The Dream Trotters

Chapter 9

A colorful screen turned black, a universal symbol for death and misery.  Which was actually pretty accurate for the situation.  Sitting in the hallway, was Finn Tyler.  Not only was he trapped in school, but also his phone had just died.  He slowly stood, bracing himself against his locker.  He stared at his phone, wishing that it would automatically charge itself to full power.  Of course, nothing happened.  This meant, that Finn would have to find some other way to wile away the hours.  Maybe he would have to resort to… human communication.

Finn entered the library, slipping his Iphone into the back pocket of his jeans.  He ran his hands through his thick hair a few times, frustrated by the fact that he had to spend the next twelve hours or so stuck at school.  Just when he thought he was going home, too. Finn turned to look at the library, mainly because he hardly ever came in here.  The room was depressing to say the least, and a smell of rotten paper wafted through the air.  Finally, he noticed a group of dusty desktops in the corner.  A few were only for researching books, but two were for student use.  He sat down in the classic blue swivel chair, immediately feeling like a child as he twirled around in it.  Of course, this earned him a few odd looks. His typing skills were less than rusty, more about as fast as a slug on a treadmill. But the Internet connection was even slower than his typing.  As students meandered in and out of the library, the air became cooler with each time the door was opened.  And the link to his email was still loading… He brushed the air flat on his arms, calming an army of goose bumps.

Suddenly, he realized that he had a sweatshirt on the basket of his bike, outside.  Finn closed the window on the computer, which hadn’t even loaded yet, and quickly walked to the exit door.  Phillipa friends had just left to go use the restroom.  She sat on one of the floral beanbags, leaving an indent of her backside in its supple fabric.  After a few minutes, she pried herself out of the beanbag, a task that was just as hard as pulling eggshells out of cookie batter.  She walked over to the nearest bookshelf, hoping to find a small novel to appease her boredom.  In the corner of her eye, she noticed someone leaving the library.  Of course, this revelation wasn’t anything special, because people leave through doors all the time.  But not when there was a psycho killer on the loose, and a crazy lightning storm outside.   Phillipa slammed the book back into the shelf and ran to the door.  She pried it open, and exited, blasting all the other unobservant people in the room with a large gust of wind.

The air outside was busy, full of leaves, thick with thunder, and sloppy with rain.  Only about five seconds after Finn had stepped out, Phillipa stumbled out through the door, running straight into Finn   Even though neither of them face planted on the floor, they still seemed to trip over each others shoes, and it took a few more moments for both of them to regain their balance.  Phillipa felt a cold weight on her shoulder, and she quickly flinched and turned.  A hand, not her own or Finn's, sat next to her neck.

“What the-” before Phillipa could even finish the shout, she doubled back in shock.  It was him, the man from the photo.  He still wore the same coat, yet it seemed darker and even more mysterious.  A second was all she had to take in his appearance, yet it hadn’t changed.  He still looked worried, eyes filled with sadness, but dangerous.  There was a certain look in his eyes, the look that you have when you see someone’s face and recognize them, yet can’t quite place where you have seen them before.  Phillipa backed off slowly, and bumped into Finn  falling into the mud that had been made by the furious torrents of rain.  As they both attempted to both slide away from the man, and stand at the same time, they became even more covered in mud than before.  Thunder crunched through the air, imitating the combined sounds of people eating carrots in a completely quiet room and the incessant buzz of a refrigerator.  The man stepped closer, yet before he could touch Phillipa again, something stopped him.

Lightning bit through the air, slicing through the mist that the thunder had left behind and connected with the closest material to itself.  And that was the man, Finn  and Phillipa.  Immediately, power surged through the three, as lightning hit their bodies.  The feeling was pain, yet also felt like nothing more than when you prick your finger on a tack.  It was as if all their cells were being fried simultaneously but also seemed to only happen within the time that it takes for a person to shock themselves on an electrical socket.  It was everything, and nothing at the same time, a millisecond of agony, then a second of pure vivacity.  The energy crashed through their consciousness, breaking everything apart the way a toddler destroys a room.  The criminal crumpled to the ground, and his rugged breathing became indistinguishable from the sound of the rain against the metal roof of the school.  Finn struggled to remain awake yet couldn’t drag himself out of the mud pit.  The temptation became too much to bear.  The ground was warm, the mud seemed to envelop itself around his limbs and the thunder lulled him to sleep. His eyes slid shut.