Unhinged

2.

Beep. Went the answering machine. "Maura pick up the phone, text us, anything. Where are you?" My mother's voice was frantic and angry. I quickly picked up and called back. "Mom, hey."

"Maura Bean Jones. Where have you been all night? Your curfew was at ten. We have been calling the house all night. Do you know how worried we were?" 

Good, she had reason to worry, I could have died. 

"I'm sorry mother, I just lost track of time, then I went upstairs and took a shower and I could not hear the phone." 

"Couldn't hear the phone?! You couldn't hear the phone?!" She asked before starting a long drunken rant about how I am grounded indefinitely and how irresponsible I am. In the end I went upstairs and cried again because my parents are not what I wish them to be.

I am not what I wish to be. 

I drifted off to sleep before  setting my thoughts free, free to roam around inside my slumber with the other thoughts. I had night terrors, as I often used to. I thought they were gone, after a night like tonight I think anyone would have nightmares though.

I lay dying, it was a struggle to breath. My chest felt heavy with led, my heart was breaking into a million pieces. Blood swirled round me, pooling around my body. Just as I took a shaky breath- my final breath. There he was, a dark figure come to take it all away. No not the Grim Reaper, someone else. He lay beside me in the pool of blood, he gingerly wrapped an arm over my waist. He was behind me so I could not see his face. "Have you come to end me?" I whispered. Slowly, my pooling blood began to fade along with the struggle of breathing. "No." He answered. "I'm saving you." Once again I heard the same deep, raspy voice and I knew it was him. I turned to look at his face, but before I could get recognition his whole being faded from my consciousness. I had woken up. 

What a way to end a dream, a cliffhanger. I thought, my brain has odd ways of telling me things with dreams. I am not sure what this one means. Was he killing me? I don't know what anything means anymore, not today. Not after all of this, and now I have to go to school and face everyone. What a world. 

I slipped on whatever clothes I found, tidied up my rat's nest and made my way to school. My friend, Ale had not come to pick me up, so I had to walk to school. Maybe this was my friends way of renouncing our friendship, cutting me off. That is just fine, I don't care for them anyhow. I had been looking for a way to go cold turkey for a few weeks and now they have found it for me. This is my escape. "Hey Maura, where's Ale? You two to busy to hang out or no?" Cathy, my friend asked wagging her eyebrows. Shes talking to me? Maybe she did not get the memo... "Uh, I haven't seen Ale since last night, he didn't even pick me up this morning." 

"Really?" She asked. "Did he pick you up at the tunnel last night?" 

"No..." I muttered. "I had to walk home." 

"Oh you poor thing!" My other friend, Sarah, said. "We left Ale there to wait on you and that jerk just left you!" 

"Pfft, boys." Cathy said. 

"How could he? We need to give him a good long talk on how to treat a lady." 

"Agreed." I said. 

The rest of school was an uneventful blur, when I got home it was a different story. "Maura, you're father and I have an announcement!" My mother called. 

"What is it?" I asked. 

"We are going on a trip to London, your father is helping a colleague set up business there and we will be gone for at least a month." 

"What? What about me?" I asked. 

"You are staying here with a baby sitter, we have already arranged it. We leave in five days." She said. 

"What?" I was astonished, they were going to leave me with some stranger for a month! 

"Oh and we still want you to check in on the asylum while we are gone. Your father is letting a man run the place and he is worried about him taking poor care of the patients." 

"Am I allowed to do that?" I asked. 

"Of course, your father owns the place. You are his daughter, you can go there and help out time to time. We have already had this discussion before. Now go upstairs and get ready for dinner." She said. 

Well, I guess that's the end of that conversation. 

I went upstairs just like mother said. I slipped on some pajamas and combed my hair into a braid. I went down stairs again and went over some information about the asylum with my father. "What will I do there? Same old-same old?" I asked 

"Basically, but I also want you to keep an eye on the man I have running the place. You know checking up on him, internet stalking, look at his profiles. Things like that, I want to know he will take care of the people there." 

"Sure dad, count on me." 

"Be safe while we're gone, there are some dangerous people out here." 

They're a lot closer than you think father...