Dreams or Reality?

Chapter 26: One Sentence

CHAPTER 26: One Sentence

It's strange, always, to see your body and not be able to control it or even think the same thoughts as it when it's clearly alive and moving. But, I guess it's the nature of a nightmare to thoroughly unnerve you.

'I', meaning the girl in front of me, was sitting on a dirt floor of a plain room with stone walls, no furniture, bars on the only, tiny window. A prison cell, some part of my brain whispered. My hair was pulled back and, apart from a hole in my jeans, I looked unscathed.

What was I holding? At first I couldn't make out what the bundle was and then I saw it. A baby. Whose baby? Was the first thing I thought of. My attention went back to me, I didn't look much older, possibly a year or two, but no more. Then I paused, was the baby mine?

I woke up. It took me a second to remember I was in a sleeping bag on the floor and the sounds I was hearing was Sam and Mel's breathing. I didn't want to dwell on the dream, or even think about it. Instead, I felt around in the dark for my flashlight, sketchbook and pencil crayons. I wanted to draw something to block the dream from my mind. Something happy, or, at the very least, not terrifying.

Normal things, happy things. A sunset. I decided I would draw the sunsetting over mountains and, almost as an afterthought, a butterfly. I spent half a hour mixing and blending and shading the colors to get a the right amount of red, pink, orange and yellow in the sky. Lastly, I colored in the butterfly using random colors. Yellow wing edges around gray wings and four red lines along the wings, not from one edge to another, but in the middle, unconnected to anything else.

When I finished, I threw my pencil across the room in disgust, The mountains and sunset were beautiful, but the butterfly looked wrong. The red lines looked like bloody cuts, draining color from the rest of the wings and leaving it a washed-out gray. Dying, as it flew off, trying to escape it's inevitable death. So much for happy. Demetri was right. I am more twisted then Serquin.

The nightmares always seemed meaningless, but, with all the magic and weird stuff I've learnt about, I'm second guessing everything. I can't help but wonder if I was wrong before. If, the dreams do have a meaning.

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After me, Mel was the first to wake up. "Wha?" she murmured blearily, in a still-half-asleep way. Then she seemed to wake up completely and she sat up. "Dammit! I was hoping to wake up before you for once!" Mel said when she saw me. I stifled a laugh.

"No one gets up earlier then me!" I said, a hollowness under the fake cheerfulness that Mel didn't notice. She and Sam both just thought I was an early riser. Mel's eyes grew wide.

"Today is Jenna's play!"

"Shit," I muttered, having forgotten. "what time?"

"Not 'till six." Mel said, and we both breathed a sigh of relief. It was only 9:07, we were anything but pressed for time. We woke up Sam and went to R & P's for breakfast. After eating, we decided that we'd wasted enough time yesterday that we should really start studying if we wanted any chance of graduating this year.

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"I'm so bored!" I complained, sevral hours or studying later.

"Thank god someone else said it first!" exclaimed Mel, stretching. her hands over her head, and leaning back in my desk chair.

"I'm done too," announced Sam, shutting her text book. Apart from a short sandwich break, ok, really, Mel and I had sandwiches and Sam had nutella and bread, we had been studying non-stop for hours.

"What time is it?" Mel asked.

"No idea," Sam answered, I glanced at my alarm clock.

"Shit!" I said, "It's 5:46!" It took a moment for what this meant to sink in. Jenna's play was at six, it was also at school, It takes fifteen minutes to get from my house to the school. We all dropped everything and I just had time to shove my wallet in my pocket and grab my car keys before Mel pushed us out the door.

Breaking a few minor speeding laws, we arrived at the school about two minutes before the play started. We'd promised Jenna weeks ago we'd be there and I was not about to break that promise. Sam, Mel and I burst through the doors and paid for our tickets with Mrs. Limminey, the head of the Arts department. "Enjoy the show!" she called after us, as we disappeared into the school's theatre.

All three of us scanned the room, looking for empty seats, the room was chalk full of people. "There!" said Sam, pointing at the front row where Val, Mick and Tom were apparently saving three seats.

"Where were you?" Val asked, as I sat down next to her.

"Lost track of time." I whispered back, just as the lights went down. This year's play had been written by a student and I knew next to nothing about it. Jenna had explained only the basics of it to us. She played a witch, neither good, nor bad, who was exiled from one kingdom to another. The prince of this new kingdom falls in love with her, but she rejects him. Later on, the witch realizes she's in love with the prince and finds him unhappily married to a princess. When he finds out the witch loves him, they run away together and live happily ever after.

I wasn't expecting the detail in this play. The story unfolds upon itself, from the false accusations and unfair trial that lead to the exile, to the moment the witch realizes she left the person she loved. There were the right number of lines, not too many or too little, and they all seemed natural, something someone would actually say.

I'd seen Jenna at, very briefly before, but that in no way prepared me to see her take on this roll. I have no idea how she put in that feeling, that emotion into the scenes and into her character. It was incredible. It seemed like Jenna really was the witch, her words were smooth and she didn't look nervous at all. No amount of practice could've caused Jenna to speak that well in front of people. She was just that good.

I was riveted, I didn't take my eyes off the stage until the very end. I looked at my friends and found them just as starstruck as I was. The applause for the actors was simply deafening. Then the curtains went down and the lights came back on.

Since nobody was allowed backstage, my friends, Jenna's parents and I waited for her outside. When she arrived, there was a lot of hugging and flowers and exclamations of 'you were amazing!' Jenna was laughing and saying thank you again and again. We stayed like that for nearly fifteen minutes.

Then, I dropped off Sam and Mel at their houses and headed home. By the time I was alone in my room again, it was almost nine. I looked at Sam and Mel's stuff, littering my floor. I'd give it back tomorrow. I started picking up their things and tossing it in their bags.

I was just picking up Mel's textbook off my desk when I saw a piece of paper, folded in half, underneath it. I put the textbook down next to the note and carefully opened the scrap of paper. Scrawled in unfamiliar handwriting was one sentence.

You have one week.

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Anyone wanna try to figure out what that means? I uploaded Monday just like I said I would, it's nearly 11, but it's still Monday. Comment, Vote, Keep Reading! I'll try to update for Wednesday or Thursday. Thank you for reading!!!!!

-Jodi