The Last Protectors of Avendale

Chapter Two

                                                             Petzaphir (Peter) Evergreen

                                                                                 Ch. 2

"Peter, it's already one in the afternoon! Are you ever going to get out of bed?" My mother said as she popped her head into my bedroom door. 

"Yeah, yeah I'll be up Mom.." I mumble slowly pulling the ocean blue sheets off of me, and sitting up.

"Are you alright honey?" Mom asked with a worried look upon her face. "Did you have another one of those dreams again?" I rub my face to get the sleep out of my eyes and shake my head to answer yes to her second question. At the age of 18 years old, you would think that I wouldn't be so afraid of dreams, that I would grow out of them, but I never did. The dreams just got increasingly scarier the older I got, and yet something deep down inside me felt they were trying to tell me something. 

"Do you want to talk about it Peter?" My mother always insisted to talk about my dreams as if she knew why I was having them. 

"No, thanks though. This one wasn't so bad Mom," I lied and gave a weak smile in return to assure my mother that everything would be fine. 

"Well alright dear, I'll be in the garden if you need anything." She replied with a happier tone than before, my mom always managed to cover up anything she was hiding emotionally with that bright smile and cheerful tone of hers. As she left and I heard her footsteps travel down the hall of our one story small home, I grabbed my journal out from under the bed and began writing what my dream was about. 

May 2, 2012

This recent dream was different than all the others I have written down in this journal. I was walking down by the river near my house but no one was around which was strange, since it was the middle of the day and there is always at least one person by or in the Potomac River, I mean it's Washington D.C for gods sake. I've walked the path beside the river a million times, in dreams and in reality, but this time I took a different route which led me to a small cave-like entrance near the edge of the forest. I didn't go in it, but I did hear a voice coming from within the dark shadows of the cave. It wasn't a voice I was particuarly familar with, but it is a voice I now will never forget. The mysterious yet metallic voice spoke of finding someone or else the one I truly cared about would disappear. Was it referring to me or someone else? I don't understand what it meant by finding someone, there are billions of people on this planet. Unless this 'someone' will have a sign saying "PETER EVERGREEN COME FIND ME" on them then once again this dream, like all the others is just another way to keep me up at night and not sleep properly. 

Until next time, 

Peter

"I just wished these damn dreams made sense for once," I mumbled to myself while putting my  journal back and standing up to stretch my legs. I looked up at the maps on the right side of my room hanging up on the wall. In the middle is a large map of America with differernt colored pins to mark where I have been and where I want to go. All around the large map are smaller maps that I found in our attic a few months ago, mother claimed they were my fathers which made me want to keep them and hold onto them even longer. See the thing is, ever since I was a baby I never knew my father, but my mom claims he was a brilliant man who loved us both very much. 

Of course I asked the most cliche question when I was younger; "well if he loved us so much, why isn't he here?" Though it wasn't until I was a little older that I was told the truth of what happened to my father. According to my mother, he did a lot of traveling for his job, and one morning had to leave for a buisness trip. After kissing and hugging my mother and I, he left and never came back due to the plane he was on had crashed later that day. She had told me that whenever he couldn't sleep he would go up in the attic and spend hours analyzing the smaller maps that are currently up on my wall. 

I step closer to the wall of maps and squat down so that my eyes are level with one of my fathers dusty vintage maps. 

"Even though they look super cool, I wish they weren't so hard to read." I thought to myself before standing back up and headinig towards the bathroom. The old wood floorboards groaned under my feet every step I took down the hall, growing up with that sound it became a sign of comfort to me. Upon arriving to the bathroom, I noticed a shadow of a cat moving back and forth along side the wall near the bathroom. 

"When did we get a cat?" I thought to myself and looked around to find the source of the shadow. "That doesn't make any sense, I don't see a cat but it's sha-" As I turned back to where I originally saw the black cat shadow by the bathroom door, it was gone. 

"Man, this whole not getting enough sleep thing is starting to effect  me." Once in the bathroom, I quietly shut the door and sat down on the ledge of the bath tub. Lately, everything has been fine but at the same time it's been complete chaos and that honestly makes no sense to me. Hopefully a shower will clear my mind  a little.

"I need to shave," I said to the reflection in the bathroom mirror while standing on my knees. I kept telling mom that I was going to get a new mirror so that I didn't have to kneel down all the time to look in it, but lucky for her she was only 5'5" so it worked for her though not so much in my case. Being 6'0" isn't always great, especially when it deals with the small things like this. 

"Blah, I hate the summer... my freckles are showing too much," I grumbled to myself before tearing myself away from the mirror and getting into the shower. 

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Once I was back in my bedroom and drying off the auburn colored hair on my head, I threw on my favorite outfit; a grey hoodie and red shorts with my grey Vans, and black backpack. Even though it was the summer,  I was never bothered by the heat; hoodie or not.  

"I'm gonna go on a walk Mom, do you need anything while I'm out?" I shouted towards the garden in the backyard where my mother was located. 

"No dear, I'm fine thank you! Remember stranger danger!" Replied my mother jokingly. Sometimes I wonder if she actually worries about me running into some strange old man sitting in a white van trying to bribe me with old stale candy. 

Before leaving the house I went to the kitchen and grabbed a granola bar to snack on while out. As I grabbed my snack, and was getting ready to leave the kitchen I saw an envelope with my name on it sitting on the counter. 

The front of the envelope read the University of Virginia on it, and the paper inside would tell me whether or not I was accepted into my top choice for colleges. Though at  the same time I felt scared, it was unusal for me. Why was I scared of an envelope so much? Before another thought popped into my head I quickly shoved the letter into my black backpack and opened the front door to begin my walk.