Dream Catcher

Chapter 2 - The Darkness Is Coming (Part 3)

The bus pulled up and we walked around to the
door. Sidney glared at me as I sat in the gray
leather seat next to her.
"Why didn't you go to the hospital?" Sidney
demanded.
"I told you, I'm fine."
"No you are not." Sidney scolded me harshly.
"Eli, your eyes are PURPLE!" she blurted again.
"They're not purple because I got hit by an SUV.
They were purple already this morning."
"It doesn't matter, Eli. Normal people's eyes
aren't purple."
"Normal people don't get foreign diseases
because they got hit by cars." I retorted back at
her. Sidney just stuck out her tongue.
"You know I'm just worried about you. Please,
just promise me that you will get your eyes
checked out after school."
"Yeah, ok. Whatever." I mumbled as the bus
rolled up alongside the school. Sidney followed
me as I walked in the doors of the school
toward my locker.
"Please, Eli. I'll take you myself if I have to."
"No, you won't. That's not what's important
here anyways." I looked into the eyes of every
person we passed.
"Then tell me what is! Don't leave me out in the
dark here!"
"You wouldn't believe me."
"Try me. Come on, Eli!"
"Fine." I said harshly as I fumbled with the dial
of my lock. "I had a day dream on the way here
of a boy in my music class with purple eyes like
mine." I left out the part about the screaming.
That would only make Sidney panic more.
"You were sleep walking all the way to the bus
this morning?!"
"Not sleep walking. Day dreaming."
"Whatever. Eli, you need to get more sleep."
Sidney began to lecture. Sleep is the last thing I
need now, I thought as I remembered the
bubbling black puddle of ooze in the world I
had found outside the white world.
"Sid, don't lecture me please." I begged her. The
bell rang loudly, urging us to class.
"Listen, I have to go to class. But this
conversation isn't over, Eli."
I groaned at Sidney's comment. You sound like
my father, I thought.
I lugged my binder and violin down the hall. I
struggled to cut my way through the masses of
people clogging the hallway. I pushed and
shoved, only to get bumped and banged and
have my delicate violin bang off of several
unidentifiable objects. Eventually I pulled
through to the giant double doors of the music
room.
I took my chair in the corner of the room and
dumped everything I was carrying under my
chair. I pulled out a silver notebook covered in
doodles, preparing to take a note on music
theory.
"Put your books away students. We have an
assembly to attend this morning as well as a
few... things... to deal with before we leave.
When we come back we will go straight to
playing." The music teacher bellowed out over
the talking as he flipped through pages on his
stand, pulling a pencil out from behind his
stringy silver hair and proceeding to take
attendance.
"Yup," I said as the teacher called my name. I
was only half paying attention, doodling on my
notebook.
"Eli," my teacher said. I didn't hear, I was
concentrating on the arcs and swirls my pencil
was making on the paper.
"ELI!" the teacher yelled and my head snapped
up. "Thank you. Now would you please get
another chair and place it beside you. We will
have another student joining us in a few
minutes."
I got up and got the chair, placing it a few feet
away from mine. I returned to my seat and
looked down at the doodle on my notebook. I
looked to see endless, deep eyes staring out at
me. But these weren't purple, they were electric
blue. I jumped in my seat and grabbed the back
of my chair. The eyes were moving. I swear they
were. They looked up off the page. I followed
their gaze. I looked up to see the whole class
staring at me. But not just the class. At the front
stood the boy from the dream, a bright purple
guitar slung around his back. The same purple
as in my eyes.
I looked back down at the page in my hand in
embarrassment. The blue eyes had narrowed
and were glaring at me with hostile. And some
how I felt as though I was being sucked in,
deeper and deeper into the thick black pupils
that expanded and expanded until the whole
world was black around me. The black was
constricting on me, getting tighter and tighter. I
couldn't breathe. I tried, but there was no air. It
was like a vacuum. And there was no light. It
was endless and black. Just black. No, not black.
Nothing. There was nothing.
I panicked and squirmed, but it was no use. The
nothing had me bound tight. My heart raced
faster and I was sure it was going to burst. It
hurt as it pumped oxygenless blood through my
veins, and tore at my mind as I was attacked
with the darkness I loved. Some how I managed
to reach deep inside myself.
Somewhere, to some freak reserve of oxygen, I
drew upon and let out an ear piercing scream. I
could hear it, it echoed off the nothing and
pinged and rang like wicked, torturing, high-
pitched church bells. And I kept on screaming. I
don't know for how long. But the last thing I
heard through the peeling sound of bells, as the
nothing leaked into my brain and corroded my
consciousness, was a deep, flowing musical
voice saying, "Shit."