The white, burning light pierced my eyes like a million lightning bolts. Or, you know, something else sharp and painful. Like maybe knives. Or needles.
But that’s not what matters right now. What matters right now is that I have absolutely no idea what’s going on. There are people, tons of people wearing plain outfits a nasty shade of light green. And they’re all milling about like ants that have just had their anthill squashed by some jerkish kid.
And then suddenly my feeling returned and I screamed, the sound tearing out of my dry throat painfully. The scream stopped in my throat after only a few seconds, and I coughed painfully, my body convulsing as I did so. There was a horrible taste in my mouth that I imagined was similar to the taste you would get after licking a metal pole. The people in light green started moving around even faster and bending over me with worried expressions. I could see their mouths moving as they spoke to one another, but I couldn’t hear anything. There was a strange ringing in my ears that was very bothersome and made it hard to concentrate. The pounding in my head didn’t exactly help.
Oh, wait. That’s right.
I’m dying.
Now I remember. I must be in St. Mungo’s. All those ant-people are Healers who are trying to save my life.
The reason I screamed is because there’s a big gaping hole in my stomach, and the pain is rolling over me in waves. I can feel warm blood gushing out of me and I noticed that a few Healers had bright, shiny blood on their otherwise white gloves.
My lifeblood.
The scent is horrific. Terrible. Ghastly. The metallic tangy-ness of it is assaulting my nose with a vengeance, making my eyes water. I guess I knew what I had tasted… My vision swam until I blinked away the prospective tears. Great; I can move my eyelids. Let’s throw a party.
Oh, Damn. I feel like I’m gonna throw up; the nausea is overwhelming. But, you know, I don’t think I can throw up. What with the huge gaping hole in my stomach and all. Where would the throw up come from?
What’s great is that even when I’m lying on a hospital bed in St. Mungo’s with my life bleeding out of me at an alarming rate, I can still manage to have a wry sense of humor. I guess that’s just me for you. Dry till the end, just as I had told them what seemed like forever ago, but was really only a few years. A few horrific years…
Now, I’m sure you’re wondering what the hell is going on. First thing first, my name is Peyton Suskind and I’m nineteen; two years out of Hogwarts, where I went to many boring classes, did a ton of incredibly hard homework, and rolled my eyes at my friends perhaps millions of times. My friends… I would panic because I have no idea what happened to them, but I think the Healers must have drugged me or something. Even now, my eyes are slowly closing. Closed now. I can see bursts of strangely colored light from behind my eyelids, and the pounding in my head turns into a dull background noise, almost unnoticeable. I still can’t hear anything, probably because the explosion destroyed my eardrums or something. Doesn’t really matter if you can hear when you’re dying, I suppose. It might be better that way; who would want the last thing they heard to be “damn- she’s not gonna make it?” Not me.
I also suppose you’re still wondering what the hell is going on here. I haven’t explained very much, but hey, I’m dying here. Cut me some slack.
Anyway, it’s a really, really long story. The story of my life from around age nine. That’s ten years for all of you guys out there who suck at math.
You know, I guess that since I’m dying, I should do that whole cliché’ “life flashing before your eyes” thing. It would be a good way to tell you how I got to this point.
So here it is, folks. The story of the life of Peyton Suskind, as told by Peyton Suskind herself.
The story of how my best friend since age six turned evil and tried to kill me.
So far, it looks like he’s succeeded.
***
Write a Review The Unbreakable Vow: Prologue: The Beginning of the End
Printer Friendly Version
