Eager Beaver

Chapter Sixty-One - Mommy

A long time later, I awoke with a start - hazy and disorientated. I took in a sharp breath as I sat up, blinking out blearily into the inky silent blackness all around me. I was very confused. Where was I? What was going on? I couldn't see or hear or feel anything, save for a speck of yellow light flooding out into the darkness through an open door on the other side of the room; the sound of my own little breaths; and a desperate ache in my bladder.

I shifted where I sat, hearing a conspicuous crinkle and feeling an uncomfortable papery material rustling between my legs. I cringed in embarrassment. That was right - I was wearing a pull-up. I stuck a hand down the front of my pajamas, relieved to find I was still dry, but my relief didn't last long. I needed to pee - bad. I jumped to my feet, surprised by the cold sensation of the grimy wooden flooring beneath my bare toes as I toddled hurriedly towards the open door. The pitter patter of my feet echoed all around the vast empty blackness around me, like ten little pebbles plopping into a well. Still unsure where I even was, the urgent need to pee propelled me forward - pushing back the mild fright I felt closing in from the strange unfamiliar sounds, and the cold, and the dark.

I finally got to the source of the light, diving through the open door and immediately finding myself in the middle of the school hallway. I furrowed my eyebrows in bewilderment, very confused. What was I doing at school? Wasn't it Christmas? I tried to concentrate, struggling to recall what exactly had happened in the day, but I was still half-asleep - what was real and what had been just a dream mixing together into a hopeless murky muddle. Increasingly implausible half-memories drifted to the top of my thoughts. Wasn't there an emergency? Wasn't the whole town ten feet under water? Wasn't Alex the world's greatest detective, and wasn't Zach a famous rock star? Or maybe that was all just a dream? I peered down at the floor of the hallway, inexplicably littered with broken shards of shimmering gold. Maybe I was still dreaming? I shook my head as if to dispel the false memories. Surely none of that was true. Surely in real life I was tucked up cozy in bed, sleeping off my Christmas Dinner.

I felt a stab of desperation - but not just in my bladder. I needed to wake up! Everything else might have been in my head, but the ever-escalating potty emergency competing for my attention certainly wasn't! If I didn't snap out of this strange dream soon, I was sure to soak the bed - or my pull-up. Was I even wearing a pull-up in real life?

My legs seemed to move on their own accord, sending me sprinting down the halls in the general direction of the school toilets. As I passed the front office however, I came to an abrupt stop - something strange looming in the corner of my eye. I got up on my tippy toes, peaking through the small plastic window in the door. There, looming over one of the filing cabinets, was a huge black shadow - shrouded in the darkness of the room like a nightmarish black ghost. I wanted to turn on my heels and run away as fast as I could, but something made me lean in a little closer to try and get a better look. As I did so, I felt myself lose my balance, putting my full weight on the swinging door and fumbling clumsily into the room proper to fall down on my knees. I squeaked in fright as the dark figure slowly turned to look at me, a brown manilla folder clutched in its fat paws. It was Nate!

"It's you." he growled. "Isn't it past your bedtime?"

"I had to go pee." I stuttered, trying to get to my feet again, but Nate had somehow already prowled across the room - yanking me up by the collar of my pajama shirt. "You can't hurt me!" I insisted in a defensive whine, though the feeling of his greasy fingers brushing my neck was all too real. "You're just a bad dream."

Nate shoved me away, and I stumbled back trying to catch myself. My head banged against the door frame knocking me from my daze. Wasn't it impossible to feel pain in a dream? That definitely hurt! "Ow." I whimpered to him.