Blair Tannen

What Now.....

Laying asleep in my bed after being taken home, I shift restlessly. No matter how much my brain fights, I can't get the symbol out of my head... The symbol that burned itself onto my eyelids after that thing let me go. No matter whether my eyes are open or closed, I see it always. I know it's evil, nothing that follows that much death isn't.

I toss and turn in my bed, unable to sleep, yet unable to wake up. I feel different than I did before... I feel like I've found out something about myself that can never be forgotten. But what did the creature mean? How am I supposed to save anyone? My dreamless sleep haunts me, and yet I'm still unable to come out of it.

"What happened at the park?" Mom asks, she carresses my cheek gently. "She ran into the bathroom crying after telling us about her nightmares, we heard her screaming, and the she collapsed when she finally let us in." Bahira explains to her. "She never told me that she was having nightmares... I thought that she was just having a tough time at school." Mom gets up and walks downstairs, and when she gets back, she has a warm damp cloth. She uses the cloth to wipe away the sweat that has collected on my brow.

"I tried to wake her up, Leah, but she was out cold." I hear Collin say quickly. Although I can't see her now, I now that she has that worried crease in her forehead that she gets when something scary happens to me or my siblings. "Well," mom sighs, "I guess the only thing we can do now is wait for her to wake up. If she's not up by tomorrow, I'm going to take her to the ER." She states. Nobody argues with her.

"Come on, Bahira, Jess, Molly. I'll take you guys home." Collin says. They all slowly shuffle out of my room except Kalista. She sits on my bed and plays with my hair. "What happened?" She whispers, mostly to herself. She gently crawls over me and lays by my side. "I know that I'm 15, Blair, but I still want to hold you when I'm scared." Kalista confesses. She wraps her thin, white arms around me and wedges her head in between my shoulder blades. "I love you, sis." She says quietly before she too drifts off to sleep.

Night time.

"Get away from me!!!"

Mom comes rushing upstairs into my room to see me throwing things at Kalista in the dark. "Girls! What's going on?" She shouts. My arms thrash about blindly in the pitch black room, and finally my mom switches on my light. I squint to see through the brightness, and notice that the vase I threw caused a deep gash in Kalista's arm. "What is wrong with you!?!" Kalista screams at me. I stand there dumbly as she pushes past me and runs downstairs.

"Blair, honey, why?" Mom asks. I look at her, and the moment I completely understand what I have done, I run to my mom and hug her. "Momma! What did I do?" I cry so hard that it's difficult to catch my breath. She holds me tightly, and begins to cry herself. "We'll figure out what's wrong, honey, don't you worry." She and I stay like that for 10 minutes, then she lays me back down in my bed and sings me to sleep.

Do you know the feeling you get when you're sleeping, and you know something is watching you? You get so uncomfortable that you're dreams slowly but surely turn into nightmares? As I sleep, I feel the slow, creeping feeling of being watched. I shift in bed and open my eyes. My gaze goes straight up to the ceiling, and I see a creature with no distinguishing facial or body features at all besides a large mouth.

Tears form in my eyes as I stare at the mouth, and somehow I am able to form words. "What do you want!?!" I cry. It smiles evilly while I only watch and cry. I hear a low growling from the being, and long tenticles extend from its mass of a body only to carress my paralyzed arm. I shiver from the slimey touch, and hold back more tears. 

"You are very wanted..." The creature speaks. It's voice is so strange, I can't even say that it's one voice. It sounds like several people that are in pain. "You, you are the one they've been looking for..." It smiles again and moves it's tenticle  up to my face. "I wonder what kind of price I could fetch you at..." It looks at me greedily, and suddenly I'm lifted from my bed. The being is no longer touching me, but I'm just suspended in mid air.

I can see dark tendrils reaching out for me from the corners of my eyes. I can't move any part of my body, I'm completely paralyzed. The tendrils reach closer and closer, and the closer they get to me, the more anxious I become. This is it, I think, I'm going to die. One of the dark masses touches my leg, and suddenly a bright white light bursts from my chest. The creature lets out a scream of terror, and then I drop back down onto my bed roughly. I'm left alone in my dark room, and I'm wondering what happened.

I feel a painful stinging sensation in my lower arms, and quickly turn on the light. One glance at my arms nearly makes me shout with surprise. There are thick, black tattoos forming slowly on both of my arms, and they have intricate designs. I trace each curve of ink with my fingers, and stare at them in wonder.

Staring at these tattoos, I'm only left wondering. What now....