As she turned to walk away, she said, "Your family is the next to leave you." She started laughing and tuned to smile at me, but it was anything but pleasant; she had no facial features except for red eyes and a toothy grin. I tried to scream, tried to reach out to the monster to find out what she meant, but came up empty-handed and without sound, and continued to laugh and walk away from me as my vision turned dark.
I woke up in a cold sweat and began to sob. The darkness I was surrounded by scared me even more, because I wasn't sure if my nightmare had ended. I began screaming, but this time an actual sound escaped my lips. I slowly began to realize that I wasn't dreaming anymore, and therefore stopped screaming and calmed down. "Well," I said to myself, "I guess that I have to start sleeping with one eye open. This dream is occurring way too much nowadays; does this mean that my dream will become a reality?" I shook off the thought and realized my alarm clock was going off. I rose from my bed to grab my glasses from off the nightstand and walked over to my dresser on the opposite side of the room. It said 6:30 A.M.; I was about to be late for the first day of school.
I slowly made my way to the bathroom to get ready. When I finished showering I moved to the mirror over the sink and looked at myself: a 17 year-old black kid, who never stood out and had no special qualities: black hair, dark brown eyes, and average-ish looking. "Just got to make it through the day," I said to myself aloud. "This day can't be as shitty as the nightmare I just woke up from." I went to my room and got dressed, and noticed that my laptop was open on my desk. "I guess I was in the middle of writing my story," I said as I saved my place and closed my laptop. As I made my way outside, I stopped in the kitchen for breakfast, but decided against it, and left to catch the bus to school.
As I walked to the bus stop, I felt the sudden urge to duck, so I did. As soon as I flattened myself against the ground, a huge object passed over me.
"PENGUINOOOOOOOOOO!!!"
The object was my long-time friend, Rosey. I hadn't seen her since the beginning of summer break, so I didn't recognize her at first. Puberty had done a ton of favors for her body-wise: tall, with long black hair with a few strands dyed red, blue eyes the same color as the ocean, and a voice like an angel. I looked around and noticed that the boys at the bus stop were glaring at me, probably wondering why she was talking to a guy like me. "Hey Rosey," I said as I was helping her to her feet, "You can't be doing that. The guys are going to get jealous."
"Does it look like I care? And I already told you to call me Amy!" she said, pouting. "You're my friend and I can do what I want because I'm awesome!" She beamed at me and hugged me tightly, earning me more glares (and a few growls) from the guys that were watching. Amy noticed that people were staring, and, being the troll she is, kissed me on the cheek. I jumped back, startled and taken aback at what she just did. Behind me, I felt the dark aura of hatred growing stronger behind me. I turned to look at Amy, who was laughing uncontrollably. I was about to ask her why she just did that, but the bus had just arrived. As I made my way to the bus, I noticed that someone was watching me from the window of one of the seats near the back. When I tried to catch them staring, they looked away, so I wasn't able to get a clear look at their face.
I found an empty seat in the middle of the bus and sat down, putting my bag in my lap and fished my phone from my pocket. I started playing Brave Frontier to pass the time, but I couldn't focus. The dream I had kept flooding back into my head. "What could she mean?" I thought. "When will it happen? How will I lose them? Where do they go?" all these questions were spinning in my head, but I had answers to none of them. By the time I had finally managed to clear my head, we had arrived at school. As I got up to get off the bus, I noticed that I was being watched again. I pretended not to notice, and used the reflection of the bus window to try and catch their face. "So it's a she," I thought to myself. As I about to pinpoint where I had seen her face before, she noticed that I was looking at her through the reflection and turned away. I shrugged it off and left the bus, and through the front doors of the high school.
I was now a senior, but I definitely didn't feel like it. Every time I went through those doors, I felt like a freshman all over again; innocent, new, and nervous of how this year would go for me. I looked at the schedule I had taken out to figure out what class I had first. "Great, I have English first," I sighed.
"You have English first as well?"
I jumped and turned around, partially because I wasn't expecting anybody to pay attention to me, partially because they genuinely scared the shit out of me.
It was the girl that was watching me from the bus. Now that she was standing right in front of me, I realized that she was really pretty: short gray hair (I'm guessing she dyed it that color) that just touched her shoulders, green eyes that sparkled and shined like an emerald, and short, which was saying something, because I was one of the smallest in my senior class. She looked like a child in my eyes, so I'm not even going to begin to describe her body, but I will say this: she was decently proportional. I realized that I was staring at her, so I quickly turned away and, before I could react, she snatched my paper from my hands and looked at my schedule.
"H-hey! Don't just go taking peoples' papers!" I exclaimed, while doing nothing to actually get my paper back.
"We have all the same classes. You know your way around this school, right? Do you mind showing me to them?" she asked me, looking at me in the eyes, as if she was daring me to say no.
"Sure, I guess. Let's go."
"Kiana."
"What?"
"My name," she said, smiling. "My name is Kiana Liane." She looked at me and outstretched her and, symbolizing a handshake. "Nice to meet you!"
I took her outstretched hand in mine. "My name is Ty Grant. And likewise."
"Yay! I made a new friend!" She let go of my hand and hugged me tightly, taking me by surprise. After a few minutes, she released me from her death hug and we continued on our way to class.
"I should try to get to know her better," I thought to myself. "We are going to be in all the same classes, after all."
"-kun!"
A shout from behind me tore me away from my thoughts and I turned around to see what all the noise was. It was Kiana, trying to get my attention.
"W-what?," I stammered, still coming back to reality.
"Did you not hear anything that I said, Ty-kun?"
"No," I said. "I didn't. But first of all, why Ty-kun?"
"Because you're my friend now!," she said, as if I should've known from the start. "I was saying thank you for being so nice to me. I just moved here from out of town the other day, and I was afraid I would be alone on my first day of school."
I couldn't see her face, but I could tell that she was smiling.
"But then," she continued, "I saw you at the bus stop, and how you seemed so friendly with that other girl, and I said to myself, 'I have to make him my friend!'"
"Oh are you talking about-"
"PENGUINOOOO~"
I immediately hid behind Kiana to save myself. Or at least, tried to. Amy, being ever so hyper, tackled me to the ground in the middle of the hallway, knocking myself and her to the ground.
"Dammit Rose-I mean Amy!! Why did you do that for?!," I exclaimed.
"Because I'm going to class with you! You have English first right?"
She got off of me and helped me to my feet.
"Whatever," I said as I was dusting myself off. "Just don't do that again please. We're at school and you-"
"OMIGOD WHO IS THIS CUTIE?!," Amy shouted, noticing Kiana for the first time(and also trying to escape another lecture from me).
"H-hello, Kiana started, "My name is Kiana and I just moved here. Ty-kun was showing me around since the both of us have all the same classes together I hope that we can be frie-"
"YOU MAY BE PRETTY, BUT PENGUINO IS MINE AND YOU CANT HAVE HIM!," she shouted, even louder this time. Kiana jumped and immediately got defensive.
"I-it's not like I wanted to steal Penguino from you anyways! I just want him to be my friend!"
Amy finally calmed down when she realized that Kiana had no ill-intentions.
"Well why didn't you say so," Amy said. "Nice to meet you Kiana! My name is Rosey, but I want to be called Amy!" She hugged Kiana in a fierce bear hug. "Let's be friends!"
