My Nightmare Just Became Real

Chapter 7 - My Arm

Author’s Note: Well, here’s the next part :) I’d love to hear what you think because it helps me improve and, if you like something, I’ll try and do more of it.

Science. I stood there in science, setting up the Bunsen burner or at least, trying to. We’d been put in pairs and I was with Lewis and he, of course, didn’t know about my incident with Bunsen burners. Whenever I went with Charlie, he never let me touch the thing since I set my sleeve on fire with it. That was also the reason that, from that day forward, we all had to take our blazers off and roll up our shirt sleeves during experiments. I felt awkward standing next to Lewis, every time I saw his face I couldn’t help but see him lying on the ground, blood all over his body. “Are you alright?” Said Lewis, seeing me looking at him. “Y-yes, I’m fine.” I said turning away before I embarrassed myself further “do you know how to turn this thing on?” Lewis stretched out a hand and I saw a bandage wrapped around his forearm “what did you do?” I asked.

“Sorry?” He said as flames began to lick the air.

“To your arm.”

“Oh, that,” he glanced at his arm “I fell and cut myself. It’s not too serious, it’s just the cut was too long for a plaster so I used a bandage.” He shrugged. I didn’t ask any further questions and the extent of our conversation for the next few minutes was about the substances we were burning.  When we were packing away, my arm brushed against Lewis’s bandage, I was about to apologize, thinking it must have hurt when a searing pain shot through my arm. I gasped and clenched my fist, running cold water on my hand. “What did you do?” Asked Lewis, concerned.

“I think I must have touched the tray we were heating things on, I’ll be ok in a minute.”

“How many times have I told you to be careful?” Said Charlie, coming up behind me.

“Too many times,” I said, gritting my teeth against the burning in my arm.

“Lily, why are you running water all down your arm? Didn’t you just burn a finger or something?”

“Because it hurts,” I said in a low voice once I made sure Lewis was out of earshot “I didn’t even burn myself.” Charlie took my arm from underneath the water and looked at it, he turned it over so my hand was palm up “what the-“ he began but was cut off by a sort of muffled shriek from me. There was a cut running down the inside of my arm along my wrist. It wasn’t bleeding, which was a good thing, but it might as well have been since I was in agony. Charlie frowned, and pressed down on the cut. A jolt of pain ran down my arm and I almost cried out. “Pull your sleeve down, don’t tell anyone. I’ll see you after school.” I nodded and I spent the rest of the lesson chewing my lip. Lewis asked me if I was alright and I said I was fine. I don’t know if I’ve ever told a bigger lie. My mind was spinning from thoughts of my nightmare, of Lewis, of my arm. My arm was throbbing slightly, but it didn’t burn anymore. It’s kind of scary when I cut appears on your arm out of nowhere. It’s even scarier when you have nightmares to go with it.

“We can’t tell anyone.” I said, exasperated. Charlie and I were walking up the path to my front door, discussing my arm.

“Lily, you have a cut running down the length of your forearm and you’re not going to tell anyone?”

“It’s not bleeding, don’t you think that’s a bit weird? And anyway, I didn’t even cut myself. I told you about Lewis, it’s got to be something to do with my dream.”

“Well, we’ll see what happens.” Said Charlie, giving in.

“Hi Mum,” I said, passing the kitchen.

“Hello Lily,” she looked up from her magazine “oh, hi Charlie.”

Before Charlie got a word in edgeways I said “Mum, Charlie’s on his own tonight, his parents are coming home tomorrow. I thought he might be able to stay...” Please, please let him stay, I thought, imagining Charlie sitting on his own in the cold street all night. “Well, you could stay in the spare room.” Said my mum, looking at Charlie. “But I don’t want you two staying up late, it’s school tomorrow. You could stay at yours Charlie, we’re only here if you need anything.” Charlie was about to reply that it was very kind of my mum to offer, I saw it in his eyes. I knew him too well. He gave up too easily. “But he doesn’t want to stay on his own.” I said “that’s what I’m getting at. Don’t you remember when we were younger? He never liked the dark.”

“Gosh, I didn’t think,” my mum’s hand flew to her mouth and Charlie’s cheeks flushed pink “of course you can stay!”

Once we’d gone up the stairs and I’d closed my bedroom door I said “you didn’t mind me saying that did you? It was the only way I could think of letting you stay.” Charlie smiled at me and sat on my chair at my desk “it’s fine. Anything is better than staying in my house another night.”

“What happened?” I asked quietly. Quietly enough for Charlie to pretend he hadn’t heard me.

“He came up to my room and just...well, he told me things. Told me things about what happened to him. Tried to make me feel guilty, when all he was doing was scaring me. Then he...threatened me. He said he could do things, horrible things...”

“It’ll be alright.”

“How do you know?”

I shrugged “I don’t know, it’s what you always say to me.”

After a few moments of silence, Charlie said “thanks.”

“What for?”

“For being you.” He grinned, hitting me with my own words.

Author’s Note: I hope you enjoyed this and I look forward to hearing what you thought :)

Oh, and, I’ve mentioned this before, about writing another story. But I’m not sure when I’ll put it up. I’m trying to decide which one. Oh, decisions, decisions. Anyway, thanks for reading and all comments are appreciated :)