Second Chance




“Hey, wake up....” Someone above me says gently.


I slowly open my eyes and I see a guy leaning over me with a puzzled look. My first instinct is to scream.


“Don’t....” He says. I some how trust him, so I don’t...


The guy looks a little older than me, probably seventeen or eighteen. He has sandy brown hair and warm hazel eyes. Looks like someone who would play a lifeguard in a romantic comedy movie.... Sorry that’s a little off topic...


“Are you okay?” He asks with a mischievous twitch of a smile.


“Yeah, I’m fine...”


I sit up and look around startled by my surroundings. I’m in a forest, a very dense forest with barely any trails nor clearings. I immediately start rolling off questions once they come into my head like: “Who are you?”, “Where am I?”, and “How the heck did you find me?”.


He laughs at each one of my questions as if it was a joke. I even swear I heard him say something like “newbies”.


“Well for starters, the name’s Lex.” He says pulling out a clear thin screen from his backpack and powering it on to reveal that it’s a holograph/touch screen device. I stare at the device in jealousy. “Your Taelor Wilson, right? Daughter of Laura Silver?” He asks not even looking up from the device.


My mouth drops, I can’t even answer his question. I’m just so shocked. How the hell did this strange kinda cute guy know my name and my dead mother’s name!?!?!


“You are Tae, right?” He says being all cocky and what not.


“Yeah, that’s me.” I say with a hint of anger.


“Well, follow me.” He turns around and starts walking away from me, not seeming to care if I was following.


I get up off the ground and run to catch up with him seeing that he is probably my only ticket out of this forest. Right as I come up on his left, he quickly grabs my wrist with brute strength.


“HEY! LET GO!” I yell at him, trying to free my wrist.


He grasps my other wrist and ties the two together. “Stop moving” He says in his gentle voice. This time I don’t listen.


I try kicking him in the stomach hoping to knock him back. My foot should have struck his body, but when my foot reached where his body was, it was just air, and Lex seemed to vanish, but I could still sense his presence. I could still feel his strong grip on my wrists.


Then, he reappears right as I’m bringing my foot back, but he catches it in mid air. I fall down hitting my head on a rock, knocking me out.



“Man, I can’t believe we lost that game.” Anna says opening the driver’s side of her new Honda Accord.


“Ya, it’s all Reese’s fault for not catching that pass at the end.” Kat says getting in the back left passengers seat.

“Hey, don’t go blaming my boyfriend for not winning this game. It was pretty rainy out there tonight.” Payton says protecting Reese’s reputation of star wide-receiver. “Hey Tae, do want shotgun?”


“Nah, you can have it. You would be fighting with Kat the whole ride if you were sitting next to her.” I say getting in back with Kat.


“Cool.” Payton says sliding into the front passenger seat next to Anna.



I wake up freezing and soaking wet on the ground in some strange cave. There are strange vibrant green and blue orbs on the ceiling of the cave. Lex is nowhere to be seen. I rise up from the ground rubbing my injured head.


The cave is round and rather large. There is barely anything in it beside myself, a blanket, and the strange orbs. Several stone tunnels lead off into other caves, all are empty though.


“Boo.” I voice whispers in my ear as I leave another empty cave that was connected to mine.


I scream, my voice echoing through out the series of caves. My heart still racing as I turn to slap the jerk who scared me. It was Lex, of course.


“Did I scare you?” He asks sarcastically, catching my hand before I strike his cheek.


“Jerk.” I mumble just loud enough for him to hear.


“Get ready. We’re going to leave soon.” He says looking pre-occupied in his thoughts.


“Where are we right now and where are we going?”

“Stop asking stupid questions and wait to see if I’ll explain.” He looks really annoyed with me. “Right now, we are at the caves.” No, really? I think to myself so tempted to say it aloud. “The caves are a place only few people know how to get here. Many have tried to find it again after leaving it the first time, most fail. Anyway, we are headed to..... Taelor?”


My vision starts to blur and I feel myself fall to the ground. I feel tired and decide to close my eyes falling asleep within seconds.



“So Kat,when do you think Jakob will ask you to prom?” Payton says turning around to talk to Kat.


“Gosh Payton, I’m not even sure if he likes me! Plus, we still have a month till prom....”


“Kat, he obviously likes you! Why else would he hang out with us all the time?” Payton exclaims. “Tae, what do you think?”


I bite my lip because I know the real reason. Jakob’s been hanging out with us all the tome because he likes Payton, even though she’s dating Reese. I haven’t told anyone because one, I promised Jakob I wouldn’t and two, because Kat would freak out! “Uh, I think we will all know by prom if he does or doesn’t....”



“TAELOR!”I wake up right as Lex dumps a bucket full of iced water on me. I glare at him. “Sorry about that..”He says for once being serious. “What happened? It seemed like you fainted back there.”


I rub my head, not sure what happened either. “I don’t know. First my vision blurred then I fall asleep dreaming of being in the car with my friends who are arguing with each other.” Lex looks shocked. “Uh, Lex, what’s wrong?”


“We have to go, now!” He grabs my wrist and starts running through the caves leading me while I stumble and trip over almost everything.

I don’t know how many caves we had gone through before I said something. “Lex, where are you taking me? “ I say catching myself from falling face first into the rocky ground.


“There’s no time, just come on!”


He jerks me forward but this time I hold my ground. “No, Lex. Your telling me exactly where we are going right now!”


“There’s no time!” He says impatiently. Seeing that I’m not going to cooperate , he gives in. “Fine, but I’m only going to give you the short story, okay?” I nod so he continues. “Okay then. Well, everyone here, including me, is well, not alive.” Huh? “Yes, dead. Anyway, some people are chosen to show others around this place. I’m one of the few chosen.”


A loud noise comes from a couple caves back. Sounds like, a dragon? No, dragons aren’t real... right? But then again Lex basically said I’m dead so I have no idea what’s going on anymore.


“Come on! I can’t explain anymore right now!” He pulls my wrist sharply, AGAIN! Gosh, I might be dead but I can still feel the pain.


We run through several more caves. I can feel the creature is catching up with us. Oh shoot my vision starts blurring again, not now, not NOW! I scream Lex’s name right as I go down. I hear him curse and come rushing to me.



“Gosh, this rain will NOT let up!” Anna says furiously.


“Yeah. Hey Anna, go slow on this next turn. Last year some drunk driver hit T.J and his pals head on.” Kat says leaning toward the front.


“Okay, watch how carful I’ll be.” She says slowing the car down to twenty miles an hour when the speed limit is forty-five.



The next series of events happened way too fast. We turned the corner taking it easy in the heavy down pour of rain. I catch a sparkle of another car in our lane yell at Anna to swerve out of the way. She does but the other car seems to mimic our action.


The two cars collide. The awful sound of the two metal vehicles colliding rings through my ears like someone scraping their nails on a blackboard. Even though we were only going twenty miles an hour, the other car must have been going seventy or eighty because when we collided it made us topple over onto the roof of the car. It hits on the left side, right where Payton was sitting.


I remember the other car, it was a black Ford pickup. The weirdest thing was the driver. He looked mid-forties maybe older, shaggy black hair. A very average guy, except he didn’t look drunk at all. In fact, in those last milliseconds I caught his eye contact and he smiled a VERY creepy smile, one that will haunt me for all of eternity.




“Tae, we’re here.”


I open my eyes and find we’re in a courtroom. There’s no audience but there are five people sitting in a one of those chairs you would see a judge sit in, except there are five not one. The person in the middle has the highest chair. He has long grey hair, grey eyes and looks like he’s in his eighties, no nineties? Wait, that face. I recognize it.


“You, you killed me.” I say as the old man shows that wicked smile.