Not My Grave (on hold till June)

Chapter 3

A nightmare woke me up, drenched in cold sweat and breathing heavily. I dreamt I was being sucked into darkness and I held onto something, but, it was weak and giving way. Rubbing my face, I looked around on my side-table for my wrist watch. 4:36. Dawn was still a few hours away and I had nothing to do in the meanwhile. There was no way I could go to sleep after that dream, so I decided to have a walk in the lawn.

Just twelve more days left before I could live or die, I thought to myself. I had goofed around enough the past two days, now it was time to get down to business. Today, I would go and try to convince Cindy to go back to the forest with me. Hopefully, she'll say yes, and it will be over before it even started.

Staring at the crescent in the sky, it reminded me of something that my dad told me when I was a kid.

"Look at the moon, Ravey. Even though, it only comes out at night and has no light of its own, it's still smiling. It's happy because, even though, it has nothing, it reflects the light of the sun making it seem as if it was glowing. That is how I want you to be, my love, always keep smiling even if you think you have nothing, because, for all you know, you might be glowing in someone else's eyes."

These words are burned on my brain.

Strolling back and forth, I thought about all that had happened uptil now. Was this the work of fate? And how was it going to end?

I suddenly felt the hair on my nape prickle and instantly knew I was being watched. Abruptly turning around, I caught movement in the undergrowth and strode over to it. Hesitant, I reached out to ruffle it and some sort of animal shot out before I could touch the bush. I cried out and stumbled over my own foot, landing on the soft grass, all the while following the animal with my eyes. It scampered up a tree, so I could see its shadow moving around. I saw its eyes glow in the moonlight and walked up to the tree for inspection. I couldn't see what it was, so I lifted my hand to see how it would react and suddenly, it poked its head out from under the shadows and snarled at me. What I saw, left me in shock, because it was the scariest thing I'd ever seen. Having fangs as long as my fingers, it had three eyes even though only two of them glowed and no nose. It was gone in the blink of my eye. Shocked, I sat in the swing on my lawn, wondering what that was and stared at the moon till it disappeared under the sun's glare. Then, feeling content but still puzzled about the creature I went inside to get dressed for school.

"Hey, Cindy!" I said, waving at her from across the hallway.

Turning towards me, she grinned and waved me over. Seemed to have recovered from her shock, or is she just pretending nothing ever happened?

"What's up?" I asked grinning back.

"Oh, nothing! The hottest boy in school just asked me out." she said, her cheeks flushing with excitement.

I felt a pang of jealousy as she grinned at me. Yeah, its all good for you, Cindy. Have you any idea your best/childhood friend is swinging on the pendulum of life and death.

"I'm so happy for you! Tell me all the details!" I couldn't care less.

She droned on about how he said she was so beautiful, and blah, blah, blah. I mean seriously, even a blind person could see he was just messing with her. She wasn't even close to beautiful. Maybe, he was using her to get to me. That had to be it! I bit my lip in anticipation.

"I know, right! I'm so excited!" she said, clearly mistaking the biting of my lip for being excited for her. As if!

"Me too! This is so awesome, I'll tell him all the good things about you." Like, how you used me to protect your sorry self.

She hugged me and then said, "Enough about me. Tell me about you. Everyone said you died. I went to your funeral. And I saw it with my own eyes, the witch just slashed out and you slumped to the floor. How are you still alive?"