Start of a book?

A Chapter by INeedNerve

Just a bit I wrote, I want to turn it into something like a book but I just don't know.

They were surrounding me from all sides, pressing their sharp, pointed faces towards me, the only glimpses of white in the sea of never ending darkness. I heard laughing, so much laughing, deep booms entwined with high cackles. I could feel the menace radiating from each of them, baring their sharp teeth in glee while I screamed and screamed and…

I shot up from my bed with a start, a thin sheen of sweat coating my body and my heart pounding against my chest. After a few moments I realised it was just a dream and began to calm down. I was really sick of these dreams, every night those… Things… Haunted me in my sleep. Shuddering, I got up and washed off the grime before dragging on my school uniform and trudging wearily downstairs, where my mother waited, a bowl of cereal in hand. As she had every morning for as long as I can remember, she insisted on me forcing down food before I left for school. I was about to get up when she said,

“Aren’t you forgetting something?” I stared at her, confused, until she gave pointed look at the calendar. It was then I realised that today was my birthday, my sixteenth. She gave me a kiss on the cheek and promised me my presents would be ready when I get home. I thanked her half-heartedly, birthdays were never really my thing and I didn’t really like celebrating them, but my mum insisted and I got used to indulging her when it came to that. However, I never went as far into my indulgence of her desire for my birthday to be important to tell my friends about my birthday or have anything resembling a party, even when I was younger I found those yearly celebrations pointless.

As I started on my walk to school I began to think about the dreams again, they were always the same, but at the same time, different. I know that doesn’t sound logical but it’s the best I can do to describe them. They were always those creatures, surrounding me, suffocating me, radiating dark vibes, and their eyes, huge, glassy eyes, completely colourless, ranging from milky grey to dark charcoal. Everything about them was grey, washed out. They stared at me as if I was food or prey, as if they wanted to take me and �"I cut off the thought, I didn’t know why on earth I was thinking like this, they were just dreams, nothing to be worried about, I was being ridiculous and over-thinking things, as I normally did.

I was still mentally chastising myself when I walked into the grey-bricked, loud, hive of parasites called school. I may be over exaggerating but most of the people in that building fed on and relished in the disgrace and unhappiness of others, there were only a few exceptions to that rule and most of those exceptions were the people I thought of as my friends. I wasn’t a naturally sociable person, but if I needed something, those were the people I know I could count on, the shoulders to cry on if I ever needed them.

My whole day passed in a blur of meaningless classes and pointless chatter, until suddenly the final bell rang and I realized it was over, for today at least. I could get my books, go home, do my homework and start all over again the next day. Not the happiest of thoughts, but not the most horrible either. School was a lot better than other things I could imagine, in school the day was structured, I had no decisions to make and nothing to worry about, it was amazing. I was dreading the day I had to leave and face reality, school was such an amazing shelter that I didn’t want to let go of. It was as I was thinking that I saw him, it was as if time slowed down and everything else stopped moving and then turned black, leaving me with nowhere else to look. I blinked and everything was back to normal, shaking my head I dismissed what had just happened. It was just a really vivid daydream, actually, it wasn’t even that, it was just a thought, a really weird thought; I couldn’t even recall what he looked like, if there had ever been anyone there at all. I really needed to get a reality check and get my imagination back in line. I had always had a very vivid imagination but recently it had really gotten out of control, I had been having nightmares, seeing things that weren’t there, couldn’t be there, imagining scary dark faces and shadows in the dark.

I shook the dark thoughts out of my head again and started walking home, concentrating on the feel of the cold air on my skin. I know this sounds odd but I liked it, I liked the sensation and the reminder that I was alive, sure, being cold can be unpleasant when you’re distracted or with your friends but if you concentrate on the actual sensations it really isn’t that bad. You can learn to love being cold, learn to love the amazing feel of goose bumps rising and falling across your skin, sending shivering waves of delight all over your body. It sounds like such a tiny thing, but isn’t that what life is? Just a collection of tiny things brought together to make something bigger and larger than would be thought possible, even us, our structure, every one of us is make from tiny protons, electrons and neutrons, all brought together so precisely and in such a complex way that it made us, every single human being is made from the exact same stuff. If you look at the Law of Conservation of Energy it states that energy cannot be created or destroyed but only transferred from one form to another. If you look at it that way the same energy that you and I are using today to walk and talk and chat to our friends is the energy dinosaurs used to hunt and gather food, the energy of the ancient Greeks and Romans. These are the little details I relish in, the little things that make life so precious to me.

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