Blood

Today is the solstice, so you’d think I’d be being kind of cautious, yet I don’t realise I’m being stabbed until the smell of my own blood fills my mind. I don’t even get a curse out before I’m on the ground.

A gasp escapes me. I don’t think I’m capable of anything else.

“Sorry, mate,” says a voice behind me. The owner steps into my field of slowly narrowing vision and I see myself.

Is this what dying is like?

Then I notice the knife, long crooked and menacing. It’s cloaked in a sheet of red. My blood.

“Don’t worry, though. You ain’t gonna die. Mummy wouldn’t be too pleased if you died,” my face smiles above me. “I just need you out of the way for a couple hours.”

Lorna. I’m supposed to be going to Lorna’s.

I try to speak but all I can manage is a gurgling cry.

The man that looks like me makes a face of shame and says, “Yeah. That part’s unpleasant.” The man frowns. “You look cold.”

I’m not cold, though—I’m on fire. I can’t be cold. I need to do something.

My doppelganger sighs. “I suppose you’re the heroic type, but I promise you there ain’t nothin’ you can do, mate,” he stops to think. “Maybe we’ll leave you the girl, though. Oh, and my jacket. Wouldn’t want you to catch a cold.”

He peels off a tan jacket, identical to mine, and throws it over me. He smiles, waves, then begins to trudge away through the snow.

I can’t see as well now and my head is starting to pound but Spirits save me, I have to do something. I have to. I need to help Lorna.

At least, that’s the last thing I think before I pass out.