New Waters

Epilogue

Norri sat at the foot of her bed, completely and totally absorb with eating lasagne and salad her mom had made for dinner, along with working on finishing her history paper, which was due the next day. Norri furrowed her eyebrows together, and pressed her pen, hard, on the paper she was writing on for her report. Moving the pen across the paper was what came easy to Norri. Pouring her thoughts and emotions onto a blank paper. Tonight, however, was different. Norri was absorbed in finishing the paper, but sleep was crawling into her mind and Norri's concentration faltered over and over, enough times that Norri set her dinner onto to the bureau that was next to her, unfinished, and shoved her notebook into her school bag.

Letting out an annoyed sigh, Norri got up and walked to her night dresser, setting her jewelry onto the dresser with a clank. Yanking out a sleeping shirt and shorts out of the drawer, Norri crossed back over to her bed and threw the sleeping clothes onto her bed. Norri plopped onto her bed and rolled over to the window, looking outside at the sun that was beginning to set. The neighborhood was filled with kid's running and biking about, getting ready to head home. The neighborhood looked so peaceful, as it always was.

Turning back over to the other side of her bed, Norri sighed heavily. Her eyes were slowly closing with every beat of her heart. Last images of her neighborhood came to Norri, in a small wave. Of the children playing safely in the street, the parents laying down in the evergreen grass and Norri's own house, cozy and warm, welcoming.

Finally, Norri's eyes shut close, with Norri falling to a deep sleep. A dreamless and empty sleep, of one were darkness folds underneath a person and swallows them whole. Peaceful images of the neighborhood were to be the last Norri would ever see, shattering into reality of loneliness that has been growing since Norri had turn 5, 11 years ago. X567.