Chapter 4

CHAPTER 4

    I watch the sun rise in my window. I'm sweating, my eyes are bloodshot, and for once I’m terrified. The events of the dream play in my head. If that's what dreaming is, I never want to have another one again. I wait dreadfully until 6 to get up and make my way over to my dad's room. I walk in and approach his sleeping body. Even sleeping he seems stressed.

“Dad?” I whisper in his ear. I sound like a scared little girl, about to ask if they can sleep in bed with their parents after a bad dream. He makes a groaning sound.

“I think I'll go to school today.” I saw hesitantly. I need something to distract me throughout the day.

“Ok sweetie that's fine” he mutters and drifts back out of reality. I go into the bathroom and splash my face with cold water to stop me from sweating. I hardly feel it on my skin. I wipe my face off with a clean towel and stare at myself in the mirror. I look awful. My hair is matted, my skin is pale, I look like the figures from the nightmare. I go to turn around but something catches my eye. I blink a couple of times to see if it will go away, but it doesn’t. I see in the mirror a bruise on my shoulder.

“What?” I whisper in disbelief. It's puffy and fresh, black and blue. I stare at it in awe. My eyes shift down to the real thing. It's there, just as real as the rest of me.

“No.” I dismiss the thought. It's not possible. I refuse to believe it. I go back to my room and rip clothes from my closet. I pull them harshly over myself, and pain pulses from my shoulder. I want to get out of this room as fast as I can. As I’m putting on my jeans I feel a sharp pain in my foot. I look down at the floor to see blood everywhere. But that isn’t a concern to me. What the blood is on is the concern. There are broken pieces of glass right below my lamp. The sound of the crash from the dream plays in my ears. Tears start to form in my eyes. I swallow hard and turn away. I’ll pretend like that didn’t just happen. I'll just go on with my day. Like everything is fine.

    I walk back into the glass dome, wondering if I’ve made a mistake. Everyone looks at me with pitiful eyes. I hate the attention. I just want to make it to class. I walk fast through the hallway towards the stairs. Then I feel arms wrap around me from behind. I jump and freeze. This person has a strong grip. I look down at the arms and see wrists covered in designer bracelets.

“Eve I’m so glad you’re here,” a squeaky voice says.

“Aria,” I say in the most cheerful voice I can muster up. I turn to see her sad face, still done in full makeup.

“Oh my god you look awful,” she says. I smile while staring at her with hate in my eyes. She touches my hair and my hand flies to hers and grips it. I take a deep breath and loosen my grip.

“How have you been doing,” I say, not really caring.

“It was hard at first, but I know she would’ve wanted me to be happy. Everyone is talking about you, though” she says happily while poking my shoulder. Which means they aren’t saying nice things. I wait for her to ask how I am but she doesn’t. I just want to rip her pretty little face off so bad. There is an award silence but she seems oblivious.

“Cool. I gotta go,” I say and I sprint up the stairs.

“Ok ttyl!” She yells. I debate whether or not to stick pencils in my ears. As I near the top of the stairs, I start to get a weird feeling in my stomach. Goosebumps cover my body. I hear a sound from the top of the third floor and keep walking. Ignoring it. This seems to be a reoccurring theme today.

    I sit in class, not looking at anyone. I've decided I’m going to lay low for the day. The teacher rambles on about something. People keep passing me notes saying how sorry they are. One girl even gave me brownies. They are a few days old, considering she didn’t know when I was coming back to school. I look up and see Quinn’s old desk. Empty and bare. I picture her in it, bright and beaming. Smiling at everyone and everything. Her beautiful face suddenly grows scared and she slumps over, her blonde hair stained red. I look down at my desk. For once I don’t mind the ugliness of it. The light beige desk, which usually reflects the light, stays a dull matte.The longer I stare at it, the more it swirls into a different reality, My mind goes to a dark place. The dream pops into my head. I try to come up with an explanation, but I can’t find one. I can hear everybody scribbling notes on their papers mindlessly. I close my eyes and try to focus on something happy. But everything just goes dark. So I look up to study the classroom. My desk faces away from the window at the board. The teachers cluttered desk sits at my left. The door sits on the left side of the classroom as well in the corner next to the board. It faces me toward the window behind me and it opens towards the hall. And there is a window high up right across from it. I can only see the bottom of the glass, but a light beam shines down. I watch as younger kids walk through it quickly with a pink hall pass in their hands. They always have a place to go. An objective. Then there are the kids my age who wander around aimlessly. Without a care in the world.

    As I enviously people watch, I see something move in the opposite corner of the room. I ignore it and it moves again. I turn my head slowly, not knowing what to expect, but fearing whatever it is. It's a boy. Slightly transparent like the other ones I saw in the dream. He is tall and wears regular school clothes. He sees me watching him. He looks me in the eyes and I feel my soul churn. Not in a good way. I look away and pretend he doesn’t exist. I focus on the board. Then I see him slowly walk in my line of sight. He stares at me menacingly. My eyes can’t move away this time. I watch as he looks down at a girl he is standing in front of. I'm guessing she can’t see him because she is focused on the board. He looks back up to me and points at the girl, making sure I see. Then he brings his hand up to his neck and draws a line slowly across.

    My heart starts to pound. I don’t know if he is real. I don’t know if he can really hurt her. If he is like the guy in the dream, then he probably can. But maybe its all in my head. My mind races with possibilities. I don’t want to draw attention to myself.  I watch as the thing takes out a knife. My eyes widen with fear. Why would he want to hurt her? Why am I the only one who can see it?

“Stop” I mouth towards it. It gestures to itself with the knife jokingly. I nod my head yes. It laughs and mouths “No”. It turns its attention away from me and gets ready for whatever devious task it has planned.

“Hey,” I say out loud this time. Some people in the class look at me. The teacher stops talking. My heart starts to pound in my ears. I look around nervously, I feel like the walls are closing in on me.

“Stop,” I say, even louder. It ignores me as it raises its arms, knife in both fists. I push myself out from under my desk. The entire world melts away, it's just me and the figure.

“Don’t!” I scream. But its hands go down. I spring up, adrenaline pumping through me. I charge at it with all my might. My legs propel me as fast as they can. Air rushes through my hair and I tense up every muscle in my body as I throw myself at it. Just before the moment of contact, it disappears, and I fly through the air. The ground rushes towards me and I hit it hard. I ignore the pain as I look around the room, confused. I stand up.

“What? Where did-“ I stop and look at the girl in front of me. She looks confused too, but not for the same reason as me. The world melts back together around us. Everybody’s eyes are fixated on me. Some terrified, some on the verge of laughter. I feel my face turn bright red. 

“Ms. Evelyn are you alright?” I hear a deep voice say. I turn to see the teacher who looks concerned for my well being. I feel myself start to panic. I clear my throat and open my mouth to speak, though I have no idea what to say.

“Uh, um, I-, I'm not,” all the words in my vocabulary struggle to break free, “um, feeling too good.” I give him a nervous smile and turn towards the door without saying anything else. I bolt out of the room as fast as I can, wanting nothing more than to just die. As I turn into the hallway I bump into someone. 

    Suddenly everything goes slow for me. Like in an action movie. I turn back to see who I bumped into, but my legs keep running. It's a boy with a scared and confused look on his face. I have never seen him before. Not in person, that is. His green eyes show a different emotion towards me this time. Though it makes me just as scared as before. I turn my head and run even faster. Afraid he might grab me like in the dream.

“Wait!” I hear him yell in a slow, distorted voice, but I don’t stop. I hear his footsteps follow mine. Everything in the hall goes by in a blur. It's like the walls aren’t real. Just a children’s scribble that I run endlessly through. My eyes start to black out and all I can see is the door to the stairs. I stick my arms out as I reach it. I grab the doorframe and use it to swing myself around. Everything goes normal time and I fly down the steps. Black spots slowly cover my eyes and I try to blink them away. But when I open my eyes the blackness has taken over. I stop walking and wait for my eyes to go back. But instead, they start to adjust to the darkness. That's when I realize that the darkness isn’t in my eyes, but I am in the darkness. Everything is silent. I see a faint light in a door, and next to it there is a sign that says in bright red letters,

“ROOF ACCESS”

    “What the f**k?” I say out loud, hearing my voice echo across the hall. I must have spaced out and somehow run up here. I turn to see the boy run through the doorway at the bottom of the stairs. He starts to make his way down them, still chasing after me. He looks up just for a second and stops in confusion. He stands there squinting at me, then glances at the gate. We both realize at the same time that it is locked. A chill goes down my spine and I want to run away from the darkness.

“How did you?” He doesn’t finish.

“I don’t know,” I say. I run down the stairs and I shake the gate frantically. It doesn’t budge.

“This doesn’t make any sense,” I say. But then again, nothing that happened today does.

“You’re worried about making sense right now?” he runs up the stairs and puts his hand on the lock. I glare at him. And then I remember the dream. He couldn’t possibly know about it. About any of this.

“You’re Quinn’s friend right?” He says cautiously. I swallow hard before answering.

“Yeah,” I say in almost a whisper. It makes me mad. I'm standing here in trouble and he wants to play twenty questions.

“I saw it.” he says quietly.

“Saw what?” I say carefully. That could mean so many things.

“That thing, in the classroom. I saw it.” This catches me by surprise.

“You did?” I say in disbelief.

“Yea. I don’t know what it is and I've never seen one before. Well not really” he trails off

“Is that why you chased after me?”

“Not exactly.” is all he says. I wait for an answer but one doesn’t come. I raise an eyebrow at him and he looks at me.

“How did you get up there,” he says, gesturing towards the top of the stairs. I open my mouth to say something but nothing comes out. I really don’t know how I ended here. I look at him and his eyes are fixated on the spot he just gestured towards. I start to turn my head to look but his hand shoots through the bar on my shoulder.

“Don’t look. We need to get you out,” he says urgently. I look at his hand. Pain surges through where it lays. On top of the bruise. I wince and shoo it off.

“What did you just see?” I say, but he sees something in the hall and runs towards it, ignoring me.

    I lean my head against the bars and close my eyes, feeling hopeless. I listen to the sound of my heartbeat. My mind races. I’m so tired and worn out. I open my eyes and look up to see if the boy is on his way back, but I am staring at the stairs through the bars. I look down at the floor and the lock lies in pieces all around. I turn around and the kid is on the ground, unconscious. He lies there, seeming dead. A drop of blood trickles from his head. My eyes start to tear up as my emotions overwhelm me. I melt onto the ground and heave. My head hurts and I want to just forget about the past night. The past week. I want Quinn back. I want my life to go back to normal again. I cry for what seems like an eternity, but then I feel a hand on my shoulder. I turn quickly and glare at the boy who retreats his hand and holds it in the air.

“Sorry, I’m just trying to be nice,” he says. Tears stream down my face and I start to become embarrassed. I'm crying in front of someone I don’t even know. He stands up and holds out his hand to me. 

“We have to go,” he says. I stare at the hand in front of me. 

“Why,” I say almost like a little kid.

“Because the bell is about to ring”

“Shouldn’t we tell someone?” I say as I stand up, ignoring his hand. It plops down at his side in annoyance.

“I don't think that's a smart-“ The five-minute bell cuts him off. Everyone has five minutes until they leave class. HIs hand shoots out and grabs my arm. He starts to pull me but I push it off.

“We have to go. Now.” he says concretely. I stare at him and as I’m about to protest he heads down the stairs. He looks back at me desperately.

“Do you want answers or not?” he says. I stare at him and the urgency in his face grows. 

“Yes,” I say, as I head down the stairs, putting my trust in a person I don’t know

Author's Note

Please let me know if there are any grammar problems or unnecessary sentences or places where the plot doesn't make sense.