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I was being chased.
I ran down another empty street, not daring to look back. It was pitch black outside, besides the dimly lit street lamps that occasionally flickered, the streets both lifeless and empty. I wasn't even sure where I was running to; all I knew was that I needed to get rid of what was chasing me. I've been running for what seemed like an endless fraction of time, and turned down a side-street, unaware that it was a dead end.
Adrenaline pumping through my veins, I still felt the creature chasing me. It was as if the closer the thing got to me, the colder I got. All the warmth, the happiness, frosting over me, leaving me with some sort of empty feeling.
Once I had realized that the street I had turned onto was a dead end, I felt my pulse quicken, my eyes darting around to find any sort of escape. I could feel the sweat from running dripping down my forehead. I wouldn't say that I was out of shape, but I would say that I was definitely not able to run for long periods of time without wanting to collapse. I was a seventeen year old boy, not a machine.
"No, no, no." I muttered, a wave of panic washing over me like a ton of bricks. There was no way out. I was faced with a tall red brick wall, the wall of an apartment building. On both my sides were stairs that went up to balconies of the apartments which boxed me in.
I was going to die here.
I didn't want to die.
I turned around, and was shocked with what faced me. It was nothing like I'd seen before, a floating figure, trenched in a black cloth. It extended its arm, as if to grab me by my shirt collar.
I stumbled backwards in a desperate and final attempt to get away, but it didn't work. My back slammed against the brick wall, the floating figure closing in on me.
I sheilded my eyes with my arm, tucking my head behind. I was slowly able to feel empty, cold, unaware. I opened my eyes, and all I saw, was a burst of white light.
_ _ _
I woke up, startled.
A ringing sound, both blaring and monotonous, shocked me out of my deep sleep. I recognized the noise as my alarm clock. I groaned and threw my hand in the general vicinity of the clock, hoping my extended arm would hit the snooze button.
I'd been having the same dream for a while now, never knowing how it truly ended besides a piercing white light bursting, resulting on me waking up.
"Stiles, you've got to get up!" I heard my mother yell from the basement, clearly used to this. Although I was supposed to wake up at the same time every single morning, I was just unable to set the biological clock and wake myself up. I relied on the clock, which, for the record, never worked anyways. "You're going to be late!"
"I'm up!" I yelled, my eyes still shut. I turned over on my side, pulling the covers back over me and making a pillow sandwich with my head. I hated school. Not because I was doing poorly, I just didn't like it. The fact that I was confined within a two-floor building and stuck in a classroom for the majority of the day just didn't fit what I wanted.
"I think we both have very different ideas of what up means." My mom sighed, now leaning against the doorframe of my bedroom. She looked tired; which was nothing but usual. She worked the graveyard shift at a twenty-four hour grocery store.
"I have Spanish first period," I groaned, trying to cover myself once again with my bed covers. My mom walked over to my bed and yanked the sheets right off. "Can't I just skip it?"
My mom laughed. "You're funny, Stiles. How do you say 'no' in Spanish?" I groaned at her lame attempt at a joke.
"Si?" I said simply. My mom scoffed, not buying it. She was smarter than I thought.
"I don't speak Spanish,yet even I know that that's yes!"
"Isn't it close enough?" I muttered pushing myself up off the bed. "When will I ever need to use Spanish? We live in Ohio. Thats not a language that I will ever use on a daily basis."
"There's a lot of things you'll presume you're never going to need but end up depending on one day, Stiles." My mom said, going back to lean on my doorframe. I looked at her quizzically. "Anyways, I'll be waiting in the car in ten minutes. Your butt better be in the passenger seat by then or I'll make sure you won't have pop tarts tomorrow morning."
"You know how much I love pop-tarts, mom." I groaned at her way of motivating me to get ready. The worst part? She has boughten the limited edition confetti pop-tarts, so she knew this was an offer I wasn't able to refuse.
"Then I'll see you in the car in 10." She smiled, leaving me alone in my room. My bed was calling my name,
