Diamonds And Deceits

She ran as fast as her legs would let her, the sound of dry grass being trampled upon breaking the silence of the night alongside her heavy breathing. She bolted through the night, looking over her shoulders every second. 

The narrow alley seemed to go on and on into an endless path of darkness so heavy that it gripped her heart and made breathing a struggle. Her heart was pounding in her chest as she looked behind her frantically.

She saw no one behind her but she couldn't stop running and she knew that. Suddenly, she crashed roughly into a hard wall which sent her falling on her back. Panting, her eyes widened as she watched the hard wall metamorphose into a person. She didn't see his face but she saw the corner of his lips curve into a villainous smirk.

"Hello Shadow!."

Hazel shot up from the bed, beads of sweat dripping down her face. Her shirt stuck to her body and her hair was tangled, almost like a bird's nest. She drew in heavy breaths, her chest rising and falling in a desperate attempt to get herself together. It was of no use, she was shaken.

That dream! That man! That voice!.

It was all painfully familiar, very painfully. She had run away from that past, why was it haunting her now?

"Mummy!" A tiny voice pierced the darkness.

Hazel turned abruptly and her gaze fell on her precious daughter, Heather. The little girl was sitting up on her crib and staring at her mother, her big blue eyes filled with worry. Hazel instantly pulled herself together, stretching her arms towards her daughter.

"Hey baby!" She mumbled, gripping Heather tightly.

"Mummy, are you okay?" Heather asked, wisely noticing her mother's discomfort.

Hazel heaved heavily. She wasn't okay. It felt like everything she thought she had walked away from was closing in rapidly. And she was scared. If her past caught up with her, then the life she worked so hard to build for herself and her daughter would be destroyed. She couldn't let that happen. She had no one to turn to and was tired of not staying in one place.

She swallowed the lump in her throat and snuggled her daughter closer to herself, she said, " Mummy is fine. It's just a bad dream."

Heather, very brilliant and sensitive, as always, said," Do you want to talk about it, mummy?" 

Hazel managed a smile. She was wrong about something. Her two-year old daughter was here for her, how could she forget that?

" No baby, I'll rather let it go."

A faint glow reflected on the window curtains from the fading moonlight and Hazel immediately guessed the time.

" Come on, let's go back to sleep. It's not yet morning." She mumbled.

As Hazel tucked her daughter in and fell back in bed, her mind began to wander into an unsettling journey of dark and painful memories. 

Her life had been a mess from the start. She was an illegitimate child, gotten from a drunken affair between her father and another woman outside his marriage. Her mother died shortly after giving birth to her and luckily, her father took her in despite his wife's disapproval. Was it luck? Because her life would have probably been better without her stepmother and stepsister to implant misery into her existence. Her father was there for her as much as he could, but he had to work most of the time, and then he passed away.