Unwanted (Petrified Of Exemption book 1)

1

It was a late December night. My parents had just tucked me into bed. I had my favorite brown bear next to me. I looked at him, one of his eyes had popped out and he was kinda ripped up and old, but he use to be my mother's so I did not mind. Usually he helped me sleep but I could not sleep, I could not move either, my body would not let me. Honestly I was to cold to do anything. Nervously cold, like that feeling you get when you think something bad was going to happen. I did not know what it was, so i just laid there, looking at the stars that were painted on my walls. I counted them in between nervous shivers, 1, 2, 3... 4...5...

I was tired but for some reason I was so worried that I would never fall asleep, even though I was exhausted. Laying there, I waited for my eyes to close and my mind to wander on into the dream world. They never did.

Time went on and counting the stars in my walls did not seem to be enough for me to fall asleep. Downstairs I heard voices, at first I thought it was just mom and dad so I did not worry too much. I started to feel tired, I guess listening to the voices and staring at my walls helped after all. I yawned and started to fall asleep.

As I slept I had a dream, a dream that I have quite a lot, but it was different this time. Something changed. I dreamed that I was standing in the middle of a beautiful open field, the grass was bright green and the trees were so high it seemed they were everlasting. I was wearing a cotton candy pink and white dress that fell down to my knees, it was beautiful and had rose like flowers and lace at the bottom. I had no shoes on when i started to skip through the dew filled grass, each time my bare foot hit the ground I felt the wet grass in between my toes. I looked all around me. It was foggy. No. Not fog. Smoke. Thick, black smoke filled the air of my beautiful fantasy. I panicked, there was nowhere to escape the smoke filled air. I turned in circles, trying to get away but nothing happen.

I woke up to what seemed like hours later. Instantly I jumped up when I heard a loud ERR ERR ERR of the smoke detector. There was a lot of smoke in the air. The smoke from my dream was real and it filled the air with a nasty smell..

I got up and ran downstairs. I stopped as I got halfway down the stairs because i saw a strange man in the living room holding a yellow bottle that said lighter fluid. I was terrified. There were small flames throughout the whole downstairs area. It spread quickly, and smoke got thicker just like it had in my dream. I could hardly breath from the thick air. I coughed into my arm not knowing what I should do. I got scared and I screamed and cried, calling for my parents, but there was no answer. I was about to run upstairs to their bedroom but i froze when I saw the man purposely spill the lighter fluid all over the room. The flames got higher and bigger as the fire spread. I turned around and was going to run to my parents when the man grabbed me and he turned me around and picked me up by the waist and put me over his shoulder and ran out of the house before the flames got to high. As he went through the house I gasped through heavy breathing as the smoke filled my lungs and I continued screaming for my parents. I screamed and kicked but there was no sight or sound from them and he was to strong to fight off. After the man brought me outside he put me down on the cold winter ground and then started to walk away.

As he walked away, I got a good look at him. He was tall and very skinny but he was brawn. He had dark brown hair that fell just above his eyes and from the looks of it they were light blue. He looked back at me strangely as he walked away, with a huge grin on his face. As he walked down the sidewalk he pulled out a phone. He was already gone past the house and out of sight like it had never even happen. I heard sirens and saw bright lights in the distance as I suddenly became dizzy and my eyes started to black out. I do not know what it was from, maybe all of the smoke made me pass out, but i don't remember anything after I blacked out. There was nothing. Just blackness.