Vindicate

Prelude

Most people never live long enough to know anyone who's been murdered.

I'm not talking about a celebrity or a public figure you might have been obsessed with following on social media. I’m not talking about a random person you might have heard of but never actually met. And I don’t mean hearing about a murder from a true crime documentary on Netflix.

No. I’m talking about personally knowing someone close to you who’s been brutally taken from this world and the imprint of their death clings to your soul like thick tar wrapping around your heart.

Most people never live long enough to know anyone who's been murdered.

But me?

I know four.

The precious son of the football coach.

That one egotistical frat boy who tried to get into every girls’ pants.

The sought-after queen bee.

The celebrated quarterback.

That night has a permanent place in the pits of my heart, ripping between the layers of life and death only to serve as a reminder of the monster that lurked and stole.

But the horror that resides within the truth is cloaked as an unknown memory because while I know that the essence of death has sunken into my soul, that is all I have left to hold on to. The knowledge. I know that people died. But from that night, I can only remember so much.

Screams. Echoes that bounced off the tree trunks in the darkness from that eerie night, begging for a surrender to the pain that had been dealt.

Blood. Red, viscid liquid that crept into the white crystals of the fallen snow; splattered in a way to indicate the exact direction they were facing as they stood against their killer.

Terror. The feeling that the night had mercilessly painted the trees red and scarred the grounds with the mark of death.

But other than the feeling and the knowledge of what took place on that mountain, everything else is a black hole. My memory faded into an abyss crafted by my own mind.

A defense mechanism, the psychiatrist had said, to block out the fear and the pain.

And though I may not remember much of that night in the way others do and I might have escaped off the mountain still breathing, I know I will forever be bound to the torment of that evil moment and I’ve been suffocating ever since.

My darkest desires revealed.

My darkest secrets concealed.

But after all this time, my real nightmares have only just begun and something more sinister than death haunts me in the shadows.

A promise turned dark.

A predator dressed to kill.

And a wrath that will claw me from the inside out.

Welcome to the Final Forest.