Dream Catcher

Chapter 2 - The Darkness Is Coming (Part 2)

The beep of the intercom next to me pulled me
back to earth. I glanced over at what looked like
a translucent piece of clear plastic, but was
really a super thin circuit board and screen of
millions of tiny LED lights. That's what you get,
I suppose, when your Dad's a robotic engineer.
The LED lights flashed in a wave on the little
piece of plastic, in an electronic display of my
father's voice.
"I'm leaving now, sleepy head. Have fun at
school."
The LED lights displayed a message on the piece
of plastic and an electronic voice read it aloud.
"Do you wish to respond?" it asked.
"Yes," I replied, and the little machine binged
slightly to let me know it was recording. "Have
fun too! Love you Dad."
After a short pause my dad responded, "Love
you too, sweety. Bye!" And with that the
machine spoke aloud, "Conversation has been
terminated." It turned itself off.
Breakfast and packing was quick, and soon I
was out the door on the way to my bus. I
shuffled my feet along the sidewalk and looked
up through the trees lining the street. They
made me feel small, smaller than I usually felt
at my five foot height. But more then that was
the fiery light of the rising sun between the
trees. Despite the bitter cold of an early October
morning, I felt as though the rays of the sun's
fierce light were like tongues on fire on my
skin, burning me slowly. I felt trapped in its
light, with no escape but to wait for the set of
the sun into the deep ocean and the cool, velvet
blanket that was night.
I pulled the black hood of my sweater over my
head and my sleeves down over my hands in an
attempt to cover my exposed skin. I rubbed my
arms, trying to fight off the burning sensation
and watched as my breath condensed in front
of my face. I shivered and pulled my diamond
necklace out from under my sweater so it
wasn't touching my skin. The diamond shone a
comforting glow on my face as it reflected the
sun's harsh rays.
In the comforting glow, I started to day dream.
The trees slowly spread and stuck together to
become walls, and I walked on a long treadmill
in front of a movie theatre sized screen. I
stretched out my mind for anything, anything to
project on the screen besides the whiteness that
reminded me so much of the white world in my
dream. Soon the screen began to spew colour,
colours that spread and grew and formed
simple kaleidoscope images and rough cut
shapes. They welded themselves together and
swirled and twisted until I saw a familiar scene.
It was my music classroom. The tall walls, high
ceiling and open concept I had grown to
recognize over the past few weeks of school. I
could feel something heavy in my hand, and I
looked down to find myself sitting on my chair
in the corner of the music room, my violin in
my right hand and my bow in the left. My
teacher walked up to the stand at the front, and
tapped it to get our attention, making his long
silver hair shake. I looked down at my stand to
see what we were playing. Ode to Joy. Joy, I
thought sarcastically. At a wave of my teacher's
hand, I picked up my violin and began to play.
It was weird. There was no sound. Everyone
was playing but I could hear no music. Just
silence. Deafening silence. My ears felt like they
were about to pop. I dropped my violin and my
hands went to my ears in panic and pain. I must
have screamed, I could feel my mouth wide
open, and I saw a dozen eyes glaring in my
direction. The boy next to me dropped his
guitar to the side and rushed to my side. He
looked into my eyes.
HONK!
I looked to where the sound came from, my
eyes open wide. Inches away from my face was
the grill of a giant SUV. My mouth hung open in
shock.
"Oh God! Eli, are you alright? What are you
doing, walking out into the road like that. Get
up!" came a voice from across the road. I looked
up to see my friend, Sidney, running out across
the road to me. I just looked at her in
amazement when I found that I wasn't
standing, I was on the ground.
"Hello? Eli? Are you still sleeping?" Sidney asked
waving a hand in front of my face. Sidney's
sandy blonde hair was cut in a page boy bob
style that bounced as she waved her hand.
"Eli? Speak to me here! Please!" As I looked into
Sidney's jade green eyes, I realized what had me
in shock.
"Those eyes," I said almost to myself.
"Eli, what eyes? Talk to me, here. How many
fingers am I holding up?" Sidney held up what
looked like three fingers. But I could care less. I
had seen those eyes before. Those deep, deep
eyes. Eyes that made you feel like you were
drowning.
"Sid, I've seen those eyes before. Where did I
see them?" I asked in a panic, racking my brain
for a match to those peculiar coloured eyes.
"What are you talking about? What eyes? Eli,
tell me please? What are you seeing?" Sidney
was panicking. The driver of the SUV was out of
his car and looking at me beside Sidney.
"Is she alright?" the driver asked, starting to get
worried, no doubt worrying about having to
pay a ticket of some sort for hitting me. I looked
at the massive grill on his car.
"I'm not sure. She's not forming rational
responses. She says she's seeing eyes. Mind, she
doesn't normally form rational responses."
Sidney filled in the driver.
Then it was there in my reflection on the grill
that I saw the eyes. I had seen those eyes this
morning. On me. In the mirror.
"Sid, what colour are my eyes?" I asked in a
panic.
"What? Why would you want...?" I cut her off.
"Just, please, tell me what colour they are."
Sidney looked into my eyes. Suddenly her's
widened in response.
"Your eyes... your eyes are... purple!" she
blurted. "And your pupils... they are really big.
Oh my God, you're going into shock aren't
you?" So my eyes really were purple, and I
wasn't just seeing things. But I hadn't seen my
reflection in the dream. Who was that boy? I
had never seen him before.Sidney started to flip
out her cell phone. I grabbed her arm to stop
her from dialling 911.
"I'm fine. It's alright. I'm not going into shock."
I replied quickly.
"Eli, are you sure? You got hit by a massive
SUV! Please, you really should go to the hospital.
You could have a concussion, or internal
bleeding, or... or some kind of weird foreign
disease..." Sideny was prone to rash
overreaction.
"Sid, trust me. I'm fine." Ok, so maybe I wasn't
fine, exactly. I was sure I was fine physically, it
was mentally that I felt like I was upside down.
I looked to the right down the hill and heard the
groan of the bus as it dragged itself up the
incline.
"See, here's the bus," I told Sid. "Let's go." I
struggled to stand up, using my hands to push
me up off the ground. Sidney grabbed my arm
and helped me up.