Falling Feathers

Perry's' breath curls in front of her in wisps of desperate steam, clawing at the black sky that seems to consume her limbs. She squeezes her eyes shut; letting the delicate fingers of her hands brush along the damp surface she is splayed across. The air rakes through her lungs, the movement leaving her lips in gasps. Blood pounds in her ears and she wills herself to calm down.

'Get it together Perry. What can you feel, smell, hear?'

Inhaling slowly, she opens her eyes. Her fingers carefully pick up a cool, slippery piece of material from the gritty floor. Holding it out in front of her, she realizes what surrounds her, why there seemed to be a swooshing sound mixing with the thrum of her pulse, why the air smelled like wet earth. Perry was in the woods, holding a soggy orange maple leaf between her index finger and thumb.

She sits up gradually, ignoring the protest of her pulsing temple. Her breathing has become somewhat steady, and she takes the risk of standing. Using a rock, Perry begins to push herself up off the ground, only to crumple back to the dirt when the piece of stone cracks under her palm, sending a pang of pain to her wrist.

Cursing under her breath, Perry tilts her head to see how she could possibly smash a rock under her weight.

'I'm not that heavy. . .' she thought, a frown creasing her brow. But when she turns her head, she's not faced with the jagged grey object Perry had imagined. The thing that she lay next to is a skull, a human skull.

A strangled shriek moves past her lips as she scrambles away, pressing her spine against a dead oak. Perry's heart feels as if it's lodged in her throat, its beat thundering through every inch of her shaking body, lightning heating and singeing her already frazzled nerves like an internal storm of fear. Panic, panic, panic; it's the only feeling that courses through the female's body, alongside the freezing terror that trickles down her limbs.

Time seems to slow down, the low whistle of the wind through the tree's disappearing until Perry is hugged by silence. The stillness makes the already eerie situation ten times worse.

Through the brush, an image flickers; a lean figure of a man. His presence sends an icy chill seeping down her spine. The individual disappears for a few moments, the seconds feeling like hours as Perry's eye's swipe side to side in quick anxious motions.

The scene shifts and nausea swirls its way through Perry's stomach until creaking wooden planks come into focus. She's in a building. No, the interior wasn't big enough to be classified as a building; more of a dooked-out shed. The faint drip, drip, drip cast an eerie spell as the droplets of water hit the concrete flooring.

Perry's hand's felt raw, like she had been drug down a city block before being thrown in this probably mold covered dump. She pays no attention to the stinging sensation in her palms; Her eyes are busy elsewhere.

A man stands in the middle of the room, leaning casually against a support beam. It didn't look like it was offering much support given the fact that the roof was practically caving in on itself. But, that's the least of Perry's worries.

This man was bad. He smelled like evil. He looked like evil. He had the aura of the grim reaper. The words circulate in the teens' mind as she holds the gaze of the shadowed male's eyes. A malicious grin spreads across his face, one the Joker would be jealous of, revealing yellowed teeth.

Suddenly, Perry notices a second figure in the room. Tied to the support beam is a body, a rough looking sack encasing the beings head.

Her breath catches in her throat. The sneakers, the jeans, the long lanky legs, the tattered and faded green t-shirt. . . 'Why do they look so familiar?'

Perry was still putting the terrifying pieces together in this horrific puzzle when the dark man spoke in a rough, gravely tone that raised goosebumps on her limbs.

"You're next." And with that, the man rips the sack off of the person's head. Perry's fingertips iced, her palms becoming clammy as she took in the nightmare of a sight. There, sitting on the floor in a slightly crumpled state, his blue eyes glassed over and lifeless, is a boy. A boy with dirty shaggy hair. A boy which Perry had known since she was a little girl at age five. A boy that had become her best friend, her guardian, her partner in crime.

There sat Peter Reach.

Perry sits bolt up right, her eyes squeezed shut, a blood curdling cry erupting from her throat as she screams her best friends name. "Peter!"

Silence.

She allows her eyelids to slowly flutter open, tears stinging and threatening to spill over. Perry is faced with the peaceful blackness of three o'clock in the morning.

An exhausted sigh moves past her lips as she unlocks her fingers from the deadly grip she had around her periwinkle bed sheets. She pants, her chest heaving as she tries to catch her breath. Her mouth felt like someone had poured sand in it. It probably looked like a miniature Sahara desert in there.

A nightmare, just a nightmare.

Perry runs her fingers through her damp curls, wiping her misty eyes as well. Her skin was covered in a thin layer of glistening sweat.

Waking up in the middle of the night with her body sticking to the covers and her screams echoing throughout the room was something she had grown used to. Not a very pleasant adjustment but one that she had made.

Peter was the cause of this heart wrenching hell that Perry now lived, and she would do anything to get him back.

He was taken, kidnapped at age fourteen in the woods. The two friends had gotten into an argument and he took off afterwards. That is, before he screamed he never wanted to talk to twelve year old Perry again. Ever. Furious at the time, she agreed, letting him bolt. Only now, after what seems like forever, does Perry realize what a horrible mistake that was.

Peter never came back. A search party went out for him, but the only evidence they recovered of his disappearance was one of his tattered converse with a carving in the bottom. "P P=FBF" Peter Perry=Forever Best Friends. They both hated best friends forever because it sounded so girly, so they switched the words.

The county police responsible for the search, offered the shoe to his Aunt Steph, who was Peter's legal guardian. You would think that the woman would be desperate to have anything to remind her of the boy who had practically been her own son. But no. She insisted Perry should have it, and gave the sneaker to her instead.

She had stayed indifferent during the whole ordeal, making herself promise that she wasn't going to cry; that Peter deserved what happened to him. But as soon as that shoe was placed in her palms, Perry felt her lip quiver. The next thing she new she was kneeling on the ground, clutching that beat up converse sneaker to her chest as she cried out for her best friend.

Five years of nightmares and restless sleeping takes a toll on a girl. It creates a routine. A pretty shitty one, but one that Perry has been following since that search party came back without Peter.

1. Wake up screaming bloody murder.

2. Realize it's just a nightmare.

3. Calm down.

4. Get out of bed and get a drink of water.

5. Pull on some athletics clothing (shorts, t-shirt, hoodie, sweats, etc.)

6. Go running.

7. Come back to the house after you've completely calmed your thoughts.

8. Get a shower.

9. Go back to bed! It's four o'clock in the morning!

Perry was currently on step four. She kicks off her damp covers, and stands, walking quietly to the bathroom.

Sophie probably wasn't sleeping anymore, considering Perry's screams could wake a whole neighborhood. Thank god they lived a good mile and a half away from any other people. But even so, she didn't want to disturb the woman any more than she already had.

Sophie had adopted her at age two, after Perry's parents left her at Sophie's doorstep. They then decided that it would be best to drop off the face of the earth. Talk about antisocial. Perry had so many questions about herself that she nor Sophie could answer. She insists that Perry's parents loved her dearly, but she could never stop the thoughts of doubt from entering her head. Why couldn't they keep her?

Slinking down the hall and into the bathroom, Perry lightly touches her feet to the cool tile flooring, closing the door behind her. She lets out a breath, leaning against the edge of the sink before she flips up the light switch.

Turning, she grabs her blue plastic cup that's sitting on the counter and turns on the faucet, waiting for the water to get cold. Perry closes her eyes, listening to the taps running rhythm.

Warmth brushes across her hips, a hard flat chest pressing lightly against her spine, as the distinct sensation of hot breath bathes the crook of Perry's neck. Perry felt very aware of her pajama choice at that moment. Warm calloused fingers slide along the edge of her Marvel boy shorts. Her breath caught in her throat slightly as the hem of her cami was tugged at; an obviously eager action. Perry's eyes snap open and she twirls around to be faced with. . . Nothing.

She frowns. That couldn't have been a dream. . . Could it? She thought, her fingers reaching up and touching the spot where the warm breath had caressed her skin.

It felt so real. . .

Perry shakes head, rubbing goosebumps off her arms.

"It's just your mind playing tricks." She assures herself as she reaches for her cup again, filling it up with icy water.

She tilts it back and downs the refreshing liquid. Just a trick.

After a few minutes of thinking, splashing water on her face, and drinking multiple cups of the hydrating fluid, Perry begins to head for the door. She was debating on whether or not she should push herself to go running and calm her mind further, but she was leaning more towards no. Her mind was playing tricks on her; she was hallucinating. Probably a sign of sleep deprivation. Perry is about to step through doorway when a wrenching pain in her back stops her.

She mutters a curse at her foolishness. She literally couldn't walk out of the bathroom; not without fixing something first. Looking back, she glares at the extra limbs extending from the narrow space between her shoulder blades that seemed to have more cons than pros. They popped up whenever her guard was down, always taking advantage of already stressful situations.

Perry rolls her eyes before closing them, slowly reconstructing the barrier between her emotions and mind, shoving all unnecessary thoughts quickly and forcefully from her brain. Peaking through her lashes, she sees that the nuisance is gone. Perry sighs with relief, practically growling her next words. "Stupid wings." And with that, she slid out into the dark hallway.

That's right- Wings. And they definitely weren't a dream, a trick, or a hallucination.They were real. A real pain in the ass if you asked Perry personally, and a constant reminder of how much she didn't know about herself. Kids, and even adults are constantly asking what your dreams are about. Perry always has the same reaction. She tilts back her head and gives a hearty laugh before spitting out one of her most famous sour lines. "Dreams? More like nightmares."