The Dead And The Dreaming

Chapter 2: Dreaming of Death

(Author's Note: this is where I got the title from. Sorry if it's redundant.) 

The darkness faded and Griffin found himself in a lightly wooded area, the beginnings of a forest, he deduced. He was standing near a gravel pathway leading to clearing not ten yards away.

  As Griffin reached the clearing he noticed a dark-haired girl about his age sitting on a large rock. She looked oddly familiar, like they had met before. He thought nothing of it because Griffin was invisible to any person he came across. 

 Griffin watched the girl, she had stood and started pacing and muttering to herself, her blue-green eyes were stormy and she looked distressed. All of a sudden she sat back on the rock, picking up a long stick as she did so, and swatted a low hanging branch. A bright green leaf started floating slowly to the ground. 

 The girl immediately took action, in full concentration, the leaf froze in mid-air along with everything else. The breeze stopped blowing, everything was silent, frozen. 

 Then as quickly as it had started, the stillness melted away, revealing a small, dog-like creature right behind the girl. As Griffin watched the creature grew to larger than a horse, snarling and dripping from the jowls.

  Just as the girl turned around the creature sprang, knocking her to the ground, like a king who had been checkmated. 

 The girl screamed, but the scream was cut short by a crunch, a pool of blood sprung from the girl's head and neck as the creature's fangs dug deeper into her flesh. 

She was dead.

  Griffin wanted to scream, he wanted to help. It would be worthless though, he was invisible. 

                                                                                      ^v^v^v^

Griffin gasped and sat up. 

 He was sitting on his bed in his room, in his foster home. Looking over he saw his nine-year-old brother, Philmont still fast asleep despite the golden morning light seeping through the lace curtains. It had all been a dream, another painfully realistic dream. 

 He knew it meant something, they all had meanings. This one was different though, Griffin couldn't put his finger on it. 

 He shook his head and slung his feet over the side of the bed. 

 The teenage boy's hair was unkempt and a shade of fiery red. His eyes were a soft hazel, but they were more green than brown. That morning they were slightly dull and dark circles hung under them. He had avoided sleep for as long as it had let him the night before and he was now paying for it. 

 Griffin stood, pulled on an olive green t-shirt, jeans, and sneakers, grabbed his worn leather messenger bag, and headed down to breakfast. Griffin's foster dad owned a huge estate in the bluffs overlooking Lake Kahn, which was a large body of water that the town of north shore had been built close to. 

Mr. Galliad was a well-known lawyer and businessman. He had been opening his home up to those in the foster system for a long time, and even though his job kept him busy, he did his best to be a father to those he fostered. 

                                                                                  ^v^v^v^

 Just as Griffin descended the stairs, a clatter sounded from the kitchen. He quickened his pace and half walked, half jogged into the kitchen. A pile of pans had fallen from a high cupboard and in the midst of the pile sat a boy with dark brown hair (that was in need of a cut) and fierce grey eyes.