Dangerous Slumber

Megan got ready for bed and took a little longer brushing her hair, before grabbing her journal. She didn’t know what to write, but she had written in it every night since she was nine and so, she put pen to paper.

Every day the journey I seem to be on changes, new information forms new paths and the new paths go on for miles. I have so many questions, yet the answers I find seem to only create more questions and I’m held in one place.
I don’t think I really want to know why I have these powers, especially if the reason for having them is to bring harm to people... Changing the subject, I have to say that you really can’t find the answers you want at the bottom of an empty glass because if you could my questions would be answered already.

With her journal back in place, she climbed into bed and drifted off to sleep. The nightmare that filled her head was a disturbing one.

‘Screams of agony echoed through the darkness that surrounded her and Megan covered her ears, until everything fell silent. Movement soon caught her attention and she watched as a young boy stepped out of the shadows, fear clear in his eyes.

Unable to see him properly, she took a tentative step forward and instantly regretted the decision. From one side the boy looked healthy with rosy cheeks and blond curls, but the other was a bloody mess. His hair was matted with dried blood from the hole in the side of his skull, accompanied by strangulation marks and bruises on his pale flesh.

The boy quickly vanished and was replaced by the old man that had been in her nightmare before, but something was different. His mouth moved faster this time and Megan was sure that words were being formed, but there was no sound.’

Megan woke up with a scream, struggling against the sheets that had wrapped around her tightly and looking up as Rick rushed into the room. She clung to him as he pulled her into his arm, shaking and crying.

How long would she have to endure the terror that she was being put through? She knew that something needed to give, before it went too far and she hoped to be able to find some of the answers later that day in school. Sleep didn’t come easily again after the nightmare, she had practically begged Rick to stay with her in case it returned and he was now snoring softly in the chair next to her bed.

Rick finally left her room at about six to get ready and after lying in silence for another hour, she got ready too. The weather was perfect for a Monday morning, the sun shone and the birds sang, but Megan couldn’t get the image of the little boy’s face from her thoughts. She finally managed to push it to the back of her mind as they drove to school in Rick’s jeep, windows wound down and country music playing loudly on the stereo.

She climbed out as he pulled into his parking spot, hugging him before heading through the big double doors into the hallway full of chatter and whispers. She weaved her way through the groups of students cluttering the area near the lockers as they always did, swapping stories of what they did over the weekend and over-exaggerating in order to beat their friends. It was a pointless thing to do in Megan’s eyes, but then she had never felt the need to compete with Logan and Mason.

Monday mornings started with English, which was one of Megan’s favorite classes and made the beginning of the school week bearable. Sat at the back of the class, she listened as the others discussed the morals that they took away from Dracula and how they believed the story should end. Obviously, the story should have ended exactly the way the author envisioned and wrote it, otherwise, it wasn’t the same story.

It was like giving Romeo and Juliet a happy ending, or having the shoe fit one of the ugly stepsisters in Cinderella... those events would change the entire story. If only life was like a fairy tale, where love didn’t hurt and grief was fleeting. The truth was that love was hard, grief was long-lasting and life overall was unfair.

She had, had this burden pushed upon her; a curse that had her trapped in its grasp and failure to take notice could potentially end with her or someone else getting hurt... that was a risk she wouldn’t take. Her class before lunch was History, which presented the perfect opportunity for her to ask Dan what she needed to and just hoped that he could fit some of the puzzle pieces into place. She was already sat in class when she came out of her daydream and despite not knowing how long she’d been there; she knew everything that Dan had said up to that point.

The rest of the class consisted of people reading reports they’d written on different events in history, from the Great Fire of London to World War 2, and Megan was bored. Much to her relief, the bell finally rang and she held back until everyone had left before approaching Dan’s desk with a deep breath.