The day it all went to hell started like any other. I woke up to my screaming alarm clock and I hit my head, forgetting about the bunk above me, tripping over the clothes and shoes on the floor. Geesh Kristen, i mumble. The clock said 10:00 in the morning and I sighed at the sight of the school work I finished early, missing the feeling of a pencil in my hand. Books of all sorts lined my room and bed the second frame. I was just a freshman in college and the year is 3005. They say college is the best time of your life, but for me the best year of my life just feels plain and boring just like high school. Harvard University, one of the most prestigious colleges in the world was my oyster, and here I was in my apartment tripping over shoes that didn't even belong to me.
My mother thought I was crazy because I wanted to live in the unknown city so far away from my home state of California. I do miss the crowded city of San Francisco where i was born and raised. The city was always buzzing with new people and sights to see. My family always walked down pier 39 every Sunday after dinner and got dessert from the Ghirardelli factory. My mother's smiling face, brother's chocolate induced coma, my sisters urge to fight her laughter, and my dad tapping his fingers as Quincy Jones plays in the car.
Suddenly the world shifts as those faces disappear. A terrible shriek drowns the cries of the dead, and fire races through the car. An explosion destroys my ear drums fulling my right ear with the drone of piercing silence. All I feel is the vibrating, crackling sound of the engulfing fire. I turn in panic as my brother is bleeding from his head unconscious. My mother and father are limp and I don't even have to guess that the worst thing that could possibly happen has happened. Hot tear trickles down my cheeks as I realize that I am all alone, not daring to look at my once vibrant beautiful sister. My legs feel the burn of the fire around me but I feel no pain. My heart is broken and body is numb with the awareness that I was alone forever and ever. Someone grabs me from under the car but I don't feel it, and I don't think I ever will again.
Waking up with a jolt, actually hitting my head on my roommate Kristen's top bunk. Eyes sore, I come to realize that the right side of my pillow is soaked with what seems to be sweat and tears. A penny taste coats my mouth that tells me that I must have bit my tongue while I was dreaming. That dream always ends like that. With everyone I ever loved dying around me and me being so helpless to save them. Regaining my breath I realize that my throat is dry leaving me with the conclusion that I was screaming yet again. I throw the heavy covers off, annoyed. My feet hit the icy floor and i relish in the cold after just having the heat burn my soul away.
I have the dream often, the dream that haunts me since my adoptive parents brought me home when I was five years old. The fire seems to actually burn me but it feels good, almost welcoming, wanting me to touch it, taunting me with the thing that I most fear, warmth.
I walk into the bathroom knowing what I was going to see but hoping I wouldn't see it. The mirror projects the image of a girl who is barely eighteen with horrible bags under her eyes. A bruise starts to form in the place where I hit my head. Disgusted with my hair which hadn't washed in about a month, I decide that it was time for me to get in the shower and wash all the harm that had come my way just a few minutes ago. Stepping into the ice cold shower, I relish in my thoughts and let all the emotions overwhelm me. My therapist tells me that these outburst are not healthy , but, I really don't care. I only go to the old hag because my mom spent a lot of time finding me the perfect person to listen to and evaluate my daily emotions. She just tells me what I already know, that I'm emotionally unstable and a big fat ass mess. The feelings that had built up in the dream come pouring out as I sit in the shower and weep.
Lying to myself I change and feel, for the first time in months, refreshed for a new day. I walk into my kitchen to find my best friend Kirsten making breakfast like she usually does. Drifting towards the sweet aroma of blueberry pancakes, a piercing bright light attacks my eyes when I walk in, blinding me from the sight of my best friend. She notices me and smilies oblivious to the blue flashes.
"Good Morning sunshine! Sleep well?"
I ignore her attempts to cheer me up from my depressed state. Leave it to Kristen to be absolutely oblivious to the bruise on my forehead and the pain in my face.
I had met Kirsten right after the accident in foster care.She was staring at me when I woke up from one of my dreams one morning. The dream was different when I was little for I didn't have any siblings just a mother and father, but I couldn't see their face, scaring me more.
Looking at her, she had fiery rust hair and pale ivory skin. Her emerald green eyes with hazel flecks twinkle in sunlight seeming to almost rotate when she was mad; and she had every boy on campus in a trance.
The day we met, she looked at me with confusion, almost as if deciding on whether she liked me or not. I, not liking when people look at me like a charity case, glared back at her with the meanest look I could muster. Kristen took one look at my face and a huge grin replaced the conflicted. "I like you," she said "I'm going to be your best friend and you are going to be mine". And from that point and on we have been inseparable.
Either she heard me screaming and woke up early, or stayed out all night.
"You know I didn't, so stop asking me dumb questions. And stop leaving your freaking clothes and shoes everywhere you pig"
"Our room is clean Mar, there are no clothes on the floor... I Love you too by the way," she laughs, which is also a another beautiful sound, almost like a chirp. She turns away with her hand up to her mouth, clearly enjoying my pain. "Pancakes are done ya troll, grab a plate."
I do that a lot, confuse my dreams with reality. If Kristen notices she never says anything about it, which makes me more grateful for her. Knowing how to strike my next attack I casually say " So.... how was your date with Andrew?What time did you get home last night?"
"OHH! It was wonderful at first! He took me to a sushi restaurant... A damn sushi restaurant Mar! So you know I though to myself ' oh he got money' and got a little carried away." She frowns and groans " Then it took a turn when i forgot I was on a date and started to eat the wasabi alone! I'm sure my breath was atrocious but he still tried to kiss me! I leaned away from him too quickly and got whiplash." She flopped on the couch next to me with a huff.
I know what your thinking, ' who in their right mind just eats wasabi?!' But that's Kristen for you.
"If I were him I would never call me again... Mar... Amara... Hey are you even..." the shadow of Kris's hand flashes in front of my vision, but is not my main focus.
A tiny blue light glimmers in the distance taking my breath away. I could no longer hear the slight vibrato that shook her words every time she opened her mouth. My feet were in action even though I did not remember my brain telling them to. Everything in the room escaped my vision as I got up and walked towards that beautiful enchanting orb. Blue not like the ocean but something else and warm like the sand on the beach. My cheeks flushed as the heat overwhelmed me, catching my breath as I looked at the most beautiful sight of this sparkling thing in front of me. My hand reaches out almost touching, almost feeling, it's wonderful radiance and it's all mine. The feeling in my hand throbbed for more, aware of the power at their fingertips. Grasping but never seemed to be close enough. Feeling but never touching.
"Amara for Christ sake snap out of it already you're scaring me!"
And just like that, the once absorbed light that seemed to welcome me without knowledge of who I was and what my past looked like, disappeared.
"Mar what the hell is wrong with you! Hey! Talk to me and why are your eyes blue! I think something is wrong I'm calling 911 because something is seriously wrong with you" Kristen pops back into my vision like a sweet dream I never knew I hated. Unexplained rage seeped through me twisting my face into an ugly scowl, daring to match Kristen's fearful gaze. I shove her away hard knocking her off balance.
"Kris get off of me I'm fine okay. just get away from me!"
"Amara why are you acting like this? What's wrong with you? Please just talk to me please."
"Stop acting like you care about me Kristen. We all know that you don't even really like me you only need me because our poor sorry butt got kicked out of your house for being a dirty, no good, whore" adding an extra bite on that last word. Her parents finally had enough of the horrible boys dying to get themselves apiece of her, and kicked her out at sixteen. She is now nineteen living with me as I start my new school. I don't know why I'm being so mean but it's like something in my brain just snaps.
I hear a crash and a sudden, painful feeling erupts in my skull as the room seems to go still. Something knocks me in the back of the head. I try to look behind me at the broken window. The motion was too much for my body to handle. The last bit of air travels out of my lungs and into the room's atmosphere. Before I close my eyes Kristen's footsteps echo away as the sudden whiteness of unconsciousness takes control of my eyes. And like that, I was finally into nothingness.
I feel heavy arms lift me from the ground as I hear Kristen scream. Kris the person who loves me the most was in trouble. But I felt weak, useless. I need to help her, need to protect her. I couldn't let someone else be taken away from me like my biological parents.
A voice fills my head and speaks to me.
"Do you want to help her?" it asks.
Not one voice but two blended together to create a harmonious melody that comforts me into an easy half consciousness.
"Is she important to you?" it asks me. I nod hoping that this powerful voice can see movements but just in case I say yes in my head.
"Then we will help you."
I suddenly go into autopilot. My eyes flash open without the instructions and my head crashes into the person who was carrying me, causing enough pain to let me slip through his arms. Fury blurs my vision and all I can think about is Kristen. Kirsten, I have to get her, can't lose her, can't lose her!
I start yelling a horrible battle cry I didn't know I had, but I instantly quiet down trying to hear Kristen, and find her scrambling, trying to fight off somebody in the other room. The ground shakes as I hear a manly scream fill the room but leaving as soon as it came, like something has eaten it or trapped the sound. I run as fast as my legs can carry me, and find her being shoved by this figure in all black.
"Let go of her".
My voice is painfully calm and venomous. The figure turns and faces me, gun pointed at Kirsten's head causing her face to morph into a terrified gaze. Seeing her like that made me remember the dream of the accident in the car. That was the look I never wanted her to feel. That was the look I had upside down in that car. Red rage colores my vision. I'm not myself anymore. My senses sharpen to an inhuman nature and I snap. White light flashes in front of me as I scream out of anger. Kristen's captor is laying on the floor when the world spun. She is free from the figure's grasp. I fall to the floor and all I hear is Kristen's terrified yell before the world went dark.
YOU ARE READING
Star
FantasyAmara is an ordinary girl, until she isn't. In a matter of seconds her life is flipped upside down. She is I longer the A+ student by the most powerful being on earth. Join Amara and her friends as she discovers not only the secret world she was bor...
