The Last Page

Chapter 7- Potential Threat

I ran through a water filled tunnel.

The tunnel slowly became darker as I ran further into it. Behind me was a slowly disappearing street, which was full of people dressed in black, as if they were mourning. I stopped in my tracks, but the water was suffocating me. As i struggled to get a grasp of air I started hearing cries, followed by a young man shouting,

“He’s over there!”

I looked back and shook my head, “It wasn’t me! I swear! Please let me go!”

I yelled until I felt a gentle shake. My father awoke me. He held me close and softly began to spoke, “It’s alright, no one is going to harm you.”

“It’s alright.

It’s alright.”

He helped me up, “Get up, you have a long day ahead of you.” As he said that it felt as if I were a little kid again, and soon the desperation was replaced with a childish joy. It was finally the first day of school, my opportunity to start over was finally here. But then i recalled how my mom would be the one of getting me ready for the first day of school. Now, my dad was here, his face seemed worried, yet eager for me to start over.

My dad waited for me downstairs, he was driving Joy and I since the school was on his way to his work. Joy walked downstairs seeming really relaxed and confident. My grandmother pulled us into the kitchen for breakfast, pancakes and scrambled eggs. I felt anxious, but Joy had already explained the ins and outs of the school, because she was apparently the expert.

We still had a good half hour before we needed to leave in order to arrive to school on time. The morning felt too calm, however. Too my surprise it was mainly because Sam wasn’t up yet. Joy then explained to me that he entered an hour later than we did, and his school wasn’t very far so our grandmother would take him.

We walked out the door, the morning felt chilly and I felt a little light headed as I stepped into the car. My father started the car and we sat in silence for about two minutes because Joy felt the need of returning to grab a sweater. Once Joy returned we pulled out of the driveway.

I couldn’t believe it, I was starting over. Everything from my past continued to distance itself from my life. Everything I feared, everything I was running away from no longer blocked my path. Those long nights in which I stayed up accusing myself as being a coward, had become shorter and were almost gone.

Then I remembered what someone had told me once, what had ended it all.

“You just don’t know how much of an impact you have made, how much you mean to everyone here.”

I became lost in my thoughts, but every time my dad came to a stop or a red light I came back into reality. Unfortunately, this route had way too many. After a while my thoughts became strategies on approaching my dad to tell him to find a better route with out him thinking I was criticizing his driving.

Soon enough we approached the school. I marveled at this building, you could see it from a mile away. It’s architecture was beautiful, obviously influenced by some weird Greek stuff. Beautiful like those fancy photoshopped schools you’d see in magazines or movies, except this was real. Two stories tall, a couple of smaller buildings were located in different areas around it. Surrounding the school was a really fancy black gate, and not a constricting prison fence. We pulled into the gate, which lead to a drop of for students (which became the student pick up in the afternoons). Two pillars rose up, leading to the school’s entrance. A small amount of students were hanging out scattered around the school’s fields on either side and directly in the student drop off area. I was able to quickly recognize a few people, but one person caught my eye. Neal.