Beyond

Chapter 1 (Tyler)

Beep beep beep!

My alarm clock blares, and I groan, pressing the pillow over my ears. Finally, I can't take it anymore and lazily slam down on the snooze button.

"Good morning, Tyler!" My mother sings as she enters the room. I moan, attempting to sit up straight. The glowing white I my walls stings my eyes as I open them.

A screech echoes in my mind, followed by another blinding flash. Now I am awake. I shake my head, pressing two fingers to my temple. No matter how hard I try, the same haunting dream whispers in my mind wherever I go.

Wincing, I take a deep breath and smile at my mother, though hers has faded a little.

"Tyler, are you ok?"

No. I am not. How can I be ok when I have a constant throb in my head, pulsing with every flash of the dream that stampedes through my mind every day?

"I'm fine."

She looks uncertain, scanning the covers on the floor that were pushed off while I slept and the sweat clinging to my forehead.

"Promise." I push off the only sheet that remained on my bed and swing my feet over the side. The tiled floor sends a chill creeping up my legs.

Shuddering, I turn to Mom. "It was just..." A nightmare? A dream? A fever? How can I describe something so haunting yet so energizing? "...I didn't sleep well. That's all."

She sits on the corner of the bed, pinching the corner of the mattress between her thumb and index finger. "Tyler, you've been like this for the last month. Always waking up and looking stunned, line something stabbed you."

Something did, though not a knife.

"I'm concerned for you."

Pushing myself off the bed, I reach down and grab the cloths I had laid out the night before. "Why? Everyone has bad nights."

"Tyler, no one has 'bad nights' consecutively for a month."

"Maybe I'm the exception."

Sighing, she stands up and heads toward the door. "Just...just be safe. I do to want anything to happen to you."

She leaves the room, but then her head peeks around the door post. "Hey, you better get ready quickly. After all, your high school graduation is in two hours, you know."

"Yeah I know." I begin walking to the bathroom to he dressed, give her a thumb up, and with mock excitement say, "Can't wait!"

+++

The sound of popping gravel rings in my ears, more amplified than it should be. My mom is in the front, driving and fidgeting with the control panel. I’m on my way to my school, the last place I wish to be right now. I know I should be excited, even just a little bit, but all I am is nervous. I am valedictorian, which means I have to give a speech in front of my entire school. I may be intelligent, but as I have found out on numerous occasions, I am not skilled in eloquence. Trying not to think about it doesn’t help either, as my thoughts currently only have two channels: the speech, or the dream. I don’t want to think about either. The speech, as always, intimidates me not only because of my lack of fluency, but my also because of my lack of courage. And the dream is a problem I cannot solve. To me, it is like someone gives me a puzzle to put together, and all the pieces are there, yet they don’t fit no matter how many arrangements I make, even though they should. As always, I try to approach it logically. Yet for some reason, logic has failed me in this endeavor, which scares me more than it should. Everything should have a place. Someplace it can fit into perfectly. Math follows precise equations to draw a conclusion. Science organizes information and uses a logical approach to solve the problem. History places events on an organized time line, making it easy to follow and easier to learn from. That is how I learn. That is how I live. Having something ingrained in my mind that I can’t solve logically drives me crazy. I’ve studied all my life, gotten straight A’s, and even went above and beyond to devour any information available to me. And yet, even with all that knowledge, I can’t approach this problem. It’s like studying for a test for 17 years, and realizing everything you learned…was useless. I shake my head, which still throbs. Grimacing, lean back against the seat, realizing my back ached from bending over with my chin resting on my hands: the posture I assume when I’m solving a difficult problem. Mom’s voice distracts my thoughts for a minute.