The Dream Thief- IIA Chapter by Sarah E. Pearson Chapter Two.
Mason Monte stepped through the door of the abandoned apartment, a brown paper bag filled with groceries in the crook of each tanned arm. "Em! Ray! I'm back!" He called out, kicking the door shut.
"Did you bring food?" a girl's voice called from another room. "As much as my bike would let me carry," he called back, kicking the door shut due to his lack of free hands. Making his way into the kitchen, he added, "Come help me unpack this stuff." "Rayna went for a run," the same girl said, coming into the kitchen. Her long, blonde hair was pilled into a bun on the top of her head, and the glasses she rarely ever wore were perched low on her nose. She adjusted her bun as she approached the kitchen table, where Mason had put down the groceries, and picked up a jar of peanut butter. "Anything good in here?" "Just the basics, Emry. You know we can't really afford any luxuries," he replied. "Yeah, but I can dream, can I not?" Emry giggled as she began to help Mason unpack the groceries. After a moment, however, a look of grief crossed her face. "Oh, come on, Emry. This will all be over and we'll be back at home in no time," he awkwardly patted her on the shoulder, trying to be reassuring. "Soon enough, we'll be back at home, comfortable, at ease, and maybe we'll even miss the Earth plane." Emry rolled her eyes as she stuffed a loaf of bread into the cabinet. "Yeah, maybe, but I doubt it. I just want to sleep in my bed; maybe have a dream or two, you know?" "If dreaming is what you want, Emry," Mason said as he finished unpacking one bag, "Then you know just as well as I that we have to stay here and finish what we came here for." Emry slammed down the can she was holding. "But why do we have to be the ones to fix our world's problems? Why us?" "Em, come on, you know why. We're special. You're psychic. Rayna can break into any place without leaving a single trace. Dimitri can track anything in even the worst conditions," Mason crumpled the two (now empty) paper bags, tossing them into a waste basket nearby. "And you can still dream," Emry added, putting away her last can and turning to face Mason. An undercurrent of jealousy rolled off of her. "Yeah, and I dream," he said, rolling his eyes. He touched the center of his chest gently, tracing his fingers over the amulet he always wore under his shirt. "That's only because of this." Heavy footsteps came bursting through the front door, and Mason moved to stretch out on the torn up love-seat in the living room. "Hey, Dimitri," Mason and Emry said in unison. Dimitri Carlo was taller than Mason by at least four inches, topping out at six feet and seven inches tall, and was also the oldest. His brunette hair was at a length that just brushed his eyebrows, framing his blue-gray eyes. Before the group had started their assignment on the Earth plane, Dimitri hadn't been very muscular. Once they had landed here, however, Dimitri had taken up a job doing construction, and since then he'd really buffed up. Since he was also old enough to buy cigarettes on the Earth plane, he had taken up smoking a pack a week. Whenever confronted about it, he said it was just his way of coping--mostly, everyone guessed, Dimitri was coping with the fact that he had to take orders from someone younger than him; Dimitri was eighteen, and older than Mason by a little over a year. "How was work today?" Emry asked, full attention turned on Dimitri now that he was home. Emry slid her glasses off, and shook her hair out of its bun. When down, her hair reached her jeans at it's longest point, and it was layered and wavy. Emry Ellis was probably the most innocent of their group, and it was no secret that she was completely head-over-heels for the semi-rebellious Dimitri. "Work was work," he replied. "Go shopping?" He directed his question to Mason, but Emry answered. "Yeah, Mason went shopping. Want a soda?" She gave him her brightest smile. "Sure," Dimitri kicked off his shoes as Emry fetched him a soda, stretching out on the worn, old couch. The apartment they were staying in under-the-radar was very small, so the living room and kitchen were practically the same room. There were only two bedrooms there as well, one of which was the girls' room, the other was the boys'. This also meant they shared a bathroom, much to everyone's discomfort. "Rayna's going to be home in a few minutes," Emry stated as she brought Dimitri in his soda. She plopped down on an old bean-bag chair, closing her eyes. "Wait...sooner. Three, two, one--" The door squeaked across the worn floorboards and the familiar sound of Rayna's tennis shoes filled the air. Within seconds, she was plopping down on the floor in the middle of the living room, unlacing her sneakers. Rayna and Emry were identical twins, and the only way anyone could ever outwardly tell the difference between the two was by their hair. Though they shared the same brilliant, natural shade of blonde, Emry had long hair, and Rayna's hair was cropped and almost always straightened. "How was your run?" Emry asked her twin at the same time Rayna said, "Can someone grab me a water bottle?" Dimitri and Mason had long since gotten use to Emry and Rayna speaking at the same time, but every time it happened the girls' still giggled. Rayna ran a hand through her hair and Emry twisted hers back into a bun. "Sure," Emry replied to Rayna's request. Uncannily, Rayna answered Emry's previous question at the same time. "Good." Both girls erupted into silly laughter, and Emry went to get her sister a water bottle. Rayna yanked her now unlaced sneakers off and threw them to the side. "Any luck today, Mason?" "Actually, yes," Mason replied, stretching. "I accidentally ran my bike into her." "Wait, her? As in, her?" Emry threw a bottle of water to Emry as she reentered the room. "You found her?" "He might of found her," Rayna answered. She shed her sweatshirt as she took a gulp of her water, a light sweat dotting her forehead. Emry reclaimed her seat on the old beanbag chair. "Okay, so, you found her though, right? You found Alice?" "I found an Alice, yes. Is it the Alice? I don't know. I do think I'm on to something though." "Then we can go home and get this stupid war over and done with," Dimitri added. "We can dream again," Emry added longingly. "You need to make sure that this Alice you found is really the Alice we need, Mason. We only have a month left to get her back to Ladian before the portal is infinitely closed," Rayna was saying as she picked pieces of loose string off the carpet. "We've wasted eleven months looking for Alice, and we've thought we were close to finding her countless times...if this isn't the Alice we're looking for, then I'm afraid we may be too late." ~ Stars dotted the sky outside my window late that night, and I couldn't keep my mind off of the boy who had crashed into me earlier. I had led him back to my house afterward and had let him use our first-aid kit. He had only stayed a few minutes, but still, he was all I could think about for the rest of the day. His name was Mason Monte. He had said he was eighteen and lived with a friend in an apartment on the other side of town, though he hardly looked to be eighteen. He looked closer to my own age; sixteen, maybe seventeen. It was very possible, I guessed, that he could be eighteen and just look younger, but my gut told me that it was false information. Something about him set him apart from anyone I'd ever met before. In the few minutes I'd spent with him, I felt like I knew him from somewhere, but I couldn't place where. I knew I hadn't ever met him before; he wasn't a face you could easily forget. Something about him though screamed at me, like there was something I should be remembering. Sighing, my eyes wandered around my small room. I had my bedside lamp turned on, and it lit up my room just enough to see everything. My door was on the right side of the room, with pictures of me and Ella from last summer taped all over the back. My rug was a bit worn down from being as old as I was, if not older. My bed sat in one corner of the room, made very messily. My bed didn't have a bed frame; I had taken that apart a couple years back, and put my box-spring and mattress on the floor. Next to my bed was my short nightstand, on which my lamp and alarm clock sat, along with various rings and hair elastics, a remote, hairbrush, and a bottle of nail polish. On the other side of my room was my dresser, on top of which was my television. Then there was this little window seat that I was sitting on, books scattered around the bottom of it, along with a few filled journals, dead pens and broken pencils. I leaned back on the red and black plaid pillow I kept on my window bench, and pulled the matching blanket over my legs, eyes fixated on the stars. Like every other night, I studied the stars. I would trace my eyes over the trails I saw in the stars. It was a strange phenomena, the trails I saw in the stars. Each time I would try to point a trail out to someone else, they couldn't see it. So far, I hadn't met anyone who could see the trails, much less explain to me what they were. My parents had gotten my eyes checked several times, but the doctors couldn't find anything wrong with me. It wasn't just streaky glass, because I saw the trails in the stars no matter where I was. I had learned to keep my mouth shut when people started calling me crazy in eighth grade. Even if I were really crazy, and the trails in the stars really were just my imagination, I wouldn't want to be treated. The trails were mine; as strange as it sounded. No one else could see them, so they were like my own private beauty. My own seventh wonder of the world. The only thing I could really ever have that was just mine. At first there had only been one trail in the stars, which I noticed when I was about six. At the time, my parents had thought the dust trails were just my young, overactive imagination. With each passing year, I was able to see more trails. On my thirteenth birthday, I noticed that there were sixteen distinct trails in the stars. By now, with my seventeenth birthday a month away, there were twenty-two trails. And each and every one of them were mine. As I was admiring my stars, there was a slight movement in my peripheral vision. I was used to the movement of pedestrians on the street below my window, but this movement wasn't on the ground level. I turned slightly, but turned back to my stars, figuring that it was probably just a bird landing in its nest. With a sigh, I leaned back further into my pillow and pulled my blanket up over me. At some point, I drifted off to sleep. ~ Too big of a risk, go back, the rational part of Mason's brain was saying, while the other part whispered, it's a risk you have to take. Mason crept steadily from his perch on the roof of the building across from Alice's window. She had been still on her window seat for almost two hours now, so she must have fallen asleep. It was almost midnight and the sky was perfectly clear, allowing the full moon to shine brilliantly. By this time of night there weren't any people on the streets, so besides the risk of Alice waking up, he was in the clear. He flew up and over to her window slowly. Grabbing hold of the sill outside her window with one hand, he steadied himself and observed her. Raking his other hand over his short brown hair, he looked at her closely. He took back anything he said before about her being ordinary. This close up, with his face almost pressed against the glass, he was only four or five inches from her face. Her face was glowing in the bright moonlight, and asleep like this, she looked so vulnerable and young, yet so powerful at the same time. Like she could take on the world. On impulse, Mason pressed his hands against the glass. "I finally found you," he whispered. He knew it was true, too. He had finally found the right Alice. A bird nesting nearby fluttered in its nest and the sound sent Mason whipping around to see what the noise was, whacking the window with his arm in the process. Alice stirred, blinking hard and rubbing her eyes. Mason was still holding onto the window sill when ducked down, but he didn't do it fast enough. Alice's eyes swept over the moon, stars, then down. Her hand flew to her mouth in disbelief as she cried out. Her eyes were wide as she stared at him, floating in the air, only holding onto the windowsill. She stumbled back from the window. He'd been caught. Mission abort! Mason's mind screamed, and he took off, flying up past her window and over roofs and streets. He landed in an alleyway a few blocks away, then took off running for the apartment. How in the hell am I going to explain this to everyone else? ~ "What the hell did I just see?" I said out loud to myself, facing the window. The boy had just taken off--just flown! He had flown away from my window. He had been watching me sleep! And it wasn't just any boy. It was Mason Monte, the boy who hit me with his bike. Mason Monte had just been flying outside my window, watching me sleep. My first reaction was to wake my parents and call the police; he was watching me sleep, after all! Then my rationality got the better of me. I couldn't tell my parents nor could I tell the police. Yeah, this boy was flying outside my window and watching me sleep. That would not go over too well. I had to keep this quiet. And if I ever saw that Mason kid again, he would not be able to put an end to my questions. He'd have to kill me to shut me up. © 2012 Sarah E. PearsonAuthor's Note
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1 Review  Last Updated on October 13, 2012 Author
Sarah E. PearsonBurrillville, RIAboutMy name is Sarah and I'm 16 years old. I was like, born to write books. Books. Books. And more books. I don't think I was born to ever FINISH one though, since I've yet to stumble across that. .. more..Writing
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