GHOSTS OF THE PAST

AMBER'S POINT OF VIEW

"Amber! Wake the fuck up!"

The dirty tiled floor greeted me when I open my eyes. I cringed when felt sweats dampening my body. My face crumpled.

Why am I still wearing a dress? Where the hell am I?

I raise my head and look around. The room looks absolutely filthy. This place is obviously abandoned base from the flickering lightbulb and the dust covered furniture.

My gaze turned to Ashley who called my name. I frowned when I saw her tied arms and feet.

"Damn, what the fuck is happening?"

I throw Ethan a glance, and my heart sank when I saw that his position is not different from Ashley's.

My heart starts to beat erratically when our situation finally dawned me. Ashley, Ethan, Pierce, Sloane, Evan, and I are tied in a chair.

The door suddenly opens, and the person we are looking for just an hour ago emerged from the darkness. Her face is void of any emotions, but her eyes tell otherwise, it was ablaze with rage and contempt.

"Summer," I called her name underneath my breath.

Her lips curled into a sneer. "Miss me, Amber?"

A heavy silence falls among us. We just stared at her blankly, unable to process everything.

"S-Summer? What is the meaning of this? W-We thought you were abducted by the killers," Ashley asked her.

She chuckled humorously. "Abducted by the killers? Why would I even abduct myself?"

Ashley gasped in surprise. "W-What?"

Summer walk towards her. I saw how the latter flinched when she bowed her head and caresses her cheeks. "Aw, still the naive and slow-witted Ashley that I used to know. How pitiful," she insulted her.

Tears started pooling on my friend's eyes. "W-Why are you doing this, Summer? You lied to us!"

The grin on Summer's lips faded. She stares at Ashley with a dead-pan look. "Oh, so your beloved friend Amber hasn't told you yet?"

I swallowed a lump. They look at me with a questioning look. I shake my head and averted my gaze.

"What the hell are you saying?" Evan asked her.

Summer scoffed. "Why don't we ask Amber instead?" She walks towards me, her heavy footsteps reverberating in my ears. "Let's ask her how she betrayed me just because of jealousy."

I scowled. "I was never jealous of you."

"Really? That sounds like an absolute lie to me. Oh well, what should I expect from someone like you," she taunted.

"Amber? What in the world is she talking about?" I turned my attention to Pierce who asked the question.

I bit my lips to stifle my cries. "I-I don't know what she's saying."

Summer's face darkened. Without any preamble, she grabs my jaw and stares at me fiercely. "Tell them everything, Amber! Tell them how you abandoned our friendship just for your own sake! Tell them how you destroyed my life just to save yourself! " she exclaimed furiously.

Tears escaped my eyes. "N-No, stop this, Amber!

"Tell them before I lost my patience and kill you right where you're sitting!" Her eyes are gleaming with animosity while she's spouting those words like a venom. "You're selfish and obnoxious, Amber!"

I stared on her eyes, and a bitter smile escape my lips. I couldn't see the gentleness on those orbs anymore. All I could see is a livid monster clamoring for vengeance.

And somehow, it pains me. Because I know that I made the devil inside her.

"You almost killed me just for the sake of your own selfish ambition!"

Summer's scream heaved me off of my reverie.

"Amber?" I turned my gaze on Ashley. "Is she telling the truth?"

I bow my head. "I'm sorry."

All of them gasped in surprise. Though I'm not looking at everyone of them, I can feel their piercing stares on me.

"You're an egocentric and delinquent bitch who don't care about other people."

I shake my head. "I-I didn't mean it. I'm sorry, Summer. I was just blinded by my e-motions. I was just fed up with all the r-responsibilities. F-forgive me, Summer." The tears that I'm trying to suppressed earlier started falling incessantly.

"Sorry?" Summer scoffed. "I almost died because of you! You striped me off of my dreams! You made my life miserable! Do you really think your sorry can mend all my wounds?! No, Amber. Your sorry will never ease all the pain and torments that I've experienced! It's useless!"

No matter how much she tried to stop it, all the emotions that I know she has been keeping for a long time bursts like a bubble being pricked. Her eyes, despite kindling wrathful fire, shed tears. And I can't do anything but to accept all her harsh words, because I know that I deserve it.

"So it was you all along." Sloane's voice was laced with displeasure. "Why did you that, Amber? Summer is your friend!"

"I already explained it!"

"But that was not an enough reason for you to kill her! Now look, you dragged us along with the mess that you have made!"

I shrink on my seat. His voice is filled with remorseless disappointment. And that's one of my insecurities; people looking at me as if I'm nothing but a mere failure.

"N-No, you don't understand-"

"It's you who don't understand a thing, Amber." My attention was transfixed towards Ashley. She slowly raised her head and looked at me. My mouth went agape when I fathom condemnation on her eyes "You're being unreasonable. How could you kill your friend just to save yourself from shame? What you did is utterly sickening and abominable."

I look at Ethan, Evan and Pierce. Their eyes are not different from Sloane and Ashley's. All of them are putting the blame on me.

Summer suddenly chuckled. "What now, Amber? Even your own beloved friends are abandoning you. How piteous," she said with a feigned tone of  concern.

I stared at her for a short moment.  "What are you up to? What is your reason for bringing us here?"

The corner of her lips quirked up. She pulled something out of her sweater's pocket, and all of us cower in fear. I couldn't pear any dithering in her eyes when she pointed a gun at me.

"Why did I bring you here?" The sneer on her lips vanished. "To kill you!"

"Summer!"

I recoiled on my seat when she fired the gun without any hesitations. I waited for a minute for the bullet to hit me, but it never came. I check myself, I'm not bleeding neither feeling any pain. She just shot the floor where my sit is exactly situated.

I breathed deep to calm myself. I almost lost my sanity!

Her laugh grieves my ears. "Oh my, this is really fun, isn't it? The fear on your face is such a pleasurable sight for me!" She even clasped her hands together while saying those words, obviously to deride me.

"This is not funny anymore, Summer! Stop this!" Ethan chimes in.

She looks at him with a twisted anymore. "I do not take orders from someone who's affiliated with a filthy person."

"Summer." I caught her attention. "Stop dragging my friends on our mess. Just let them go. I'm the only one who's indebted and owe you something. So please, leave them alone." I swallowed my pride and pleaded.

They look at me in shock. I never say 'please' to anyone. I always hold on to the notion that I should be the one who needs to be pleased and glorified. Maybe that's the byproduct of my father's way of raising me. I unconcsiously adopted his obnoxious personality.

Summer sneered. "Aw, how touching. The illustrious and imperious Amber is begging in front of me. Isn't that surprising?"

I heave out a sigh. "Please, Amber. This is just between you and me. Stop dragging my friends with our dispute."

Her face went blank. "And who told you that I'm dragging them?"

My face distorted. She seemed to notice the confusion on my face.

She laughs humorlessly. "Do you seriously think that from all the people you tormented, I'm the only one who's craving for vengeance?"

A line appeared between my brows.

"Stop cleaning your friends' reputation, Amber. All of you are not different from each other. The six of you are equally despicable beyond the pale. I guess the saying birds with the same feather is indeed true. You all are the living proof of it."

"Seven if you're going to include Airen whose body is probably being eaten by worms in her grave now."

Someone opens the door and blurted those words. All of us instinctively look at that person, and words would not be enough to describe the shock written on our faces.

I saw how Evan and Ashley's face blanched through my peripheral vision. Pierce and Ethan averted their gazes. The obvious fear in Sloane's face petrified him on his seat.

She looks familiar... oddly familiar. We seemed to swallow our tongue as perturbed silence hover around us. My skin prickled unpleasantly as I squinted my eyes on the woman standing in front of us, her lips twisted. The air inside the room seemed to thicken as the temperature dropped.

My body stiffened and my chest tightened when her gaze landed on me. I just stared at her, my face torn between fear and disbelief. "H-How? You're supposed to be dead," I said underneath my breath, my voice cracking.

The sinister smile of the lady widened as her expression hardened. "You don't have any idea how much I'm restraining myself with the meter distance between the two of us right now, Amber."

I was scared-stiff. Her voice seemed to  recrudesce the memories that we have long burried to the past.

My mind took a trail down to the day when everything around me started to crumble down.