I looked back over my shoulder, in a dead sprint, seeing that I had finally left it behind. Not exactly sure what I was running from, I only knew that it was terrifying. The trees flew past me as ran through the dingy forest. I could feel the cold sweat dripping down my face. I checked over my shoulder one last time just to be sure whatever it was had stopped following me. When I saw nothing behind me I breathed a heavy sigh of relief and slowed my pace I turned around only to see and ugly creature with fangs and long sharp claws. It towered over me by almost a foot. I stopped in my tracks and met its cold cat like, yellow eyes, and screamed a bloody murderous scream in hopes that someone would hear me, even though I was in the middle of nowhere. I turned to run in the other direction when it grabbed me around the waist and started shaking me violently. Wake up Moe! It murmured in my ear WAKE UP! It screamed again.
My eyes flew open and I wrapped my arms around the source of the shaking which was my older brother Lyle. "That's the third one this week." He said still hugging me "Maybe we should talk to someone about this." I shook my head and released him from my grasp and walked over to my mirror. My eyes were droopy, my dark curly hair was matted in every direction, and you could still see the small beads of sweat that had formed on my forehead. I looked like crap it was just another nightmare I told myself over and over again. "Moe, I'm serious" he said insistently "you're scaring me" I looked him through the mirror and his worried eyes met mine. I really wish he wouldn't worry when he did his beautiful deep green eyes changed to a pale gray.
"Honestly Lyle, you worry too much. It was just a stupid dream." I told him half trying to convince myself.
"But you..."
"Are going to be fine" I finished for him "you don't always have to take care of me." Inside my head a voice was screaming 'yes he does' but ignored it.
"Yes I do, admit it" he said playfully "you would be lost without me" he gave himself a halo. I smiled and sauntered over to my new acquired queen sized bed and flopped onto the mess of sheets. "Do you want me to stay with you?" he asked his eyes still clouded gray.
"No, just... could you stay till I fall asleep again?"
"Of course anything you want." He absently mindedly began to trace the shapes on my face and humming. This is how he'd gotten me to fall asleep when I was five and had nightmares, when I was eight and I caught the stomach flu, also before my first day of high school when I was so nervous I literally got sick. He'd always been there to comfort me as long as I could remember. For some reason this past month I had been having nightmares almost every day of the week. I could never remember such vivid dreams, they always seemed so real. At first it was no big deal, Mom and Dad had wrote it off as growing pains, and had moved onto the next problem in their life. Lyle was the only one convinced something was wrong even I wasn't sure maybe I just needed to stop reading Twilight right before I go to bed. "Thanks Lyle." I whispered already falling asleep "you're the best." Thankfully I drifted into a dreamless sleep.
The next day I woke up to the smell of pancakes. I practically jumped out of bed hoping that meant that my parents had come back early from their 3 month promotional tour. They left just last month so I would be really surprised if Margret, their publicist, let them go home early. Margret was really into the book tour she always looked forward to it. My Mother and Father were both authors. They weren't really big yet, if you saw their book on the shelf you probably wouldn't glance twice at it the covers weren't exciting and neither were the titles but in my opinion they were genius.
I stumbled down the stair rubbing the remaining sleep from my eyes and dragged into the kitchen completely exhausted. Standing at the stove, spatula in hand, was Lyle. I couldn't help but be disappointed but, I smiled anyway. The two of us exchanged our good morning and ate our breakfast discussing our possible school day scenarios. Afterwards I ran upstairs to get ready for my second week as a sophomore. The transfer students were coming today and I wanted to look my best. I dug through my drawers looking for my favorite pair of Jean Bermuda shorts. They were pale blue tight fitting and distressed. I picked out my favorite yellow shirt with a white cami underneath; they both complimented my tan skin nicely. I started applying concealer underneath my eyes to hide my bags. I added a few curls to my hair took one last look at myself in the mirror and decided that was as good as it was going to get I grabbed my Converse and ran down the stair and found Sandra waiting. Sandra is Lyle's girlfriend. Her parents just got her a car and she has insisted on driving Lyle, and unfortunately, I everywhere we need to go. Don't get me wrong I love Sandra she's always smiling and always happy and just an all around great person to be around but sometimes she can be a little tiring.
