Dream and Nightmare

Chapter 1 - New Neighbor [EDITED]

Anah couldn't think of a place she wanted to be less than her family's old, creaky beach house. The air smelled of salt and dead fish, and every night, she had to brush a new layer of sand off her skin. In the distance, the endless ocean loomed like a loud and angry monster. Deadly waves crashed against the rocks, trying to reach her. She could almost feel the water longing to sweep her away into nothingness.

As the sun set on the third night of summer, Anah already wanted to leave. Her mother had been crazier than usual, insisting they all stay inside just in case the hurricane made its way up the coast. Anah didn't know much about hurricanes, but she suspected they'd have enough time to make it the ten steps from the beach to the house if it did decide to change its course.

When she grew tired of glaring at the pink walls of her room, Anah shimmied the window open and climbed outside. A whiff of tobacco smoke from the other side of the house told Anah that she wasn't the only one to sneak out that night. Her sister's presence further soured her already rotten mood, but at least annoying Roze was more entertaining than doing nothing.

Roze sat just outside of her own window on the north side of the house where the roof flattened out over the deck. There was no better place to sit and watch the stars...or to smoke in secret. With her cigarette between her teeth, Roze was carving something into the wood paneling that lined the side of the house. She paid no attention as Anah crept closer to see what she was writing.

'RL+AB'

"Who's AB?" Anah asked.

"Mind your own, freak." Roze blew a puff of smoke in Anah's face.

"Where'd you get a switchblade?"

"I said mind your own!" She swung the cigarette butt towards Anah's face, but she had been prepared for it and ducked out of the way. She already had a small, faint scar on her cheek from the burning end of a cigarette, and she had no intention of turning it into a collection.

Instead of provoking her unstable sister further, Anah laid back on the roof to see the stars dancing in the sky. She searched for the constellations that she recognized – the ones her father had taught her before he lost his mind. She barely remembered her father as a sane man, but those constellations remained as clear a memory to her as her own name. It had become her only connection to him that she cherished.

The stars were far brighter on the beach than in the city. If Anah liked just one thing about the beach house, it was the solitude. Aside from the long-abandoned house next to them, there were no other people for miles in any direction. She could wander away from their little private beach and find herself lost in a world that looked untouched by people. Even looking out along the beach, they saw no lights aside from the occasional headlights as the road neared the water further up the coast.

As if to defy her thoughts, a light in the house next door flickered to life. Roze gasped, and Anah had no doubts that her sister thought a ghost was the culprit. After all, the owners of the home had died in a freak storm many years before.

"There's a truck in the driveway," Anah said. "I think someone's moving in."

"Now? It's midnight."

The two sisters watched the house in mutual silence – it was the most civil they'd been to each other in years. After several minutes, Roze spoke up "There." She was on her third cigarette. The other two still held a dim glow in the sand below. "You see him?"

The dim light of the half-moon illuminated a tall figure on the porch. He paused on the very top step, and he looked out into the woods as if searching for something in the dark. Anah and Roze held their breaths, not wanting to get caught snooping. He never looked their way. A small flame flickered to light in his hand, barely allowing the girls to see the outline of his face. Even in the dark, Anah knew he couldn't be much older than Roze: two or three years Anah's senior.