CHAPTER ONE.

Was it a ring? It looked like a ring. I couldn't tell, my thoughts were spinning, because my brain was_ spinning, because my head was... Signals, were already sent to every limb across my body, but none were responding as they should have.

Oh my god! The nausea. I could feel it rooted in my gut all the way up to my now heavy and numb tongue, I could taste it. I could taste the freaking nausea.

And for crying out loud why couldn't I keep my eyes open. My eyelids felt heavier than a brick, the tiny fragments of light that sipped through the cracks as they fettered was in no way reflection of the effort I was exerting into keeping those skin and tissue flaps open.

I hated this feeling, I couldn't tell if I was in pain or not, if I was angry or scared, everything in my body was light, and numb, and pathetic.

My mind was grasping on to the pictures still visible in the unrest of my thoughts, queuing them in order, so that I won't forget who I was, trying to make sense of what was.

'I was Beatrice Lovely... No! I was Anett.

The last thing I remember doing is looking through the display glass window of a thrift) store on alpha lane. So how? why was I in this dreadful awful state? With the bits of information making it out of the fog, my eyes lightened.

I could see... light, a lot of light that hurt my corneas and made me blink severely. There were all kinds of long slender shadows stretched back, all around the blinding light. There was also wind, a gentle breeze that smelled like pine, cedar, wet tree barks and I think... Cinnamon rolls. I could hear distant flitting of birds.

Was I in the woods? How did I get here? It was a ring! I did see a ring. It was was so close to my face it nearly touched my forehead. A very tiny almost silver ring in the middle of a black spherocuboid object, that extended back a couple of inches. The ring stretched inside it like the edge of a barrel...Holy shit!

It was a gun! I was flat on my back, staring inside the barrel of a gun. The sick and drowsy feeling wore off almost immediately. I could feel the panic vastly spanning all across my body fueled by the heightened heartrate.

My elbows and the heels of my open toe sandals kept digging into the shifty detritus beneath my body as I dawdled around in haste, trying to lift my head into the nearest shadow, which absurdly belonged to the person holding the gun to my face. The sun was above us, disrupting my view of him, his body blocked its rays, ending his casted shadow below my chin.

My throat was dry and I couldn't tell if the moisture in my palms was sweat or the humic soil that had sifted through my fingers. I could hear my own heart racing in my ears, the sun was hot against the little skin that was left exposed, my black habit covered all the way from my neck to my ankles, and the black stockings inside covered the little of my feet that remained. I could tell there was definitely sweat across my hairline though, underneath the elastic end to my bonnet.

It was always hard keeping it white on all occasions with me constantly sweating, I blamed it on my genes. It was to keep all my hair under control, so the veil over it would rest undisturbed, but the damn bonnet would protude very much outside the veil making it vulnerable to dust and since it was wet from the sweat, it would turn from it's natural dazzling white color.

'Then use a rag! Why do I have to tell you this!' Nun Veronica's abraded voice echoed in my head_she was mother superior now. It had been hard getting used to calling her that the past few days. The Abbess had given her the title a week ago, probably a long time coming, she was a hardass.

Well at least now, that wouldn't have to be a problem I would have to worry about anymore, since whoever this person was, had decided to end my life.

I thought one of the perks of being a nun was that I wouldn't have to die like this, shot in the head in the middle of nowhere. I kept in prayers, I only cursed in my head because I had to chew on my words before I spoke, just like nun_mother superior said. She told us to do that, so that everyday would be a good day to die, no one wounded or cursed from the words in our mouths, by our hearts.

What could I have possibly done different to deserve this, my day was hot and it smelled woody and scuddy, it definetely didn't feel like a good day to die.

I finally scampered around enough for my eyes to dip into his shadow long enough for me to see his face. He could see my heavy breathing and panic, scurrying on the ground beneath his feet. But he didn't move, not even an inch, he just watched. Silently.

He hadn't covered his face, like a murderer should. Was it always because they wanted to get away with crime? or was it because of the shame and guilt that came from the act of ending another person's life? He had a long square-jawed face and plump cheeks underneath his young beard, that matched the thickness and the darkest shade I'd ever seen in hair on a man's head. His almondy shaped eyes were clear with no markings in his eye balls and a dark brown in his irises, or maybe it was just the distance between us.

He oddly smelled like cinnamon rolls, the wind in the tiny clearing of whatever forest this was, still blew at my face. It had to be him, or there was a bakery nearby, or he had some in his pocket for an after snack, after all he was dressed casual in an open flannel with a black t-shirt inside and dark gray linen pants with so much creases on it_there had to be food in there. His high top boots matched his t-shirt the tip of one of them kept stepping on a tiny fold of my exorasa as I scampered beneath him.

He seemed calm_serene even, pointing that thing at me. He had definitely done this before. My legs were failing me, not picking up the pace to the efforts trying to get me up off the ground, no fault of their own though, I could feel my toes trembling inside the stockings.

'You panic, you fail.' daddy always said. This wasn't me, this guy must've chloroformed me, and the drug was still in my system. That was it, it had to be. What the hell did he want_

"Please!_what do you want from me!" My voice was shaky and I forgot to chew, I asked just as I thought.

"Shut up!" His voice was gruffy, harsh and demanding but somehow relaxed.

I groveled on the ground, still pathetically trying to crawl away backwards, from him and his gun. I didn't look away from him. I thought if I had, he would have shot me. Since I woke up, he'd been staring, maybe looking away was all he was waiting for to finish the job. But if that was the case, then he could've just killed me while I was out.

But he didn't. Maybe he liked looking into the live faces of his victims when he killed them, he was sadistic like that. A psychopath.

"I...don't have anything_"

"I won't ask you to shut up again." He said, his voice getting a little inclined as if he was agitated by my voice or something.

He started savouringly covering the very tiny distance I had made scrabbling away from him. The tip of his gun still following my head.

Shit! I scoffed inwardly at myself, look at me, cursing, I used to pray every time I did that. I wanted to pray right now, but for some reason I didn't know what to pray for, erudition was among the vows I had taken, it wasn't one of the main ones like chastity, poverty and obedience represented by the knots in the rope currently tied around my waist. The vow had me confused on whether I was supposed to pray for my salvation or my soul. I wanted a way out of this alive, was I supposed to pray for his heart to change, or his death.

It didn't matter anyway  because even if I wanted to pray, fear had locked me out of reason, the words weren't there. I was getting freaked out by his calmness and overwhelmed by the panic stunting my ability to try and run. I felt an almost painful pinch inside my nose and under my orbit as my eyes got glassy.

I wanted to beg more but I was afraid_ "Please...don't do this!" 'No! That was supposed to be on the inside.'

I was too late and the words were already out of my mouth I couldn't take them back. I'd violated his direct order to keep my mouth shut and as implied, there were, consequences.

He abruptly shifted all his weight on his left leg and drew back his right one before he snapped it forward like a spring in an instant, the fast kick he hit me with almost burried his boot into my side. The force alone moved my body a couple of inches away from him. The blow echoed all over, if it was possible to feel your kidney, I could've sworn he hit it. My hands instinctively latched at the side of my gut, writhing in pain.

Fuck! It hurt, the wind was knocked out of my lungs, and the pain lingered like scum after a wash, it felt like his foot was still there, the pressure spanning all across my hip to diaphragm. I gasped inexorably for air, tears spreading down my face as I bowled around doleful and carelessly in the duff, the tiny bits of dead plant matter and dry leaves sticking to my wet face and getting inside my open mouth desperate for oxygen to make it back into my chest.

Chew your fucking words. My head turned upwards in the moment when my cheek was pressed on the ground, lying on my stomach with both my hands still holding on to my side reminiscing in the blow that led to the still echoing pangs of pain. My black veil lied on the other side of my face obstructing one of my eyes but I was able to see a car. A parked suv dark green, old, it was just a few feet away.

'That's what he had to have brought me out here in.' I idly thought trying to distract myself from the pain.

He tipped me over onto my back dagain with a sudden shove from his foot. The treads on the bottom of his heavy shoes felt hard against the skin on my shoulder even with the cotton material in between. He stood towering over me, my head flat on the ground turned sideways looking at his boots.

I watched him put the gun in a holster by his belt under his shirt, before he straddled himself on top of me, faster than I could fight him off, trapping my arms beside my core body in between his thighs, sitting on the divide between my chest and stomach.

The panic turned up a notch as my mind darted allover like a pinball. I had barely recovered from his kick before. He grabbed my neck with both his hands steadily fast, more like a pounce and immediately started squeezing.

I shrieked as he grabbed on. His hands were intense and hard against my neck, they tightened by the millisecond and the more he tightened his grip around my neck, the more he tensed up his entire body, making sure I couldn't move my arms.

"Please... Please_" I implored crying and searching for the monster in his shockingly vivacious eyes, hoping he'd see the sincerity in mine and know that I wanted to live.

I felt the pressure in my chest, every organ in my body demanding oxygen that just wasn't there. The pressure slowly extended to my head, as I struggled with every ounce of strength I had left underneath him, desperate to save myself. My arms wriggled and my legs kicked, digging around in the ground. I couldn't yell for help or beg anymore because sound didn't come out.

I felt myself use up the little breath left inside, tried as hard as I could but there wasn't any air making it in. His hands had crushed in enough to stop even the tiniest puff from coming in. I heard my heart beating inside my head slowly and loudly, it felt tartish like a rustic engine. It fucking sucked, every second of it, sucked, I finally knew what to pray for. Death.

I wanted that feeling to stop more than I've ever wanted anything in my life.

'This bastard has a gun why the hell is he doing this?' That was the last clear thought that went through my mind.

I felt my face swell with trouncing pressure like it was about to burst and my eyes started getting heavy again, my vision gradually faded as the clear picture of his stupid calm face surrounded by trees behind him got shrouded by shadows all around.

The smell of cinnamon rolls and wet rotting leaves getting excrescent as the last anchor to my consciousness, I was dying with decaying pieces of plants attached to my face, the tiny little fragments that made it inside my mouth didn't have a distinctive taste.

At the last possible conscious second I had left, I swear I heard him say;

"Why did it have to be a fucking nun."