The Proposed Prophecies

The bell announced the start of the class. It was smooth, as always, nothing like the one in High School that Liv remembered. She was already sitting in the class but not in the front seat anymore. She had sat in the back row with Carmen for the past month as the guy that used to sit next to Carmen dropped out.

She looked out of the window and spotted students walking on the school campus sidewalks in shorts and T-shirts. Liv realized that it still felt warm even though it was the end of October. She remembered last October in Stockholm when leaves on the trees were already changing their colors. Miami had mostly palm trees and Liv wondered if the trees in the northern states had changed their colors already or if didn’t get as cold their either at this time of year.

Autumn always reminded Liv of Becky’s birthday. Her birthday was the first of November. Becky would be 22 soon and Liv imagined she would probably be celebrating with a wide number of her friends like she had last year. Liv never had as many friends as Becky but somehow this had never bothered her. She used to love being alone but now that she had found Tiffany, Carmen and Evan, she felt like she never wanted to be alone again. She had never thought before about becoming so close to anyone and yet by moving to Miami she had found three best friends, plus a boyfriend too.

She smiled and looked over at Carmen whose curly thick hair was everywhere as always. She was talking with the girl sitting one row ahead and laughing a lot. Carmen’s laugh was always loud and contagious at the same time. It always brought attention to it. Tiffany’s laugh was more genuine. Liv wasn’t listening to their conversation, instead she remained stuck in her own thoughts.

Becky would like Carmen, Liv thought. They would get along and maybe one day Carmen could come to Stockholm. Just because Liv had planned to leave before the beginning of the next summer, it didn’t mean they would have to stop being friends or that she would have to forget Tiffany or break up with Evan. They still could somehow be a part of her life even after she left.

Suddenly something felt different, her thoughts felt different, like a force of energy had entered her brain, like in winter when someone opens the window and a cold breeze enters the room. Something inside her head felt the sudden coldness. Her breath accelerated and a painful migraine overtook her whole head, making it feel as if it was about to explode into small pieces. Suddenly she remembered what Amy had told her a month ago about Jason’s migraines. She wondered if this was the same thing happening to her.

“What’s wrong?” Carmen asked quietly. Carmen’s eyes showed worry.

“I need to go out for a moment,” Liv said and grabbed her belongings, but the pain followed her like a shadow. She stopped in the hallway and rested her back against the school wall. Everything was becoming blurry and white and she felt scared. She wondered if she was ill too, like Jason had been.

Liv felt Carmen grab hold of her shoulders and shake her back and forth.

“What is going on?” Carmen raised her voice. The strange feeling was disappearing along with the coldness. She spotted students passing by left and right. Suddenly it felt like there were so many of them and the hallways felt tight, like the air was leaving the building.

Liv placed her hand on her forehead. She was out of any rational explanation for what was happening. Carmen’s eyes locked on hers. They looked terrified and worried. “I thought you were about to have some kind of epileptic seizure.” Her voice was fast and rushed.

“I don’t know what happened. But I am fine now,” Liv said. She felt far from fine. Her migraine was still there but at least the blurriness had disappeared. Liv felt that this wasn’t entirely over yet.

Liv’s phone suddenly rang. “It’s Tiffany.”

Carmen rolled her eyes as Liv picked up the phone. Carmen had never met with Tiffany before and she wasn’t interested in hearing about her. She often said that the people from rich neighborhoods are all the same. Carmen’s hard eggshell nature was sometimes hard to ignore.

Once Liv picked up her phone she heard Tiffany crying.

“I can’t believe I am the one telling you this right now but you need to calm down.” Liv raised her voice. Tiffany sounded hysterically upset and it was impossible to get a word out of her, allowing Liv to completely forget her own problems.

“Text me where you are, I am coming.” Liv hung up and started jogging through the hall and out of the school building.

“Tiffany is in some kind of a trouble” Liv said, as they were both getting into her car.

“Maybe her nail chipped,” said Carmen sarcastically. Liv started the car and looked at Carmen who sat in the passenger seat.

“She is my friend too. I would do the same for you as I would do for her,” said Liv, raising her voice at Carmen.

“Ok, all jokes aside… I promise”. Liv rolled her eyes as Carmen’s promise sounded the same as when Liv promised Carmen she would not read her grandfather’s diaries; empty and meaningless. But there was no time to waste as she had no idea what was going on with Tiffany. Her phone announced the arrival of a text message. It was an address that Google maps estimated came from about forty minutes away from the school, just a little out of the city.

She pushed the gas and sped all the way. The car that Amy had given her had some power in it, as only a small push made it fly through the highway. It was still only a little after two in the afternoon and the traffic wasn’t congested, yet leaving a clear path to her destination.

“You have arrived.” The system generated voice from Google maps announced their destination. It looked like an old motel. “She should be here.” Liv parked in front of room number 5, where Tiffany’s car was parked.

The motel had old windows and doors and the whole building looked like it hadn’t been painted since it had been built. The pinkish peeled off paint was in front of the building. There were two cars parked outside. One was Tiffany’s white beamer and the other one was an older dark green car that looked like it belonged to whoever was in room 6. The motel building was a long row and had about twenty doors numbered from one to twenty. At the end there was the reception but it appeared to be closed.

“Are you sure this is the place?” Even Carmen looked like she was afraid to get out of the car. There was nothing really around except some older buildings and trash laying on the ground. There was a strong smell of human urine.

“I don’t know, but her car is here. Let’s find her.” They both walked to door number five as per Tiffany’s text message. The Windows were covered with red curtains and Liv spotted some movement in room 6. She inhaled and exhaled. It wasn’t the best place to be at all.

“Tiffany?” Liv asked before she entered the slightly open door. She spotted Tiffany sitting all curled up. Small drops of blood looked to have dripped from her nose and dried up, leaving only a mark down to her chin. Her right eye was swollen and her cheeks wine red. Liv ran towards the queen sized bed her friend sat on. Her shirt was ripped in half uncovering her belly button. Liv asked her what had happened but Tiffany refused to say anything. In the end, Liv just hugged her tightly as Tiffany sat there and cried.

“We should call the police or an ambulance or something,” said Carmen and Liv sort of liked the idea. It was hard to figure out what had happened to Tiffany as she wasn’t talking. But Tiffany suddenly begged her not to call anyone which made Liv slightly confused and to question what could have happened that made her friend not want to get the proper help she needed.

“You don’t understand, he can take everything from us”. It was hard for Tiffany to talk from the swollen lip.

“Who?” Liv asked her as she was cleaning the blood from her face with the wet napkins from Carmen.

“McAlister” Tiffany said quietly as her tears reappear once again. Liv remembered that name. Tiffany had mentioned him before when they went to pick up Evan at the airport. He was some type of family friend but Liv had never met him before, only remembered how Tiffany didn’t look pleased when he called her that day and said how annoying he was turning up at their house. Liv remembered how Tiffany had placed the phone on her lap and let it ring.

Tiffany explained that McAlister helped them out financially so they would be able to keep their company out of bankruptcy. As she explained, Liv remembered the overdue bills on Evan’s table and his calm face when he explained it was nothing. She wondered if he knew about McAlister. He had never mentioned anything and she had spent nearly every night with him in the past month. She had practically lived in his apartment ever since the incident with Jake and he never said anything about the bankruptcy or financial issues. Even his behavior never indicated there was an issue.

“I still don’t get it. What has that got to do with you being here and beaten up?” Liv took another wet napkin out of the package.

“Let me guess, he promised to help your family’s company for a little bit of your personal attention but this time you dared to reject him so he took what he thought belonged to him?” Tiffany nodded her head. Carmen’s guess was correct. Liv remembered how Tiffany had always wanted to feel as though she was something more than just a party girl in her parent’s eyes. Liv realized that Tiffany had become McAlister’s lover so she could help the family business.

“I love being rich. I can’t see myself living in a one bedroom apartment in downtown with a crappy job, cooking and cleaning for myself. No offense,” she added, glancing at Carmen. Carmen rolled her eyes at Tiffany’s shallowness but Liv knew the real reason behind Tiffany’s words. Tiffany wasn’t truly shallow but somehow she had always wanted to appear that way. It was perhaps easier than as admitting that she was a constant failure in the eyes of her parents. Liv was sure she wanted to be the golden child for a change, even if she didn’t realize this desire was pulling her down.

“He called me earlier to meet here for some extra money. This motel belongs to him. He used to hide his illegal employees here. But he wasn’t here, there were three other guys instead. They work for him, I have seen them before. They said he had a surprise for me since I had rejected him the week before. And here I am.” Her eyes flooded, her voice kept stopping every few seconds as the air is she found it hard to breathe. Liv hugged her and she felt tears in her eyes thinking about what Tiffany had gone through. It made her sick to her stomach and she felt like she was about to vomit. Suddenly she felt like this had partially been her fault and she questioned how she couldn’t have noticed anything strange going on. She could have done something if she had known about it and then there was Evan in her mind. She felt angry at him too for not telling her about his family’s financial difficulties. He never shared anything, Liv felt as she always if she had to make a huge amount of effort to get even the smallest bit of information out of him.

“At least you were not an eight-year old being raped by her own uncle every single night”. Carmen’s sudden words got both Tiffany’s and Liv’s attention. Carmen came out with the dark memories of her past. Carmen was just standing there trying to look relaxed and careless as she came out with these dark memories. She kept playing with her fingers. It looked unintentional. Perhaps it was a way to keep herself together, thought Liv.

“He told me it was our secret, that I couldn’t tell anyone, and that it was normal.” Carmen’s eyes teared up but she wiped them away and walked to the long red curtains at the window, fighting her tears.

“It hurt so much. I was praying to God each night that he wouldn’t let him inside my room”. She laughed ironically. “But there was no one and nothing that could stop him. He kept coming and promising it would stop hurting after a while. But the truth is, it never did and it never will.”

Liv realized that this was the secret behind Carmen’s hard eggshell and she had finally cracked. The dark secret that had been hidden deep inside her soul. Carmen suddenly appeared different. Emotional and broken. She wasn’t the care free woman any more but a human being with her own problems.

Carmen explained that once she had found out that their little secrets were far from normal, she felt ashamed and afraid to tell her father who had never gotten over his wife’s death; preventing him from seeing that his own brother was raping his only daughter. “I moved out when I turned fifteen and I have not looked back since.” She turned around. Despite Carmen’s hatred towards self-pity or complaining, she wanted a hug. Liv ran up to her and hugged her as tightly as she could. Carmen’s body felt like it was about to fall to pieces just like Amy’s had that day when Ashley’s health got worse. Both of them piled up emotions that they had never meant to get out but somehow they had slipped out anyhow.

Liv looked at Tiffany as she stepped off the bed onto the carpet. The dark green carpet was burned and stained in every possible place and the dirt made it look darker than it really was. “I am sorry” Tiffany whispered and slowly walked closer. Carmen didn’t say a word but allowed her to join the group hug by opening her arm.

“Let’s get out of here, it smells like a mix of sweaty balls, urine and mold” said Carmen said and Liv could not agree more.. As she was about to open the door a sudden noise alarmed her. It sounded like someone was repeatedly hitting something against the wall in the room next to one they were in. Liv remembered the green car parked outside in front of room 6. “I think we should go,” she said, as the noise became louder and she realized it could have been someone on drugs or even some kind of killer as the motel owned by McAlister seemed creepy and empty. Tiffany said that all his illegal employees left over the summer when one of his firms was shut down and the motel now stood empty.

Suddenly the noise disappeared and footsteps from next door moved outside. The door made a squeaky noise as someone opened it and closed it quickly. Liv moved the curtain a bit to the side and peeked through the window. She spotted a man with a hooded sweatshirt on. His face was hard to see but it looked like blood was dripping from his chin. She let the curtain go and quietly ran to the door and locked it, holding her index finger against her lips as looked at the other two. She tried to remain calm but her body was trembling with fear.

It was quiet. The only sounds Liv could hear were the beating of her heartbeat and the slow footsteps of his boots. Her body froze as she spotted the door knob rapidly turning to the right but the lock prevented it from turned any further.

“What the hell does he want?” Carmen whispered nervously as she snuck a look outside of the window that overlooked the parking lot and watched the man standing next to the door.

“Help me.” He suddenly yelled. His voice sounded slow and uneven but loud, like he couldn’t breathe.

“Maybe he is choking.” Carmen started to panic.

“We should open the door. Maybe he is only hurt,” said Liv said. But it started to sound like he was throwing something against the door. The sound was exactly the same as the sound he had made when he was in the other room.

“Don’t open the door. Please!” Tiffany yelled as she stepped onto the bed from fear and her high heels got buried in the dirty sheets.

“What is he doing?” Carmen raised her voice slightly. “He is hitting his head against the door,” she added.

Liv joined Carmen at the window and moved the red curtain a little more so she could see, then placed her hand against her mouth in shock. He was holding on to the door knob and hitting his head three more times before he turned to the window and started to walk towards it. Liv and Carmen jumped back and let the red curtain fall down which covered the whole window enabling them to see out at the man.

He broke the glass and his bare bleeding fist came through. The shattered pieces of glass fell into the room. Liv grabbed the small lamp from the nightstand and held on to it. It was the only weapon she could think of at that moment. Suddenly another male voice appeared in the background, along with two gun shots.

There was a loud scream and more gun shots followed. Carmen slowly walked back to the window and moved the red curtain to the side, trying to avoid the glass that lay all over the green carpet. “They have him. I think an army van is outside.” Liv slowly unlocked and opened the door.

She spotted a military van parked in front of the motel and five armed men with protection suits and masks holding on to the man from room six. He appeared as if his energy was flagging and screamed like he was in pain, repeatedly asking for help.

His hands were in cuffs and his black hood was still on. His jeans were bloody and dirty.

Two military men were pulling him towards the van but one of them spotted Liv standing at the door. He stared at her direction and she realized it might have been a stupid idea to open that door.

As the man in a safety suit stared, the captured man who slipped out of his grasp. The other military man who held him was fighting against his escape and they both tried to get him back under control. The man’s hood had fallen from his head and Liv’s eyes opened wide as she saw the man’s face. He slipped out of their hands again and started running towards her. His nose and eyes were bleeding and they were all red. His skin was pure white with blue vessels all around his face. He yelled “Help Me!” but Liv felt scared by his appearance in a way that she could not explain to herself. He ran fast and grabbed Liv by her arms. The blood from his hands was everywhere, all around her bare arms. His eyes continued to bleed. She felt the warmth of his breath. He was close, too close. Liv wasn’t even sure if he could see properly but he stared right into her eyes which suggested he could still see. His hold was strong and she felt the slippery blood on her skin. Carmen pushed him back and shut the door.

They both stepped back. Gun shots followed. Liv saw Carmen yelling but could not hear her; everything was suddenly silent for a moment. She looked back and saw Tiffany crying in the corner of the room next to the small wooden nightstand that looked like it was about to fall apart at any second, it was so old. Liv’s hearing started to come back and gradually she heard Carmen yelling “What the hell just happened?” The door opened again and in walked one of the military men. He still had a mask on and was walking towards Liv. “Go home. Liv! Do you hear me? Go home!” His voice sounded bossy, mean and somehow familiar at the same time. Even underneath the mask she could still see some shapes and his blue eyes. She stared at him and wondered if it truly was him, her father she hated so much. This was impossible, she thought. She hadn’t seen him in years. And besides, what he would be doing in Miami on the first place.

“Let’s go.” Carmen pulled Liv and Tiffany out of the room towards the car. As Liv was pulled out of the room, she stepped through the blood that was all over door number five. The man must have been shot multiple times as the blood was nearly everywhere. His body was covered with a white sheet that was already soaked in blood and the military men were taking him into the van. Carmen ordered Liv to sit with Tiffany in the back of the car and she pulled out of the parking lot. Liv noticed the military man, the one with the familiar eyes, walking out of room number five and staring in her direction.

The way back to downtown Miami was accompanied with flashbacks of the man with bleeding eyes followed by the sound of the gun shots and a familiar voice. Each scene played over and over in Liv’s thought, always in slow motion as each second took ten times longer.

Liv could barely hear the conversation between Carmen and Tiffany as her mind was in some sort a parallel world again. Suddenly it was quiet and it felt as if the window had opened during the cold winter and entered her brain just like in the class. It was the same frigid wave that froze her mind.

“Did you like what you saw, my dear?” Liv looked over to her right. Suddenly it wasn’t Tiffany speaking anymore but Eve instead. Liv pinched her hand but she felt it. It wasn’t a dream, she realized.

“Soon, everyone will have bleeding eyes. And that’s only the beginning. Shortly, the world will be in complete chaos.” She smiled. She was calm and her voice was smooth as always despite the fact that she was evil. The coldness was disappearing but everything was white, like she was riding between the clouds. Her eyes felt heavy and sleepy. Carmen still sat on the front and her curly hair was going everywhere as her window was open.

Suddenly Eve disappeared and Tiffany was sitting right next to her again, saying something to her but she couldn’t hear it. Liv thought it must have been the clouds around that make her suddenly feel so calm. It all felt like part of a dream but once she pinched her hand again she felt the pain. She closed her eyes and laid her head back. Everything felt peaceful, like she was high or on some type of a drug.

“Liv! Liv!” Suddenly Amy’s voice appeared as if from the clouds. She felt Amy’s hands shake her bloody arms, bringing her back to reality as the clouds were clearing out. Amy was standing above her and the sun shined right behind her, making her blond hair appear lighter than it actually was just like at the airport. Her big hazel eyes seemed like they were about to pop out. She looked worried. “Liv!” Amy shook her again and Liv looked around. She was still in the car that Amy had given her. The white leather seats felt sticky from her sweating body and she realized she had never sat on the back seat of it before. She still felt strangely calm. Amy helped her out of the car and Liv tried to figure out what had happened, but the clouds were appearing again, making her feel like she was in a dream. She could see she was right in front of Amy’s house and Tiffany and Carmen were staring at her with such scared eyes. Like they were looking at a ghost.

“Let’s go inside, honey.” Amy placed Liv’s arm around her shoulder and helped her make a step forward. But it felt as she was unable to make one, as her body didn’t want to listen her brain’s commands.

“Don’t touch her, she has blood on herself. I’ll take her.” The voice was familiar. It was Jake. His deep voice somehow still gave her chills every time she heard it. He must be back, she thought. She felt him picking her up into his arms. She didn’t know where he was taking her but the smell of the new house suggested it must have been inside Amy’s house. Suddenly she felt cold water and looked down to see Jake washing her bloody arms and examining them. Her head was spinning too much to even think. She let him move her around like a doll.

She felt the softness of her bed underneath her. Everything then went dark and she drifted off to the voices of Jake and Amy around her.