Shadow Warriors

Vanessa doesn’t have good dreams. She dreams of death and murder, of malice and pain, of sadness and grief. So when she stood in her dream, she already knew that something was wrong.

“I love you Vanessa,” said a shadowy man. She did not know who could possibly love her. She barely spoke to men at all.

“Don’t say that,” she spoke softly. Vanessa was nervous of what horrible thing was coming for her. To have someone confess their love in her dreams, it meant that she was going to watch him die in her dream.

“But, I do!” He said once again, taking a step toward her. “How can you tell me not to confess my love, when I went through so much agony not telling you? You are the most beautiful woman I have ever met, Vanessa.”

“Please, stop!” She fell on her knees, weeping. No one had ever called her beautiful before. No one at school ever called her ugly either, but that was only because no one bothered her. “Just go away,” Vanessa said. The shadowy character looked at her and tensed up. Maybe, she thought, he was going to hurt her in some way.

Instead, he hugged her. “I’m not going to go away. You can try all you want, but I will never leave your side. I will become your shadow and keep you safe.” Before she could say anything back, he started to speak again in a different voice.

“Vanessa, honey, it’s time to wake up,” The voice wasn’t his, but it sounded familiar. Everything around me started to fade and crumble as the voice said, “If you don’t get up now, you’ll be late for school again.” Vanessa slowly opened her eyes to see her mother walk out of the bedroom she was occupying.

“Oh, what the hell,” Vanessa said to herself, thinking back to the dream she just left. “That was bad. That was really, really bad. Oh god, why couldn’t I just die or something?” She curled into herself and trembled. She had never had such a good dream. No, the dream wasn’t good. It was amazing. No one in her entire life has said such things to her. She doesn’t have many friends already, and most guys tend to stay away from her. “Oh, what am I going to do?” She got out of bed thinking to herself what might possibly go wrong. Maybe she was going to get hit by a car again. That’s been the worst thing so far to happen to her because of a good dream.

Vanessa’s mom walked in again to see her just about changed and packing her backpack. “Good,” Vanessa’s mom said, “but you are still running a bit late. I’ll drop you off at school.” Vanessa looked at her mom quizzically, as if asking why the hell she was dropping her off. “I have a meeting at work at about eight thirty,” she said.

“Oh, okay,” was all Vanessa said as she finished packing, then grabbed her cell phone and walked out of her room, her mother just a few paces behind her. She opened the front door and immediately stopped. She tensed up and stepped back, and bumped into her mother.

“Is everything okay?” Vanessa turned to see her mom giving her a concerned look. She nodded and turned around to see if the thing was still there, but it was gone. She walked to her mom’s car and sat in, thinking about what the hell could possibly be wrong with her. First she has a good dream, and now she’s seeing things. She had a feeling though that what she saw wasn’t a hallucination.

Vanessa was too busy thinking about what she had just seen when her mother drove into the drop off zone of the high school. “Vanessa?” She turned towards her mother; then noticed that the car was no longer moving.

“Oh, sorry Mom,” she said as she opened the door and jumped out of the car. She then shut the door and walked off looking for her favorite person. After only a few minutes, a tall blonde boy ran up to her and gave her a giant hug.

“IT’S ALMOST CHRISTMAS BREAK! ARE YOU EXCITED, BECAUSE I’M SO EXCITED I COULD KILL SOMEONE,” Brandon yelled as he held Vanessa tight. All she could do was laugh at her friend as he let go and started to dance around. “You have no idea how excited I am, Vans. I seriously could kill someone.”

“I doubt that, Brandy,” Vanessa said as they walked to her locker. “Let’s just get this over with so we can have our usual two man party.”

“HEY! YOU ARE A WOMAN!” he said, making her laugh more. She still wondered sometimes about how she had become friends with such a maniac.

Finally, they got to her locker. “Okay,” Vanessa said, “I need my Psychology and Chem. books. God, I don’t want to go,” but she got no reply. She turned around from her locker to find that Brandon had completely disappeared. She just smiled, unfazed by the sudden disappearance, knowing that she would see him after school. Maybe today is actually going to be a good day, she thought.

Only fate knew what was to come.