I become aware of my own high-pitched, uncontrollable screams ripping through the air and force myself to physically clamp my mouth shut with my left hand. Whoever did this to Leah could still be roaming the woods. But she did it herself. She wrote that. No, she said she was going to the lake. She must have changed her mind. Or someone must have hurt her after she’d already written the note. Anton – it must be him. And he could be on his way back up here, right now.

I have to get help. The snow is still falling heavily, and there is nothing visible to mark the spot where Leah lies; she’ll be covered again by the time anyone can get here. How am I going to direct the police or emergency services to the exact place? I point the phone to the grotesque remains of Leah, my hand shaking violently, and open the camera function. I take several pictures, but have to stop and retch, spitting mouthfuls of bile into the snow at the harrowing sight of Leah’s shattered face, even more brutal in the light of the flash. It’s not her, it’s not her, I tell myself out loud, fighting the urge to start screaming again – it’s not her. This isn’t real.

I can’t control the wild gallop of my heart or my shallow, panicked breath, and I begin to run, hurtling down the steep incline of the narrow path, stumbling over slippery rocks and partially buried roots coiling from the earth, and it must be under one of the bulbous roots my right foot slips and catches, bringing me crashing to the ground, and it must be against one of those sharp rocks my head strikes because in an instant the white night is replaced by solid blackness.

47

Kristina

I’m in space. Silent technicolor explosions tear into the velvet backdrop of the universe, sending soundwaves across light-years, tearing my skin clean off and melting my insides. My consciousness drifts into vast clusters of swirling green gas. It goes from green to ocean blue, then deep indigo, before it gathers again, drawing together into bulbous clouds of electric blues and pinks and neon orange that collide and burst into white flames, streaking and pulsating across the black.