Diamonds And Deceits

She ran as fast as her legs would let her, the sound of dry grass being trampled upon breaking the silence of the night alongside her heavy breathing. She bolted through the night, looking over her shoulders every second.

The narrow alley seemed to go on and on into an endless path of darkness so heavy that it gripped her heart and made breathing a struggle. Her heart was pounding in her chest as she looked behind her frantically.

She saw no one behind her but she couldn't stop running and she knew that. Suddenly, she crashed roughly into a hard wall which sent her falling on her back. Panting, her eyes widened as she watched the hard wall metamorphose into a person. She didn't see his face but she saw the corner of his lips curve into a villainous smirk.

"Hello Shadow!."

Hazel shot up from the bed, beads of sweat dripping down her face. Her shirt stuck to her body and her hair was tangled, almost like a bird's nest. She drew in heavy breaths, her chest rising and falling in a desperate attempt to get herself together. It was of no use, she was shaken.

That dream! That man! That voice!.

It was all painfully familiar, very painfully. She had run away from that past, why was it haunting her now?

"Mummy!" A tiny voice pierced the darkness.

Hazel turned abruptly and her gaze fell on her precious daughter, Heather. The little girl was sitting up on her crib and staring at her mother, her big blue eyes filled with worry. Hazel instantly pulled herself together, stretching her arms towards her daughter.

"Hey baby!" She mumbled, gripping Heather tightly.

"Mummy, are you okay?" Heather asked, wisely noticing her mother's discomfort.

Hazel heaved heavily. She wasn't okay. It felt like everything she thought she had walked away from was closing in rapidly. And she was scared. If her past caught up with her, then the life she worked so hard to build for herself and her daughter would be destroyed. She couldn't let that happen. She had no one to turn to and was tired of not staying in one place.

She swallowed the lump in her throat and snuggled her daughter closer to herself, she said, " Mummy is fine. It's just a bad dream."

Heather, very brilliant and sensitive, as always, said," Do you want to talk about it, mummy?"

Hazel managed a smile. She was wrong about something. Her two-year old daughter was here for her, how could she forget that?

" No baby, I'll rather let it go."

A faint glow reflected on the window curtains from the fading moonlight and Hazel immediately guessed the time.

" Come on, let's go back to sleep. It's not yet morning." She mumbled.

As Hazel tucked her daughter in and fell back in bed, her mind began to wander into an unsettling journey of dark and painful memories.

Her life had been a mess from the start. She was an illegitimate child, gotten from a drunken affair between her father and another woman outside his marriage. Her mother died shortly after giving birth to her and luckily, her father took her in despite his wife's disapproval. Was it luck? Because her life would have probably been better without her stepmother and stepsister to implant misery into her existence. Her father was there for her as much as he could, but he had to work most of the time, and then he passed away.

She had been just fifteen, she couldn't even cry, neither when he was lowered into the ground and everyone around was weeping their eyes out, nor when her stepmother directly implied that she was responsible for his death. From that point onward, her life took a drastic turn for the worse.

But she survived! She survived the countless times her stepsister took, no, stole the things that belonged to her. From bribing their teachers to exchange their grades and failing her in high school, to seducing, bribing or lying about her to the managers of all the side jobs she got so she would be fired. She survived her stepmother thwarting her scholarship into Harvard University, even though it broke her like nothing else. She scaled through the time where she got involved with the wrong people out of desperation and had to do dirty and dark things just so she could survive. She survived being forced into marriage by her supposed family, to a man who treated her like trash.

And she survived getting pregnant by a stranger because of her reckless grieving.

Hazel heaved, her eyes falling on Heather lying beside her. A mix of emotions swirled within her - love, fear and uncertainty.

Another sigh and she shut her eyes. She had a hectic day ahead and she needed all the rest she could get.

Only that, she couldn't get any!

Morning came too soon and Hazel hurried through getting herself prepared for work and her daughter for school.

As she watched her daughter climb into the school bus, she felt uneasy. There was this feeling rising in her chest but she didn't know what it was. It was like her instinct was trying to tell her something.

Maybe it was because of her dream! Hazel couldn't fathom it so she ignored it. To add to it, she had been getting this feeling a lot lately. Every morning, she felt something would go wrong but nothing ever did, so today, like other days, she pushed it aside and waved at her smiling daughter with a forced smile of her own.

The journey to her workplace was consumed by her clouding thoughts. As she walked through the path filled with fallen leaves from the autumn season, Hazel was reminded of her dream. Her heart was gripped with fear but she drew comfort from the fact that it wasn't dark.

It didn't help. It felt like she was being followed. Time and time again, she stopped and turned but there was no one. Hazel found this very uncomfortable so she picked up her pace and hurried to work. She was minutes late but also relieved. Whoever it was that was following her would not be able to come into her workplace.

Hazel managed to settle into her desk and get to work immediately, trying her best to focus and not dwell on the eerie feeling that there was someone watching her.

Why did it feel like this feeling had skyrocketed today?

As mentioned before, Hazel had gotten entangled with some very messy individuals in the underground world and it was a miracle that she got out of it alive. But one couldn't exactly walk away from the past and expect to be entirely free, especially if this past involved a life as wild as the one she had lived.

Because of this, Hazel found it very easy to believe that she was being trailed. They had finally found her and they were coming after her. All the people she had been made to wrong, they were probably coming to take their revenge.

What was going to happen to her daughter?!

Panic set in. Hazel's mind reeled as fear gripped her. She had barely made it through half of the job she had at hand when she shot out of her seat and made her way to the restroom.

Hazel washed her face and tried to calm herself down. She was beginning to have a splitting headache and nothing seemed to relieve her of the tension she felt. The room suddenly felt claustrophobic. She struggled to breath while staring at her reflection in the huge mirror.

Then her eyes fell on something.

Someone!

Hazel didn't think twice before dashing towards the person. All she saw was the back of his perfectly tailored suit as she followed behind him through the hallway. His pace increased and so did hers. When she saw him about to bend through a corner, Hazel practically ran to him.

Without thinking twice or thinking at all, she grabbed his arm and forcefully turned him around, her breath falling short as she saw who it was.

Her boss!