mason, who was beginning to get fussy. Apparently it was his nap time, so she excused herself to put him to bed.

“So what does Paige suggest we do about it?” Hayden finally asked.

Austin looked very nervous. He took a deep breath and ran his fingers through his hair as he finally said, all in a rush, “Since the blood is trying to counteract itself, and it’s making her sick as a result, and more so every day, there’s a good chance it may eventually…kill her.”

“What?!” Kenzie and Hayden both shouted at once.

“So,” Austin continued, “the coven thinks the only logical thing to do is extract the blood causing the issue. A body isn’t meant to have human blood and two types of supernatural blood inside it. One of those blood types allegedly came from the twin that Kenzie absorbed while she was in the womb. Had they both been born, the twin would have gotten one supernatural blood type, and Kenzie the other. As it was, Kenzie was born with both, and her body is rejecting them coexisting now that the werewolf saliva awakened them.”


Kenzie began to heave in anguish as Hayden dropped to his knees in front of her, trying to soothe her. Austin looked genuinely remorseful at having to be the one to share this abysmal news.

Kenzie couldn’t believe it. She was going to die? Unless she somehow extracted enough supernatural blood out of her body? How was that even possible?

“Unfortunately,” Austin explained when she asked him this, “it’s not that simple. The three blood types are mixed inside your body, so just draining it won’t work. We have to extract one supernatural blood type, and that’s it. And if we take too much, you’ll die. You can only be one species, Kenzie, or maybe two, but certainly not three. That’s most likely why tribrids have never been heard of before. Therein lies another conundrum – we have to leave one supernatural blood type in your body or we’ll drain too much, and human blood isn’t strong enough to get you through this. You’ll have to decide which blood type you want left in your body – werewolf or witch. Oh, and it will require a spell.”

Kenzie barely heard the last part. Her head was swimming, her heart pounding, and her ears felt as though they were underwater. She couldn’t breathe. She couldn’t see. She couldn’t hear. She couldn’t think. She was barely aware of Hayden’s presence right in front of her.


Hayden, however, was livid. He stared at Austin, aghast.

“We are not going to perform some half-assed blood transfusion on my girlfriend!” he bellowed, louder than necessary. “How do you know that will work? And how do you know she won’t be just fine if we leave her as is? She hasn’t been that bad, really. She was worried about it, obviously, and she thought it might be something else causing it, but come on. Couldn’t Paige teach her to control her emotions so they didn’t cause supernatural phenomenons?”

“I said the exact same thing to Paige. But theoretically, it would be less of a risk to rid her body of a blood type than to leave it and allow Kenzie to feel sick all the time, plus have fevers trying to ward off what her body has identified as an infection. And like I said, she may eventually throw up the blood herself, which would be far worse than us safely draining it like a hospital would. Think of it as a supernatural blood transfusion. And those dreams she’s been having? The coven thinks they’re actually memories or predictions. Remember, we concluded that Kenzie is the reincarnation of a werewolf and she has witches in her family tree, though they existed many years ago. These dreams could be memories from her past life as a werewolf and essentially a history book involving her witch family. But throw in all the friends and family she knows right now, in this life, and the fact that she’s trying to attack them in those dreams, is indicative of an event that has yet to transpire. It’s very possible those dreams are showing Kenzie what will become of her. Like I said, both blood types are battling it out for control, and eventually, one will prevail and consume the other. But when that does happen, Kenzie may not even recognize herself because by then it would be too late.”


That did it. Kenzie was overcome with nausea once again, though she couldn’t ascertain if it was due to the blood battle inside her body, or because of her fear of what she’d discovered. She sprinted from the living room and dashed to the nearest bathroom, where she heaved into the toilet. She didn’t want to hear any more. She couldn’t bear to. But she knew she had to make a choice.

It made sense now. Her dreams were trying to tell her what she would become if she didn’t rectify the situation right now. And her emotions were already acting up due to her nerves. She tried to control herself, but her anguish only made the bathroom lights flicker and put a crack in the mirror above the bathroom sink.

Her life had suddenly turned into a supernatural science fiction film, but unlike a movie, she didn’t want to see how this ended.