Like a Dream

Chapter 1

Brooke felt as if she was about to puke. Her eyes watered and her mind was spinning. The air had a nasty smell of raw meat and metal. Sirens were heard in the distance. Shouts of fear kept flowing through the air. People shoved each other, trying to get a closer look. Brooke stood there, unmoving. No one touched her. She just stood there. Her eyes cast on the ground. Not really the ground, but what was on the ground. Brooke’s body shook, slightly, her heart in her throat.

No one ever thought of this happening. Especially Brooke. Brooke had talked to the girl just that morning. She lived with her. She had a room beside her. She loved her.

Blood flowed on the cold, tile floor and some slipped over Brooke’s sandals, onto her feet. Everyone was at least five feet from Paige’s limp body. Brooke stood directly beside it. Almost to the point where her feet were touching it. Her.

Brooke didn’t know why she kept thinking ‘it’. Maybe the body was her younger sister’s; but it wasn’t breathing. Moving. Alive.  It was just a limp body.

Brooke slowly crouched down and leaned over the body. She shifted so she was sitting on her knees. Brooke pulled up her navy blue skirt, just a little, trying not to get blood on it. She stared into the blue eyes that belonged to her sister, which lacked the joy Brooke remembered them having. The brunette slowly slid her hand down to her sister’s and picked it up, running her hands over it. Paige’s hands were ice cold and extremely pale. Brooke placed her sister’s hand back onto the ground and brushed a couple strands of blonde hair from Paige’s face.

As she was doing this, a set of hands picked Brooke up from the ground and held her elbow as they tried to grab her and pulled her away from the body. Brooke’s head launched around to see her younger brother, whose eyes were bloodshot, and it looked like he was trying to avoid looking at his younger sister’s dead body. Brooke still hadn’t shed a tear. She was too confused to cry or feel upset, to feel anything, really.

Josh looked over his older sister, who had blood on her feet and knees. Brooke rubbed her hands over her shirt, not caring about staining it. Her formerly white dress shirt, which she had tucked into her skirt, now had bloody hand prints on it, smeared a little. Josh looked at Brooke’s red hands and sighed slightly as he took her hand and pulled her through the crowed.

Once the two were away from everyone else and in an empty, narrow hallway, Josh took off his navy blue Franklin Regional varsity jacket and handed it to his older, but shorter sister. Brooke slowly slipped her arms through the sleeves and buttoned it up, covering her blood covered shirt.

“G-go to the bathroom and clean your hands, knees and feet. Then we’ll go home. Okay?”  Josh stuttered out, trying to stay calm. Brooke just stood there, unmoving and staring at the ground. Josh swallowed the lump in his throat as he looked over his sister, again. “O-okay?” He asked again.

Brooke continued to say nothing as she looked back up and at her brother. “Brooke, talk to me.” Josh pleaded as he stared into Brooke’s eyes, on the verge of tears. Brooke said nothing. She refused to speak, she felt like talking was wrong. “Please Brooke. Say something!” He begged.

A few more seconds with Brooke saying nothing, Josh gave up. He grabbed Brooke’s hand, once again and led her down the narrow hall with white and blue tiles. The two walked in silence, as Josh’s feet hit the ground with heavy thuds and Brooke walked without a sound.

Soon the siblings got to the front door of the building and Josh pushed the door open for his sister as she let go of his hand and walked through the door. Outside the doors, there were five police cars, four ambulances and one fire truck. There were tons of cars with parents all around the school, desperately wanted to get their children out of the building. Out of the corner of her eye, Brooke saw her mother’s car. A chill ran up her spine, thinking about her mother’s reaction.

Not wanting to see her parents faces after this, Brooke started walking in the direction of the road. Though Josh probably didn’t want to walk, Brooke didn’t care. She needed time to think. Josh slipped his arm around his sister’s shoulder as the two slowly started walking towards their house. They lived a good twenty minutes away from their school. Walking, it took around fifty minutes. At the pace Brooke and Josh were walking, they’d be there in an hour and a half.

Brooke’s mind slowly started shifting back to the beginning of the day, feeling her tears well up in her eyes. Brooke quickly looked up at her brother and saw as a couple tears fell down his cheeks. He didn’t notice that Brooke saw. Brooke wasn’t going to tell him she did. Brooke just looked away from him and leaned into her brother a bit. Brooke never had seen Josh cry before. He always hid his tears, just like she did.

But with everything that had happened, Brooke wasn’t surprised he was crying. She was surprised that she wasn’t.