i know the chapter was short! sorry!! it will get longer! i promise!
Chapter 2
I’m lying awake in bed. I had the dream again. But what frightens me is that tonight I had even more of the dream, where is usually stops, it kept going. I’m standing there, this time it feels real, like I am really there. Nothing is out of focus, it’s all so clear. This time I walk forward into the man, by some kind of force. I don’t want to, but I do, I'm telling myself to stop, but I keep going. My body disobeying my mind. He holds a hand out to stop me. “You’re a dreamer Sophia. Part of the Dream Clan,” he whispers in a voice so soft that I have to strain my ears to hear. “What, what do you mean?” I would say. Then he just ... disappeared. Everything else around me was disappearing too, until it was just me, fading into the descending blackness around me. I had awoken in a fluster. My alarm clock read, 2: 34 am. It’s so early. I feel like I’ve been getting no sleep lately, with these dreams. After that, I tried to get back to sleep, but I couldn’t. The room feels as though it’s running out of oxygen, and the walls are slowly pressing in on me. I jump out of bed, panicking. The room is getting even smaller now. I ran to the door and out of the room, my chest heaving. Calm down, Sophia it’s just your imagination. This is your home, silly. Same as always. I can’t take it, I have to get out! I run to the front door, open it up and leave it slightly ajar. Finally, I can breathe. I’m outside now, in the open. Safe. For some reason, in my room I feel so claustrophobic. Now, I’m out in the open, I’m free. No one can stop me. I turn around to face my house. The grape vine is out of control, it snakes around the front of our house, sprouting flowers each summer. Though the odd thing is, is that the grape vine never actually reveals any grapes. I sigh; I really don’t want to go back into the house. But I can’t stay out here, not all night, it’s too cold. I shiver; suddenly my eyelids feel very heavy. I jerk awake as a car spins around a corner and whizzes down out street. It seems to be going very fast ... Usually cars speed down our street since it’s a back street. They don’t go this fast. Smoke coughs out of the back of the car and it starts to slow down. It stops. For some reason I think that it’s just stopped right here, in front of my house for a reason. But it hasn’t. I can hear someone cursing at the car. It seems to have run out of gas or fuel or whatever cars use these days. A rather large man steps out of the car. “Oi!” He calls. I feel my body freeze, is he talking to me? Don’t talk to strangers, Sophia, especially not big, fat ones that curse. But wouldn't you curse if your car broke down. “Err, yes?” I reply. Why the hell did I reply? My heart is beating. I feel like I am going to faint. “Got any spare fuel on your hands?” I pretend to look around. “No ...” Why would I have spare fuel on my hands? Even if I did, it would be in the shed. I'm too scared to go into the shed at night. I don't know what kind of things lurk in there at night. The man hits the car angrily. “Hey, what’s up with your skin?” I slump and turn around to go inside. “Where you going, just going to leave me here? Get an adult!” He yells. “Don’t tell me what to do. Get off of the foot path, or I’ll call the police for trespassing,” I reply through gritted teeth. I am sick of people telling me what to do! The man comes further into the house. “Get off,” I tell him again. “Just get me some fuel,” he tells me strictly. “Get your own. I told you, I’ll call the police,” the man ignores the comment. “If you want fuel so bad, there is a BP down the road. Don’t be in such a rush; what’d you got to hide?” I say with a frown. The man’s eyes went wide, “hey,” he says, glancing over his shoulders. “We never spoke,” “what ..?” I murmur, but he’s gone. I never knew that someone so big could be so fast. I feel the small hairs on the back of my neck prickle. Suddenly I feel scared to be out here, like someone or something might jump out of the bushes and grab me. I have no idea how I even spoke to that man, it’s like my brain wasn’t working properly. Usually I would have just stood there with a blank look on my face, staring at him. But something in me told me to stand up for myself. I don’t know what or how, but I did stand up to him. He’ll be back soon, I better get inside. I slowly approach the door. I remember, I left it ajar. I pushed on the door slightly, thinking it was fall open, it didn’t. It seemed to be stuck; the wind must’ve blown it shut. Oh well, now where do we hide the spare key. I fumble around the place trying to find my way in the dark. Under the mat, that’s right. It’s not there, where is it! I fall into a panic and start to hit the door. “Mum, Dad, Merissa!” I yell. Merissa is my sister; she’s two years older than me. For sisters, we get along pretty well. “Mum! Let me in!” I am almost in tears. What if I’m locked out here forever? Don’t be silly, the sun will come out in the morning and Dad will leave for work, Merissa will get Mum to drive her to school, it’ll be fine. I'm scared of being out here, like the fat man might come back. I go to hit the door again, I have to stop myself because Merissa opens it and my fist almost hits her face. “Slow down, and be quiet you’ll wake up Mum and Dad,” Merissa steps back to let me in. “Merissa,” I whisper, “You’ll never believe what happened to me tonight,” Merissa shut the door behind me. “Go to bed!” Merissa ordered. “No, I can’t sleep after what happened, You don’t understand. I think we need to call the police,” I explain. “Sophia, what happened then? Come into the kitchen, I’ll make some cocoa.” I wondered into the kitchen and took a seat at the table. “So,” Merissa said, sitting down. “What happened?” “Well ...” I started. “There was this weird stranger,” “you didn’t talk to him did you!” Merissa interrupted. “Shh! I’ll tell you what happened!” I ordered. Slowly I told her everything, trying not to twist the story. Apparently I do that sometimes. Once, I saw a black bunny in the woods and told my parents it was a red bunny from the Milky Way. “Oh, what an imagination that girl has,” Mum would tell dad and then they would start laughing. Merissa is about the only person in my family that actually listens to me. That includes my cousins. On Christmas I tried to tell them about the time when our family went snorkelling and I saw a seahorse. They laughed, “Yeah right! Sophie, you’re funny!” It annoyed me. “Okay, so what do we do about this man?” Merissa asks, stirring her cocoa with a spoon. “He might still be out there, should we check?” “I don’t know. The way you described him, he seems dangerous. What I don’t understand is why he wanted to get gas so bad. He’s obviously not a local. All of the locals know that there is a BP just down the road.” Merissa seems to be in her own little world. She loves mysteries, when she was ten she was read the whole Nancy Drew stories. “Maybe he’s a criminal,” I suggest. “Hmm, maybe,” Merissa snaps out of it. “Seriously, it’s late. Forget about it now, get some sleep. We still have school tomorrow,” “but Merissa what are we going to do? We can’t just leave the problem!” “Well we have to for now; we’ll look into it later. Let’s head to the beach tomorrow after school, you need a tan to get rid of that weird looking skin.” Merissa stands up and head down the hall. “Mum and Dad don’t need to know about this, from you anyway. They’ll think that you’ve gone crazy and they’ll call a doctor. Pack up those glasses for me. I’m going to bed,” Merissa walks off down the hall and now it’s just me. Slowly I pick up the glasses and walk over to the sink. I try to forget about the man’s horrid face, but all I can think about is him coming back tomorrow night, rattling the door knob. Threatening our family until we give him all of our valuables. I shudder. Merissa and I will figure out this mystery later, though tonight I don’t think I’ll get much sleep.
