Almost Normal (Editing)

Chapter Five

JADE

It was a normal day at school. Teachers teaching, students learning, clock ticking. I let my eyes wander around the room and saw a small girl standing in the doorway. It didn't seem like anyone noticed her so I went back to my work. I lifted my head up again and see she's still standing there. Dark brown pigtails and a pair of jean overalls. She looked so familiar. Soon she turned around and ran off, I got up and followed.

She pushed open the doors and ran out into the... night? I looked around myself confused suddenly surrounded by trees like I was deep in the forest. I did a complete 360 before seeing her again this time, her pig tails were loose and she was covered in dirt.

"Are you okay?" I asked.

She walked forward and took my hand leading me deeper into the woods. I followed her blindly noticing how small her hand was compared to mine. She couldn't be more than six or seven years old. Soon we came into a clearing illumited by the moonlight. In the area was a couple of squirrels and rabbits with their throats ripped open. Amongst all the carnage was a child sized shoe. I looked down at the girl whose hand I was holding and saw that she was covered in blood. She looked at me with blank eyes and smiled the hungriest smile ever.

Waking up in a cold sweat I looked at the time and saw it was almost four in the morning. I rubbed my face and got out of bed heading to the bathroom splashing my face with water. A light knock sounded at the door.

"You smell like a wet dog." I commented when he let himself in.

"Funny. How come you're not sleeping? everything okay?" He asked.

ANDREW

Jade nodded and used one of the white towels to dry her face."I had the same dream again." She started. "Except this time she lead me to a forest and there was a bunch of dead animals." She shivered.

I frowned listening to her explain her "dreams" she's been happening. So much I wanted to tell her, but I was also afraid of what would happen once I did. So I bit my tongue and waited till she was finished.

"Hey... remember when you tried going vegan?" I offered as a change of subject. "And you tried sucking the juice out of all the organic produce in the grocery store?"

Like every other young teenager Jade was no different. Boy crazy, blood thirsty, and of course defiant. She went through many different phases, one of them being vegan. Which lasted only for a couple days. This was around the time twilight was becoming popular and not long before we started going to public school. Our parents just gave us The Talk. And no not the sex talk, the "Here's the reason why you're different than other kids" talk.

Needless to say Jade wasn't too stoked to find out that she's been drinking blood for the past decade. So her solution was to become a vegan. Her logic was that she can't be a vampire if she doesn't drink blood so she started drinking organic produce. You could already see her body rejecting the orange juice causing Jade to quickly accept who she is. I was a little less dramatic. Being the teenage boy I thought I was pretty cool. I had a secret identity like Superman. Except superman didn't have to deal with all the hair that came with it. And the turning into a wolf every month. That got old fast.

We sat there talking about the good times growing up. Acting like Jade's dream never happened. It wasn't until the sun started to creep up did we realize we got little to no sleep. Jade left the bathroom saying she was going to try and salvage as much sleep as possible before leaving for school. I sat there on the toilet still once the door closed. I stared in my reflection, and on the outside I looked like a normal guy. But on the inside I knew there was an animal clawing. Waiting to get out. I just knew that the cage wouldn't be able to contain it this time.