Free Riser (Teen Horror/Science Fiction) (Book #1 in The Riser Saga) ((Volume 1)) by Becca C. Smith

as my own father’s eyes rolled back in his head and when he stared down at the two of us, they were solid red like a nightmare. He grabbed a scalpel from a nearby tray.
“I give my life for theirs.”
And he slashed his arms and throat, dropping on top of our cadavers with a thud. His blood sparked and cracked as it seeped into our skin and clothes.
SNAP! The baby me’s eyes popped open and she breathed in life.
As the last vestiges of life left my father, his eyes began to swirl black, like the holes I could see in dead people. Faster and faster it spun until it twisted its way out of his eyes and into mine.
In that moment, my mom of the past, gasped for air underneath my father’s dead body.
“That was how you got your power,” Mom said quietly next to me. I could see this memory was the most painful for her to watch. There were tears in her eyes as she saw herself on the gurney screaming at the sight of my father’s corpse.
Doctors rushed in, shock on their faces. They quickly removed my father and grabbed the crying baby to make sure I was okay.
The scene froze in an eerie melee of chaos and blood.
“Why didn’t you tell me?” So many things were racing through my head. If she knew all along what happened, why was she just now telling me? And in this freaky way, and getting back to the original topic, how was she showing me this? What was happening?
“I’m not done.”
THUMP!
I really wished the thumping would stop already. I could handle the visions, but the thump, thump, thump, was going to make my head explode, literally. The environment began to transform once again, colors melting into each other like an impressionist painting until our trailer slowly came into view. We were inside and I gasped at what I saw.
We were in the memory of the day when I first used my gift. Bruce threw my mother of the past into the trailer wall. I almost started to panic when I knew that I was about to watch myself kill him. The seven-year-old me was screaming at the top of her lungs and suddenly Bruce was being taken down by the black widow. It was sickening to watch. It was one thing to reflect in a memory, but seeing it in front of me like this, like a voyeur watching some gruesome snuff film, was unbearable.
“Stop it, please,” my voice was barely a whisper.
It was as if she hit pause again. She froze the scene just as Bruce was dropping to the floor from the spider’s poison.
“You knew I brought him back?” I could hardly believe it. My self-imposed prison was all a lie. She knew and let me do it anyway. I felt betrayed and hurt.
“It was necessary.” Mom still wouldn’t look at me. She just stared at the frozen memory in front of us.
“Necessary?! Why didn’t you tell me you knew? You know I have to stay near him, or he’ll rot.” I still couldn’t believe that she truly understood the facts of the situation.
That’s when she looked at me. Her eyes were filled with sadness and regret. “Just trust me, Chelsan. It was necessary.”
“Mom. What is going on?” I couldn’t take this anymore, and I needed to know what was happening.
THUMP!
“MOM!” I cried out from the pain.
And we were back in her garden in front of the trailer. The green smoke was layered in a thick fog blinding my view of the park. All I could see was my mother on the ground, choking. It was surreal standing next to a ghostly version of her and watching as her body on the ground was writhing in agony.
“I’m dying,” she said.
I looked around in panic. “No. I can save you!”
THUMP!
“I can’t take that noise anymore! Make it stop!” I screamed.
“It’ll stop soon enough. It’s what’s keeping us linked together right now.”
“MOM! I’ll go back to the park, I’ll save you! Let me go!” I was sobbing now. Keeping us linked in this strange way was stranding me under that damn tree. I could be half way back to the park by now.
“Promise me something, Chelsan.” Mom looked at me as seriously as I’d ever seen