Chapter 1
There’s a vivid picture. Everything is blue, and out of focus. A man is staring at me, with green eyes and blue skin, smirking. His voice echoes in my mind, “Sophia, they’ll get you Sophia,” and then the picture gets so out of focus, it’s blurry. I jerk up in bed, draped in sweat. Lights flicker on out in the hall and Mum comes into my room. “Morning Sophia, it’s seven-thirty, oh. You’re sweating did you have that dream again?” Mum stares at me sympathetically. I can never remember the start of the dream, only the end. Mum feels my forehead, “is everything OK at school? Sometimes dreams relate to those kinds of things,” Mum is really worried about me. This is the eleventh time that I have had this dream. It’s really starting to freak me out; I started having the dreams when I turned fifteen, eleven days ago. It’s the same man every time; he looks at me as if he knows me, and he looks familiar to me too. “Are you sure you’re not sick love? Each day it looks as if your skin is almost turning blue,” I look down at my arms; they did look a little bluey. “Mum, I’m fine,” I reassure her. She looks unsure, but leaves the room anyway. Gosh, sometimes Mum’s can be so over-protective, but I know that they are just trying to do the right thing by me. I got up and got ready for school.
As usual, Opal was waiting at the gate for me. Opal is my best friend. She has orange hair and two mud-puddle brown eyes with freckles that form some kind of pattern across her face. She brushed a few strands of hair back that lay over her eyes. “Hi, Opal,” I say, trying to sound enthusiastic. She hangs an arm over my shoulders. “What’s happened to your skin, Sophia? You look like some kind of alien from out of space,” Opal teases. “I know, I know. Try not to give me such a hard time ‘bout it, k?” I start to walk toward the class. I have to admit, I did look pretty weird. I lied to a few people that it’s make-up for some kind of show that I am doing, but it looks so real. Sometimes I even wonder if I am an alien from out of space myself. I sit down at my desk. I wish people would stop staring. I always tell myself that you should be you, and don’t care about what people think. But I can’t help it, I don’t like the way people stare at me. Opal takes a seat next to me, even she cannot stop staring. I spent the rest of that afternoon in sick bay.
