The Prophecy

A dream

This is my first book and I would greatly appreciate it of you don't judge it too harshly. Thank you!
-Erica

The old man peered up at her queerly. He was dressed in a baggy, worn shirt and loose pants. He looked mental. Trying to walk away from him proved to be an effort, he kept on blocking her.

Suddenly he grasped her blouse. "What are you doing?!" She squealed, terrified. He looked like a homeless maniac. He started mumbling to himself, something about a 'prophecy'. And the next moment he was right up in her face, "storm is coming. Fire will destroy water and all will be saved..."

Then he was gone, leaving her stunned.

How odd. Prophecy? As far as she was concerned, she was a normal school girl... What a pile of nonsense. Then she felt a whooshing sensation and was pulled into a...

"Sierra!! Wake up it's 7am do you plan to be late for school again?" A sharp shrill voice broke into her dream. Thank God it was a dream. Nothing is happening to me, I'm not about to be sucked into some whirlpool and I'm not going crazy. Phew.

"Coming!" She yelled back, grumbling under her breath, she reluctantly went to shower, feeling her muscles relax as the hot water washed over her. Ahhh... "SIERRA!" This woman was persistant.

You may be thinking at this point how rude Sierra is to her mother. But no, not really. See your life can't be all pleasant and sweet when people aren't doing that to you. In other words, Sierra was beaten, bullied and broken. Every second every hour.

And it hurt. Real bad.

"Everyday, every hour turn the pain into power." If only she could stand up for herself. But she was too weak to, mentally and physically. The song blare out through her phone as she made her way to school. Oh the place of dread where 90% of her bullying came from. It m sucked knowing you were despised by people who didn't even know you.

"Look who it is! Scaredy-Sierra!" The usual taunting and calling of names had just began. They continued calling her names, disappointed that they didn't get a reaction from her. But that was exactly what Sierra was hoping for. One day they would get sick of her and ignore her. Hopefully. Huh, she could hope for a long time. Like it would ever happen.

She shielded her eyes from the preying crowd, hoping they'd stop. First class: Gym. She hated this period. Firstly, she was extremely fit, easily suppressing all her peers. However jealousy often set in and the punishment would double or even triple. She hated this feeling, why did her father abandon her? And her mother... a complete drunk. Yet Sierra couldn't bring herself to hate her. She remembered the happy days, and could not forget them. So there goes, she had an abusive mother who she loved nonetheless. Definitely saw the logic in that.

Furthermore she had this odd thing going about her. The students never seemed to notice but she did.

It terrified her.

Bad things always happened whenever she was angry, afraid, sad. The previous time, the classroom set on fire. Nobody suspected it was Sierra of course. They thought her far too timid to even do anything of the sort. Thing is, on that day, she felt this... tingling feeling in her entire body. Then there was the fire, large and growing in front of her.

Everyone rushed out screaming and yelling but Sierra felt almost a sort of calmness surrounding her, the fire didn't burn her, it provided her with a source of comfort. She didn't understand it, but she hoped no one found out. She would be teased even more, and that was a thought she could not bear. So she kept it in, not telling anyone. She concealed it well.

That time, in art class, Sierra's classmates spilled paint on her. Purposely of course. it might interest you to know that paint contains a large amount of water. That's it. The paint seemed to dry up in an instant, almost as though the water was gone. Maybe it was. And when Sierra scraped off the peeling paint, there was no stain on her shirt, at all. This time though, she was not as fortunate and her classmates noticed.

So maybe she was seen as a freak of nature. Hardly actually, the rumours faded away with the passing of time. But the beatings didnt. You could say they got worse in fact. At school she would get her lunch pushed over and all. Perhaps a little cliche, but it happened anyways. At home, if she was lucky her mother would return, drunk and fall asleep. But that hardly happened. What would usually happen would be that her mother returned home drunk, and vented the anger of her husband leaving her, on Sierra. The last time it happened, her mother pushed her to the ground, yelling "you look just like him!" The nightmares Sierra had continued to haunt her. She knew fully well there would be no running away from the nightmares until she finally faced up to reality. Thing is, how? She waited for sleep to overcome her, she tried to evade the memories, but it waited till she was asleep, before cornering her. It suffocated her, it closed the four walls i upon her. She couldn't breathe, she was a walking, living human, yet void of any emotion, any feelings.

That one hurt the most. because the next morning when her mother was somber again, she would ask what happened to Sierra. And Sierra would hold back the flood of tears threatening to break out. She would make up a quick excuse of her falling and rush out of the house. The tears falling freely as well. You have no idea how much it hurts, to have your mother abuse you, forget about it, and ask you what happens the next day, acting as though nothing happened.

Sierra knew she couldn't blame her mother. Afterall, it wasn't her fault that her father left her mother completely broken and torn. Wondering over the years what exactly she did wrong. Sierra always pinned the blame on herself. Perhaps her father couldn't hold the burden of supporting two other people. If she was not around, maybe he wouldn't have left. Maybe... She couldn't afford to be anymore vulnerable. She was a weakling, no one liked her, and Sierra never wondered why.