Enter the Shadows: Book One of the RTS Series (First Full Draft)

Chapter Seven

Leala

The week spent with Leala's grandparents relieved a lot of stress for her.

While the family's car was being repaired, she spent a lot of time helping cook dinner, taking bike rides with her grandfather and brother, and painting the hummingbirds that frequented the house and would often fight over the juice feeder. One would never guess that hummingbirds were incredibly territorial, but Leala was surprised to see at least three birds get flustered over the rights to the feeder.

And all throughout the week, the events of what happened before started to feel more like a distant nightmare. Leala was actually starting to doubt if what had transpired, had been real at all. If nobody else could remember it happening, did it actually really happen?

That still didn't explain what caused the car to be damaged so badly, and the memory of being strangled by a monster still felt terrifyingly real. Up until it was time to go back home, she pushed those thoughts to the back of her mind so she could enjoy the week with her grandparents. After all, she wasn't sure if she would be coming back for another visit next summer when she had graduated high school.

On her last day there, she was sitting on the small metal bench in the backyard and sketching what she saw, which in this case was a large oak tree with a wooden swing tied to it. Years ago she could swing on it for hours, but now it was just another reminder of how much time had passed. It was almost painful to look at.

"Leala? Why are you doing?" Zeke's voice came from behind Leala. She turned only briefly to glance at him. By the looks of him, clearly Zeke had just rollen out of bed. His brown hair was a mess and he was still wearing pajamas. A bit odd, considering that it was nearly afternoon.

"Just sketching a few things." She replied. "Did you just wake up or something?"

"Yeah, pretty much." He replied. But despite having slept in for most of the morning, he somehow looked more tired.

"Rough night?"

He shrugged. "A bit. I couldn't fall asleep until pretty late. And to top that off, last night's dream was pretty crappy."

Leala turned to face her brother more. "What do you mean?"

"It's stupid and won't make any sense." Zeke replied.

"Well, dreams don't usually make sense." Leala pointed out. "I once had a dream where I was walking through a field, and it was raining. But I realized that it wasn't raining, and that the field I was walking through were a field of metal umbrellas that were making the rain sound as they bounced against each other while I walked through them." She felt confused just trying to remember such a surreal dream. "I mean, what does that even mean?"

"That honestly sounds like something you'd dream of." Zeke laughed.

"I digress. What was your dream?" Leala brought the topic back around.

Zeke crossed his arms, looking a bit uncomfortable. "Okay, well. It's a bit creepy. I dreamt that we were in the car, back on the road we took to get here. And I dreamt that instead of running over a piece of metal, we hit this... thing."

Leala felt her heartbeat start to accelerate. "What was it?"

"I don't remember honestly. I woke up right as I looked under the car." Zeke looked visibly disturbed. "I just remember it looking half crash test dummy, half mechanical spider. Like something straight out of a horror video game."

Leala felt a chill run down her spine. "That's pretty creepy." So a part of him never really forgot what happened after all. She decided to change the subject