Leaving London

Chapter Eight

Chapter Eight

I spend Sunday evening fretting. It's a pretty hectic night - piling school clothes on my desk, setting five-minute-interval alarms (as I am very sluggish at waking), and packing my new school bag. I don't have much to put in it to be quite honest; just a pencil case, calculator, water bottle and notebook, but I spend a while deliberating over this. In the end, I give up and decide to get an early night, to let the fingers of slumber grasp me and take away my worries. I feel anxious, a swirl of fear and emotions - because what if things go badly tomorrow? I wasn't exactly popular at my last school, so I did feel the strain of society and so on. But everyone will be judging me at this new place...I need to make a good impression...can't be scared...I can't...

I find myself stumbling across scraggy land; tripping amongst crofts of plants and cakey mud...running...but from what? I turn wildly, but I can see nothing in the smear of darkness, I can only feel the instinctive urge to run ahead, to keep moving. The air is chilly, and it bites at my neck in severe lunges that leaves a trail of goose pimples on my pale skin. My breath snags at the back of my throat, gluing in a bundle of trapped fear and paranoia. Suddenly, my ankle twists in an agonising moment, and I crumple onto the floor, and I can feel sand under my fingers, the grainy substance scattered over the plants. My gut writhes as I hear a voice in my head screaming 'What are you doing? Get up! Go!' I limp to my feet and carry on, moving forwards until I can hear a crashing sound from underneath me. My eyes now adjusted to this never-ending maze of blackness, I stop. Fall to my knees and scramble backwards. I'm on the edge of a cliff.

The rocks jutting below lie sharp and dangerous, constantly being smashed into by huge forces of water - gigantic towers of froth and foam. I shudder, my heart launching at the thought of dropping down like a stone...being skewered on the rocks and hitting the water's skin. I hear a movement from behind.

I twirl round, to see nothing but shadows again, and a misty background of tangled roots and water-colour skies.

"W-who's there?" I stammer, gulping. My reply is nothing but a howl from the wind - and a faint silhouette lurking in the horizon sends me scuttling back to the edge. The wind sends chilling moans rustling through the patchy grass, and the slight silhouette begins to creep towards me, dissappearing amongst spots of mist to then leap forwards towards me.

"What do you want from me?" I whisper, and then the earth crumbles from beneath me and I'm plummeting through the air, falling into the jagged shards of rock, and the ever-consuming ocean. A scream falls out of my lips and splits through the silence, trailing a ghostly echo-

I wake up shuddering, gasping to drag breath back down to my lungs. My door is flung open, and Mum comes streaming in, hair askew and in limp pyjamas.

"Fearne? What's wrong? You were screaming!" She gushes, cradling my arm.

"I'm fine...just shaken," I reassure her, "I had a nightmare."

"What was it about, love?"

"I was running from something, and I was on the edge of a cliff. I fell." I mumble, my heart still hammering away at a hundred beats a second.

"Do you want anything? I can fetch you something?"

"A drink maybe?" Mum fixes me a glass of water as I grab my phone from the side. 4:26 am. Oops.

I try and go back to sleep, but every time my eyes close I feel scared and unsafe, so they flit back open again. I give up on sleep, so decide to just rest, my eyelids flickering every time I hear a sound or the sweeping headlights of a car flash past my window. By 6 am, I decide I may as well have an early start, and because it's lighter outside, I peel open my curtains and choose to turn on my laptop and write.