Flashes of light. A glimpse of a tree. The feeling of adrenaline and exhilaration in my veins. I was soaring, flying in the night sky. I felt invincible. I felt free.
Then, a nightmare. Fearful eyes looked into mine, tears streaming down ruddy cheeks. There was a muffled voice, like I was hearing it through several layers of cotton. It sounded panicked, scared. There was screaming. I saw red.
I felt happy.
******
I erupted from the floor, gasping for some air in my lungs. I was soaked in a cold sweat, sticky and clammy on my skin. My body curled in on itself as I tried to calm my racing heartbeat, I squeezed my eyes shut as the blurry remnants of the nightmare drifted to the surface again.
What was that?! I wanted to yell. I couldn't remember much from the nightmare, and what I did remember was a blurry scrambled mess, filled with image that I couldn't make sense of. That I didn't want to make sense of. I shuddered from a cold flash that suddenly entered my body and left just as swiftly as it had arrived.
I needed to get myself together, I had to go to school. I hurriedly glanced at the clock hoping against hope that I hadn't woken myself up late. I released a sigh of relief when I saw that I had fifteen minutes before I actually needed to be awake. I internally thanked my natural alarm clock and got dressed.
I grabbed the first thing that I saw and it happened to be a pair of grey skinny jeans and woven black sweater. I shoved on my black combat boots and rushed out the door, but not before grabbing a jacket and hat combo plus my school bag, before mother could wake up.
Upon arrival outside I took a breath of the cool air and began my descent to the school. Despite the bullying and having no friends, I actually liked school. Learning made me feel calmer and I liked all the cool facts that one could get when they actually payed attention in school.
After getting out of my thinking trance and abruptly coming back to reality, I realized that I was nearing the school. After a bit, I noticed the amount of people standing in front of the school. News reporters, policemen, students, parents, teachers, you name it. Some people were crying, loud gross sounds, other looked as if they were going to throw up, or pass out one of the two.
I didn't realize why until I was standing in front of the main door. Even from a distance, I couldn't mistake the dead body for anything other than what it was. It was pinned above the doors, blood dripping to the ground in a growing puddle. You couldn't distinguish much from all the blood that coated his entire body, but his body was intact enough, no spilling intestines on the ground, no missing limbs. I tried to get closer, needing to see who it was. The closer I got, the more that I could see the face, see how they died with their eyes open.
The eyes that I remembered from my nightmare from the night before. The eyes that had been filled with fear and pain. The eyes that now remained glassy and lifeless, forever gone from this world and onto the next.
This was without a doubt the boy from my dreams. Which caused me to wonder, was it really just a dream after all?
Underneath the body had the message, YOU'RE NEXT, written in blood.
****
I ran away. School was cancelled due to the boys death. They haven't released any other details and I'm scared to know more, anyhow.
I ran until I couldn't breath anymore, till I dropped to my knees, on the edge of the run down park that leads into the forest. The more I thought about it, the more I panicked because I was beginning to realize that what I thought was a horrible nightmare, might have been a horrible reality.
I picked myself up and started to trudge into the dense woods, wanting to further myself from the incident ad far as I possibly could. A slow walk became another sprint, I was starting to panic again, my breath shortening and becoming sporadic.
Calm down.
I faltered, tripping over a root and went crashing to the ground. I hadn't even realized I was crying until I let out a hoarse sob.
You need to listen to me.
I cried harder, just wanting the voice to stop. I didn't want to think about what me hearing this faceless voice meant. I didn't want to think that I was probably going insane.
This is nonsense. You are no more insane than those around you.
"Comforting words since I'm alone," I snapped, anger overwhelming my reason at the moment.
Ah, but you aren't alone are you?
"You don't count, you're just a voice inside my head," I hissed, narrowing my eyes at the foliage in front of me.
You're wrong. On both subjects. I am neither just a voice and you are still not alone, including me.
I scoffed, thought about it, and shuddered. I abhorred the idea that there was someone or something out there watching me.
I wanted to ignore the voice, play it off as some prolonged nightmare, but there was no doubt in my mind that this was happening. The voice was just as real as the dead boy was and some sick feeling inside me knew that I had done that.
I wanted to avoid everything, live in some sort of ignorant reality until much later, but I couldn't avoid this, no matter how much I yearned to do so.
It was unfortunate that life had never favoured me and always seemed to deny what I wanted. Why would it feel the need to start now? So, I thought, if life decided to present us with fake lemons and try to pass it off as reality, then we must play along and take what we can get.
"What do you mean that I'm not alone?" I muttered, my eyebrow furrowed from confusion and concern.
Exactly how it sounds, there are two entities nearby, watching you. They have been for some time now.
Freezing slightly, I tried to look around as much as I could using solely my peripheral vision. I couldn't see any differences but now that the voice had mentioned something, my instincts flared like fireworks inside and the air around me felt wrong, setting on my skin and causing me to feel the intense need for a cleansing.
I could tell that I wasn't alone and I didn't like it one bit.
