1 Awake

"No, No!!! please anything but that. Please!! I beg of you, I'll do anything!"

"I'm sorry, it's too late."

The earth quaked and sky cried violently, tears of blood. A cry of pure agony could be heard piercing through the storm, almost as soon as a blinding light overcame any and everything. Then all at once, everything went black and silent, and Dianna woke with a start.

Of all the numerous nightmares she'd had in her twenty-year old lifetime, she'd never been as terrified as she felt in that moment. Sighing, she tried desperately to remember the details and like always she was left with nothing but the excessively blurred images, but in this case it was coupled with an overwhelming sense of dread. She was afraid. This was weird cause Dianna was almost never afraid.

Just as she was trying to make sense of the strange feeling, a knock sounded at the front door.

"Shoot".

She immediately bolted upright, whipping her blanket around her to cover her near nakedness

"Who is it?", she yelled across to the one who knocked.

"It's time Anna, pay up!! And this time I want none of your shitty excuses." He growled the last part and Dianna knew he wasn't going to listen to any of her sob stories.

She thought furiously of something, anything that'll change his mind.

"Troy, I'm begging you, my pay's coming in next week, I promise I'll pay then."

"No!", he thundered, and the door shook with the sheer power of his voice.

"Already told ya Anna...", and she cringed at the nickname he'd insisted on giving her, much to her displeasure

"Pay up in cash or... some other way". Dianna wasn't stupid she knew perfectly well what, ' some other way ', meant, and the very thought almost made her dinner resurface. She could practically picture the creepy dirty toothed smile he had on now, and she cringed again.

"Look, Troy, one more week and you'll get your freaking cash". That seemed to make him angry.

"Three days, I'm giving you three days Anna or you're outta here", he snapped and stormed off.

She sighed in relief, "Douche", she muttered to herself. She guessed she'd better start packing, and looking round her tiny self contained smelly apartment she figured that wouldn't take long. She just had enough clothes to fit the huge-ass luggage she'd inherited from her mom, one of the few possessions she'd kept of her.

Still feeling disgusted from the crazy night before, she practically moaned in relief when the scalding water washed over her melanin adorned skin. She remembered, in mild disgust, the man who'd thought it was a bright idea to start a food fight in the bar last night. Needless to say that Bob was furious and demanded that she, along with the five other employees on shift, spend the majority of the night cleaning up nasty food combinations from the floor and tables.

It was annoying to say the least and by the time she got home, it was well past 3am, and she was exhausted, so being wrapped in her beloved Mickey mouse towel right now felt like heaven. For some people, coffee got them started, for Dianna it was showers. They made her feel all squeaky and clean but there were some things that would never be washed away no matter how hard she tried.

In attempt to banish the resurfacing bad memories, she let her mind wonder to her dream instead. With her mind clearing up, she could remember bits and pieces of the nightmare, and she knew this was a first for her. Usually the things she dreamt of were either things that had happened or ,occasionally, things on the verge of happening, but they always involved things, people that she knew.

However, the gorgeous stranger that yelled in agony was neither someone she'd ever seen nor someone she'd ever hoped to see. Beyond his sheer beauty, even in obvious pain, she'd never ever seen a setting more beautiful. The place in which he begged for mercy could only be described with one word, 'surreal', and weird enough, Dianna would bet her last dollar that the place could be found nowhere on earth, so what the heck?

The closet creaked as she went through the motions of transferring her clothes into the open travel box. Eventually, she gave up on finishing that and made a note to complete it later when she got back. As she did so, she thought of what to wear and finally settled with her little red dress and gladiator sandales.

She'd just wrestled her monstrous curls into a fairly decent bun, when her phone alarm rang to remind her to get her lazy ass to work. She groaned, finally letting go of the thoughts of the beautiful man and focusing on the insanely busy day she had ahead of her. "Today's gonna be one heck of a day", she said as she grabbed her stuff and locked up, and indeed it was.

She waved and smiled kindly at good ol' Mrs. Lucy, the landlord's frail looking mother, and she smiled back apologetically. Of course the sweet woman didn't want her to leave, she'd taken a liking to Dianna since the first day she moved in. They had their little chats, and Lucy was always baking stuff for her, obviously her being kicked out before hand was her sleazy son's doing.

Even though Lucy still owned the building, Troy ran it and as such believed if a female tenant half his age refused to be victimized by him, they just had to go, and Lucy could do nothing about it.

The morning air held the pleasant earthy smell that spring was known for, Dianna hummed to herself as she made a mental list of the day's activities, but first things first she had to get to work. The famous quaint cafe she'd been blessed with a job in was barely a 15 minute walk from the apartment, but she preferred to ride the bus there. It was safer that way.

The bus was supposed to be there in 5 minutes so she waited in the bus stop, clutching her pink work duffel bag tightly.

"You look nice, Dianna", the voice that always made her skin crawl rang out beside her, and like always she focused on nothing but blocking it out, humming to herself a tune she knew nothing of.

"You look just like her. So preetty, so foolish."

She hummed louder and counted down just like her father had taught her to as the voice continued to whisper in her ear.

"They're not here because of you..."

"One, two,three..."

"...but don't worry, I'm here..."

"...three, two, one..."

" ...I'm always here."

"...one, two..."

The bus came, and she almost wept in relief, she hated when the voice came, but worse, she hated the way it made her feel. She loathed what it made her remember.

Her usual window side seat behind called out to her, and she immediately made a beeline for it after paying the driver.

Five years. It's been five years so why now?

"I can't. I can't deal with this right now", she whispered watching the trees blur behind her tears. The bus reached her stop and she willed herself to be optimistic, I mean so what if the voice that tortured her for months as a teen was back? That wasn't going to stop her from achieving her goal, and that begins with getting through the day.

With that in mind, she wiped her eyes and smiled fondly at the elegant looking sign board of the cafe and began her usual morning shift routine.

'Bella's', the upscale little cafe was, without a doubt, a pride of the city. It had grown from a casual breakfast restaurant to something much more and was now famous among the rich and working class as a common ground to jump start someone's day. The food and service were great, and as the name implied, it was almost as beautiful as the mysterious owner of the place.

In all honesty, no one really knew the actual owner, it was rumoured to be formerly owned by the stunning lady on it's logo. Apparently, she was a mistress of a well known earl who'd turned out to be a serial killer. He'd killed his wife and children and eventually when he attempted to kill her, the lady, Bella, who'd been desperately in love with him, killed him in defense. In terrible fear, she'd fled to this city, and with the money she'd managed to get from the earl, she opened the cafe. On her death bed she gave the cafe to her dearest friend whose generations had taken care of it on her behalf, but it is said that the lady roams the cafe at night mourning the lover she'd killed.

To Dianna of course, that was just a load of crap, people would say anything just to have something to say. Personally, she loved the place, it had a calm familiar atmosphere that soothed her, but it was a wonder why the gory rumors people had created didn't scare them off. Instead it seemed to have the reverse effect, maybe it was because they knew it was all horse shit.

"Yo! Evan", she called to her two month co- worker and friend.

"Yo! Queenie", he replied looking up from his phone with an easy smile in her direction.

She smiled inwardly at the corny name, in Evan's opinion, she looked and acted just like one and since her name was Dianna... hence the name.

"So what's up? Did she say yes?", she asked with one brow raised in question.

"Yes to what?"

"Don't play dumb with me, you know I know"

"If you know then why ask?"

"Because I also know you want to tell me."

His shoulders sagged in defeat and he ran his fingers across his short buzz of hair, "She said she'd think about it."

Dianna looked at him in sympathy, touched his shoulder and smiled encouragingly.

"I'm sorry. I want a full recap later. I get it, it's gonna be hard but you're Evan. You've got this".

With teary eyes, he nodded and said, "I've got this, haven't I?"

She nodded back, "We move"

"Life goes on", he replied, and that was all it took for them to fall into the routine of opening up.

Three hours, two big and five small tips later, Dianna was in her zone. She waited tables so she was already very familiar with most of the customers, some of which were regulars. She alternated between serving, clearing and good naturedly conversing with the customers. She loved the consistency of her job, the easy rhythm of the work made her heart satisfied.

Just as she cleared the pretty pregnant blonde, Monica's table, she felt someone's eyes on her, and she turned to find two intimidating looking men in the booth in the corner. One was focused on his meal while the other looked her over in a way that made her suddenly feel very naked, and then... he signaled for her.

In her pink, almost white, work shirt that contrasted beautifully against the very deep, very dark pink of her plated short skirt, her skin glowed. She was beautiful, and she knew this, she knew men could and did find her attractive sometimes, but she always felt uncomfortable when they decided to pursue that attraction.

As she approached reluctantly, her feeling of discomfort immediately turned to one of excitement as the other man raised his head.

"Derek!!", she squealed, momentarily forgetting their environment as she rushed into his arms. He smelled like home.

"Dianna, I've looked everywhere for you, what the hell happened?", he asked ruffling her hair in a familiar gesture.

She chuckled nervously and finally pulled away realizing the scene she'd just made.

"I couldn't stay there, I couldn't let their death be in vain", she said looking away.

He pulled her into another hug, "I was really worried", he said into her hair and smiled down at her.

She was about to reply when he cut her off, "Not here", he said gently. Looking round, she understood. People were starting to stare.

"We have to catch up"

"Definitely, maybe later tonight, meet me at 'Bottles', eight o'clock?"

"I'll be there"

She nodded and got back to work, glancing every now and then at the table even after he'd left. After her shift was over, she left the cafe in a daze.

She couldn't believe it, he'd found her, and she wasn't even entirely sure it was on purpose. Then an overwhelming sense of grief wrapped it's claws round her heart, and a pained sob tore out of her throat, suddenly she felt lightheaded.

If he could find her this easily, they could too, how long have they been watching her? How long before they attack?

"I have to get away", she whispered in resolve to noone in particular, and it broke her heart. She had begun to love this city, love the people, maybe the voice was right, she was foolish, so foolish.

How could she think everything would be normal so quickly? It wouldn't. It couldn't, nothing could ever be normal again, suddenly she was grateful to Troy, he'd given her an excuse to leave, but first she needed to talk to Derek, he deserved to know why she was running away, why she was leaving him. Again.

Thoughts raced in her mind and she didn't realize she'd arrived at her apartment till her door was right in her face. Sighing at how sidetracked she'd become, she attempted to unlock the door and paused. It was already unlocked. She felt it before she saw it, and it was the last thing she saw as she fell unconscious to the floor.