There you go... not exactly how I wanted to start this, cause it feels a little short, but I hope it's all good anyway....
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I jolted into consciousness with a shriek and a gasp, my body jerking forward; my hands clenched my blanket so tightly that I could feel my fingernails stabbing my skin through the cloth. After a moment of staring up at the ceiling, taking my own sweet time to remember that I was not, in fact, in the room of an eleven year old boy with a strange, dragon friend, but was actually tucked safely under the covers of my bed with my two night-lights glowing in the corners of my room as they scared away the shadows, I dragged air down into my lungs, and let it out again with an audible wooosh. By now, I had become quite accustomed to this nightmare, and this tiring routine of jumping awake in the middle of the night, calming myself down, and then waking up again an hour to thirty minutes later when my alarm would alert me that it was finally time to get up and face the world. I sat up, flipped my pillow over, lay down, and rolled over to face said alarm clock. I reached out with my right hand and felt around for my glasses.
4:47 AM
I had about forty five minutes before my alarm was set to wake me, but I couldn't really bring myself to go back to sleep. Tonight the nightmare had been a bit different, and I found this extremely unnerving. All the previous nights that I'd had that particular dream, they'd actually felt like dreams. This time though, it was more like a memory, like I'd been there and was reliving it with the kid. It was weird, and I knew I'd be too busy thinking about it to go back to sleep.
I threw off my covers then, groaning as I did so, and swung my legs over the edge of my bed. I stood and took a moment to let the head rush fade before tip toeing out my open door and down my carpeted hallway. My knees popped and cracked as they did every morning when I walked down the stairs, and when I entered the kitchen I smiled because I had remembered to make the coffee the night before. I poured myself a cup, mixed in a generous amount of sugar, and a bit of milk, and then sat myself down in the living room to watch the early morning news.
"In other news, an office building undergoing reconstruction collapsed late last night after what was described by witnesses as an earthquake shook it and it's surroundings. Luckily, there were no casualties..."
How odd. Natural disasters had been occurring more and more often recently, and always in places that you would never expect them. Like the hurricane last month that made it all the way inland; it messed up another construction site and a few other office buildings. The reporters said that scientists were looking into it, but most of them just blamed it on global warming. Rather lazy of those scientists if you ask me.
"Melanie?! What in the world are you doing up so early?" My mother's voice was low, husky, and pretty annoyed. I thought she'd be used to me getting up at five thirty by now, and what was really the difference between five thirty and four forty-five? "Don't you remember? Today's the first day of summer!"
"I remember!" I whispered back, turning around on the couch to face her, "I had a bad dream is all, and I couldn't get back to sleep. I was going to be getting up at five thirty, anyways." She rolled her eyes at me with an exasperated sigh, and then shuffled forward and sat down beside me.
"You should turn down the TV, you'll wake Danny."
Danny. My annoying, little, just-turned-ten brother who now believes he is entitled to judge me, his elder by five years, because his age is finally double digits.
"Mom, that kid could sleep through an air raid. There is no way I'm turning down the TV for him." I had switched the show now to cartoons I had recorded a few days earlier and had never gotten around to watching. My mom got up and returned with her own cup of black coffee before sitting back down beside me. She took a sip.
"What are you planning to do today then, Mel? You're brother is going to the water park with Michael and his mom, so you'll be home alone."
I considered this for a moment, I hadn't really thought about what I'd be doing. Today was the first day of summer, and I didn't really know for sure if I wanted to spend it alone. After a moment more I decided I didn't, "Maybe I'll call Addison...see if he wants to ride bikes down to the Village or something." The Village was a cute little shopping center down by the beach; we lived on an island about thirty minutes of the coast from a much larger city.
Mom nodded. "That's fine with me, honey. Make sure Addison's mom knows where he's going too, though."
I gurgled an affirmative through a mouthful of coffee, and my mom's lip curled, "That's so gross, Melanie."
I swallowed, smiled sheepishly and snorted back a giggle, "Sorry."
