The Stone (A Carter Price Novel)

~I was racing through a dark forest.

Barefoot, still in pajamas, I was running for my life. No time to catch my breath, I took a sharp turn to the left. What was I running from? I couldn't remember. This had to be a dream, but it felt more than that. It felt like...reality.

"You'll never get far!" A dark voice caught the attention of my ears. That's what I was running from--that voice. But who's voice was it?

"What is it you Mortals say? You can run, but you can't hide!" Another voice mocked, then another crackled. There were at least three on my tail.

Scared out of my wits, I raced past three trees and took another sharp turn to the right.

And that's when I fell to my death.~

I had to get out of the house.

Climbing out of my bed, I fled my room, and left the place I called home. In the pitch blackness, I started running through Rayon Forest, the farthest and most peaceful place I could get in the never asleep Maloway Park. I had to get out of here. My anxiety was through the roof, my over-exhiliration growing out of control. I needed to calm down, keep my head from the clouds. Today was the first day of school, the start of Senior year. I had to start concentrating on grades and such than Immortal beings out to get me. But the dreams were getting worse. Out of breath, I stopped at the meadow.

What did these dreams mean? I could still see it clearly: me running through a dark forest, three voices following me, taunting me. And then, for the grand finale, my death. What did that mean? As I rested on my back on the grassy meadow, I watched as the blue sky turned to an orange sunrise. Beautiful. The only beautiful you could ever get in Maloway Park.

"Have a nice rest?" My grandma asked casually. Fixing breakfast, my grandma had been my gaurdian since my parents had died, about two years ago. It was a plane crash, and no one had made it.

"No," I answered, bluntly honest. As I closed the front door and sat in a wooden chair, my stomach began to churn and growl as my nose caught the smell of bacon, eggs, and buttered toast.

"Well, maybe it'll get better," My grandma said. Figures.

"Not if a bunch of stalkers keep chasing me to my death every single night," I retorted. No one had the same death nightmare every night unless they were obviously going to die. I won't even make it to prom.

"Baby, stop overrreacting," My grandma read my thoughts. She was always like that, intuitive. She put the pan of eggs down and walked over to comfort me. "It will get better," she promised. Not if I still lived at Maloway Park. "Everything will. This is your Senior year, so take advantage of it. Take every chance you can."

Thirty minutes later, I was completely dressed and ready to roll. With a kiss on the cheek and a wave goodbye, I left my grandma and the cottage to jump in my 1986 Jeep I've owned for two years.

Miles and miles away, Maloway Park High School was in the heart of the city, while my small home was near the open agriculture. Being highly distant from "city folk," I've been nicknamed "Farmer's Boy," even though my late dad just owned the land, and hired family farmers like the Rowlers to tend it. Without my family's land, most of Maloway Park would be nothing.

Finally arriving to MP High, I parked in the safest spot possible. "Hey, Farmer's Boy! Hold my keys, will ya?" Jackson Carrier threw his keys on the ground near my old Jeap. "We all know where your life's headed," He laughed with his jock friends and chearleaders, all who were definitely on the other sides of the Popularity spectrum than me. Whatever.

As I got out, I picked up the keys and parked Jackson's Porsche as perfect as possible and made my way to the front entrance, just as the late bell rung.