An Angel's Kiss

Chapter 17

What did she do?

                For some reason, there were bananas all over the ground. The worst was that I was completely trapped in my room. I could feel like something was extremely wrong with this picture- but somehow it all felt extremely right in the exact same way. My walls were all bright yellow- the  banana’s must have rubbed off on them?

                I couldn’t even see out of my window anymore.  Silently, I got up and got dressed. At this point, I felt like I should have been freaking out, but I was scarily calm. There was something extremely wrong with me- I couldn’t even talk. I tried to open my mouth to speak- but nothing came out. Instead, the words resounded in my head, almost making my head start spinning really badly.

                I reached over to try and open my door- the window wasn’t going to hold up any longer, and I needed to get out of here if I wanted to survive, I wondered how that would look on the papers: “Death by Banana” would be the opening line of my obituary. Surprisingly, the door popped open on my first try, I must have been imagining that it didn’t open the first time; I was probably being delirious.

                Somehow, that thought didn’t surprise me at all.

                I tried to speak again. It still didn’t work- and again repeated itself in my head. I had to steady myself along the banister. This made me sure that I wasn’t going to try speaking again; that was not worth the headache- literally. The walls started spinning around me and I tripped on my way down the banister. My head connected with the ground and I fell into the clutches of the darkness- and Sierra.

*                              *                              *                              *                              *                              *

                My head really hurt- but it didn’t. It was really odd to have a sensation like that. I opened my eyes slightly, and immediately regretted it. I moaned slightly- before a loud voice made my hands fly to cover my ears. Yup. I was definitely messed up today…fun.

                Silently, I opened my eyes- only to wish that I hadn’t seen opened them at all.

                I was lying on my bed, staring up at Loretta. Somehow, it didn’t surprise me to see her there. I had a feeling that the others were there as well, but she was the only one by my bed. That thought was just given support as I heard the other voices echo around my house. If Loretta was here, then my parents definitely weren’t here either.

                “What happened?” I whispered, my voice shaky and hoarse.

                Loretta’s cheeks heated up, like she really didn’t want to explain to me what happened. After moment, she opened her mouth. “When we got here, you were lying on the steps, unconscious. We really knew something was wrong when I started thinking about bananas falling from the sky.”

                Now it was my turn for my cheeks to heat up. But one thing in particular had left me wanting an answer, so I asked her. “Why only you? And sorry about the whole banana thing… I was really out of it. In fact, I don’t even remember going back to sleep after my nightmare…” My tone turned speculative as I thought about what had just happened.

                Loretta shrugged. “I’ve always been able to pick up things that are wrong more easily than some other can. It helps sometimes, like in this case. And really, don’t worry about it.”

                Ramon appeared at the doorway. “What do you mean you ‘don’t even remember going back to sleep’?’

                Once again, I repeated the same action that Loretta had just done: I shrugged. “I don’t think it’s that surprising that I had a night, but usually I’m can’t fall asleep after a nightmare. Something about this one was really different. Especially since Sierra was plotting to kill me,” I mumbled the last part.

                “What?”

                “Nothing.”

                “Did you find anything downstairs?” Loretta quickly tried to change the subject, Luckily for me, it worked. Ramon was quickly distracted.

                “Nothing.”

                “But you guys are definitely sure that something was wrong with her?”

                Ramon looked at Loretta like she was crazy for a few seconds. “Are you joking? She was dreaming about bananas before falling down the steps. Doesn’t that just lend itself to tell you that something isn’t right with the situation?” I felt my cheeks heat up from embarrassment over the banana part.

                That was when my thoughts went back to the dream that I’d had before the banana one. There was something wrong with that dream too. “The first one involved Sierra’s murderer.” Murderer. I turned the word over in my mouth for a second. It almost felt unreal. I had never used that word to describe what had happened to Sierra. It almost felt….right, rolling off my tongue.

                Loretta and Ramon were both staring at me; I had pulled them out of whatever argument had caused them to be sniping at each other.  Ramon was first to break the silence. “What are you talking about, Scarlett?” It sounded like he was talking to a three-year old. I glared at him.

                “Don’t look at me like that,” I snapped back at him. His face looked like he just knew that I’d been insane all along- which you know, I really wasn’t going to argue with right about now. “The first dream I had involved Sierra and her murderer.”

                “Were you a spectator, or actually part of it?” This time, it was Loretta’s turn to ask the question.

                I laughed humorlessly. “I wasn’t just part of the dream, I was Sierra.”

                Both Ramon and Loretta was staring at me now, but neither wore the look that they thought I was crazy. In fact, they didn’t even look like they didn’t believe me. They looked like it made perfect sense to them, but that they couldn’t expect it to happen to me. Ever. “What do you mean Scarlett?” Ramon spoke really slowly, like he expected that I wouldn’t be able to comprehend what he was saying. I rolled my eyes but didn’t question it; I just wanted to get this interrogation over and done with.

                “It was like,” I broke off, trying to remember what exactly had happened. “It was like I was her. I mean, I still had my own emotions but I could feel hers. They affected me the same way they would affect her. Sometimes it was hard for me to tell which emotions were mine and which were hers.”

                I was going to let them think about that for a while. Some food for thought, you know? Besides, it’s not like there was very much more for me to tell them. I just didn’t get why they seemed to think that it was so much more to it, so much more for them to read into, that I hadn’t I thought about or told them.

                Ramon looked hard at me for a moment. Then he and Loretta simultaneously glanced at each other before walking out of the room together.

                Alright. What is it this time?