• PROLOGUE:

    The faint light of the new moon revealed the wet streets reflecting the image of death that resided above. A woman’s silhouette sat along the curve of the crescent moon.
    “Jamie, love, they are coming now. Everything from your nightmares is after you now. What will you do, love?”
    I felt the wicked smile tear across my face as I chuckled at the obvious question “Tell me, just what do you think I’ve been doing all this time, Ebony?” I paused to savor the silence “I will do worse to them than they had done in my dreams, my old demons are my new angels, these tame beasts mean nothing to me now.”
    “Hmhmhm, I trust you know what to do from here, love”
    The ominous wind blew my long hair into the moonlight; flowing black ribbons dimly glowing in that cold light. I turned my head to grin at my malicious partner. The night would soon expire as we stalked off into the darkness.

    CHAPTER 1:

    We all shivered at the edge of our seats, the throaty noise coming from our sound system had given everybody the chills. Some of my friends and I were spending this Sunday night watching horror movies, and now we were halfway through the Grudge when I realized that Liz had taken my popcorn.
    “Hey Liz, can you pass the popcorn?” I whispered, trying not to destroy the suspenseful mood that radiated from the television screen.
    “Sorry Jamie, this one is all mine, get your own, b***h”, she said with a teasing smirk as I rolled my eyes at her.
    “Whatever, I wish Rachel could’ve been here”, I commented almost nonchalantly “I would give anything to see her scared shitless” I finished with a laugh.
    “I know, I can’t believe she hasn’t seen even one horror film in her life”, Liz leaned over George to engage in a heated conversation with me “no wonder she’s always so obliviously happy”.
    My mom asked from the kitchen, “Hey how’s it going?” she walked into the living room trying to act friendly, but in my opinion she came off pretty awkward.
    My mom paused before she talked again, creating an uncomfortable tension, “Sorry to break this up kids, but tomorrow is the new trimester, so you should all get home now” her voice squeaked halfway through before she smiled strangely.
    I turned my face to hide my embarrassed expression. We would have to finish watching the movie later, I figured. I lazily stomped up the staircase after everybody had given their farewells, dreading school which was soon approaching. Lying down on my bed, I wondered how people make up those stories. How do people come up with those creatures? Where did those monsters and ghouls like in the Grudge come from? “Hm… I wonder what everything would be like if all of those ideas and stories were real” I said to the ceiling, having nothing else to talk to and refusing to talk to myself.
    “It is real” I heard my voice echo in my mind; I was surprised that I could even have that thought. Putting it all aside, I drifted off into a rather disturbed sleep; a sleep riddled with nightmares.
    My mind transitioned from the pitch black of beginning sleep to the strange dream world that I would find myself trapped in over and over again. The world was always so unreal with its orange skies and concrete grey foliage. All the plants were like stone, dead and cold. Alien creatures would lurk along the craggy terraces that shelved against the jagged mountains to the east. The mountains curved inwards towards the center of my dream world making a partial dome. At the center of this world was a dead tree that had limbs of people instead of branches. To the west was a grotesque maze of what at first seemed to be dead hedge. Beyond the intricate maze was an ongoing precipice that fell down to the never-ending ocean which appeared to be melted iron. In the North was a dessert glistening like shined brass in the orange light emitted from the ebony sun. To the south everything was enveloped in an intoxicating lavender mist.
    Everything at first seemed so surreal and dazed, but soon slowly became defined. The strange creatures lurking in the distorted shadows seemed like they had just popped out of a Dali painting. The whole scene was still hazy, yet I could clearly make out one particular creature. He was a man who wandered through the grotesque mazes of my dream. I had first seen him while I sat against the twisted white tree with branches like deformed limbs. I was deep in thought when a soft sound made me jerk my head up to see a stunning man standing about twenty feet away, staring straight at me. He had sleek silver hair with bangs that concealed the upper part of his face with the small exception of the gap that his lime green eye stared through. He wore a black suit that made him look like he had just come back from a piano concert.
    At first seeing him I was sent back into my daze. As I tried to gather my thoughts again, I unconsciously got up and wandered away from the tree. Gradually going west, I felt the sudden urge to see if he was still standing there and so I looked back trying to get another glimpse of him, but this time instead I saw a deformed man; the right half of his body was covered in tumors and excess skin that hung out of his clothes. Disturbed by this new appearance, I suddenly looked away. I could tell that he was steadily following me when my heart skipped a beat due to an unrelenting chill that trickled down my spine.
    I tried to distract myself by looking straight ahead, yet I couldn’t comfort myself, especially when I realized that I had walked into that odd maze. My pace quickened as all the walls around me seemed to close in towards to me. I could see the walls better and I noticed that they looked as if they were made of piled up carcasses fusing all into one body of tangled flesh. Nauseated by this sight, I glanced back to see if I was still being haunted by the tumor riddled body of the once mysterious man, but when I looked behind me I was greeted with the chilling sight of a disproportionate monster with a tortured look in its icy eyes. No matter how revolting he might have been, the only thing that I remembered was his eyes as he chased after me with his mangled legs.
    I quickly broke out into a run, with tears burning at my cheeks. I could hear my heart racing at a speed that rivaled my run. A stinging sweat coated my skin and made my windblown hair clump together. I hadn’t noticed where I was headed; all I cared about was running away from my fearful pursuer.
    I ran to edge of this dream world where a cliff that jutted out towards the sea met no land on the other side. The sun of my dreams was setting where the mercury seas ended; the thorny black orb emitting a crimson sunset upon the mutated landscape. As I stopped by the cliff I felt my demon creep up behind me when I gave up on running away. I waited for it to kill me as always happened in the movies. Instead it wrapped its arms around me from behind and embraced me.
    “Why do you run? Is it my appearance? Is it my smell? Or is it this world?”He whispered gently.
    Too afraid to answer I turned my head, ready to see some sort of man eating worm. He was as I had seen him first; a young man with a burning green eye looking out from a gap between his silver hairs.
    “Sometimes you fear things that shouldn’t be feared”, he continued calmly as if he knew me for years “Other times you overlook the things that should be feared. That’s one part of being human, Jamie. Don’t let your fear get a hold of you; otherwise you will lose yourself to your own demonic creations”.
    “Are you gonna keep listenin’ to this weirdo’s ramblings, love?”An unknown voice sneered at me.
    This new voice gave me chills and as spooked as I was, I looked around searching for its source.
    “It’s no use looking for me, I am not just a person; I am the whole world of your nightmares”, the voice jeered at me. As he said that the man’s grip on me loosened and I looked at the silver haired man wondering what was wrong. He staggered away from me, clawing at his own face. His skin started to stretch and a new form was growing from the side of his head. His whole body started to warp as it were exploding from the inside. The swelling of his body ceased and it compressed back together into an even smaller body as if half of the mass had been sucked into another dimension. The figure that replaced the mysterious man was that of a small boy. He wore a black cloak and a plain white mask. He was thin like a starved child, even his cloak seemed to cling to his bones.
    “Come with me and leave behind your fears, hmhm”, the child offered. Everything about him screamed out lout at me not to trust him, but I just couldn’t help it. He took off his mask to reveal a beautifully innocent face of a young boy. A sly smile broke across his face as I looked at him with awe. The twisted smile widened as I took my first steps towards him.
    Everything in my sight began to blur and darken as I blindly followed the cloaked boy. Everything faded into an endless darkness, but by the time I realized that everything was wrong, it was too late.
    “Welcome to the darkness; welcome the insanity, love”, the cloaked boy’s pearly teeth were suddenly wolfish fangs as he sentenced me to my new fate.
    I jerked up, my bed soaked with my cold sweat. Even though I was relieved that it was only a nightmare, I still couldn’t shake off the strange feeling of foreboding. It was already five o’ clock so there wasn’t much point in going back to sleep, so instead I went to go take a much needed shower.
    The whole time I kept on wondering who those people were. How could I have something so realistic, yet so surreal in my dreams? I closed my eyes trying to recall all that had happened, finding only that sickly boy and his mischievous smile. Frustrated with myself not being able to get it off of my mind, I promptly finished up my shower and got ready for school. At this point I was actually looking forward to my boring classes and surprisingly even P.E.
    My mom peaked out of her door to see me racing down the stairs. “You’re up pretty early Jamie, got a date?” she called to me.
    “No mom, I’m just going to school. I couldn’t fall back asleep so I thought I could just hang out with Rachel. You know how she always gets there way early”.
    I hurried out of the house while grabbing a pop tart on my way out, trying to escape further confrontation from my mom. My school was about a mile away so if I ran I’d probably get there in about ten minutes, but instead I took a leisurely walk taking the long way around the park. I really didn’t want to talk to Rachel until I was back to my normal self, but I knew that she would notice that something was wrong anyways.
    My thoughts began to wander again as I slowly placed one foot in front of the other. No matter what I tried, my mind kept on going back to the vision of the thin boy, but I soon gave up my futile attempts.
    After what seemed to be hours passed, I found myself at the school parking lot. As always, Rachel was sitting next to the flag pole at the entrance of the school reading The Secret Life of Bees. The picture on the worn cover was almost impossible to make out, and the pages were all bent at the corners and torn in a few places. Rachel’s fiery red hair hung down in gentle waves, enshrouding her book in a silky veil. She was so absorbed in the world of the book that she hadn’t noticed me creeping up on her until I reached around and shut her book.
    “Jamie? You’re here early. I’m surprised; you usually sleep in till second period.” She dully pointed out.
    “Hey, at least I don’t sleep in class like somebody I know” I joked, trying to lighten the mood. But instead of a response, my bantering was followed by an empty silence. She wasn’t even reading her book that time.
    “You ok, Rachel? You seem a bit down today, it’s so unlike you” I asked, chilled by her quietness.
    “Yeah…I’m fine” she said with her usual carefree smile. I was relieved that she was still herself, but I still couldn’t think straight.
    “You know those dolls and puppets that you keep on saying are creepy as hell”, I said cheerfully “I’m finally going to get rid of them. Haha, so you don’t have to stay away from my house anymore”.
    “Phew, and I thought I’d never be able to go to your house” she sarcastically played along.
    “Nah my house still isn’t safe; it’s haunted by several poltergeists” I teased with a laugh.
    “I’m still worried about that one puppet; you know the one that the puppet maker named it ebony? I always thought that that one would end up stealing your soul, it’s so creepy. Haha I don’t blame people for hating clowns.” She was talking about one of my favorite childhood toys. It was a puppet that looked like a young boy with a face painted black and with a clown costume. If you looked into his eyes too long, you would feel like your soul was getting sucked away. At least that’s what we used to joke about whenever we saw it.
    “Ah, that one, I remember. I still think it possessed my cat, mittens” I laughed, remembering the time when my cat got rabies and we thought it was some kind of voodoo black magic.
    “Seriously Jamie, you were really strange when you were little. I mean collecting dolls and puppets? That’s just weird”, she teased me trying to hold back a laugh.
    “Yeah, yeah, and you were the one who wanted to own a chicken farm. I guess we just hide all of our weirdness as we get older”, I teased sarcastically.
    As Rachel got up to stretch, she responded with a laugh, “hey the chicken farm was your idea, or did you forget? God, Jamie, you’re sucha scatterbrain, even your home work reflects that.” When she said this I was suddenly glad that I could have such a good friend as Rachel, who had always been there for me. She didn’t know just how much she was helping me.
    The sudden ring of the bell resounded throughout the empty campus; it was ten minutes till the start of class, and it was also time for the rush of traffic to appear. Not wanting to have to deal with the crowds, I went off to class early. Math class was my first period of the day and lately we had been going over trigonometry, the worst subject ever in my opinion. As fellow classmates flooded into the room, I got ready for a very long day. All throughout class I texted old friends and played Tetris on my cell as our teacher droned on about shortcuts to finding the ratios of cosecant, secant, and cotangent.
    Second and third period were just as dull as my math class, we went over how to write essays in English and in history we learned about the plumbing systems in middle age castles.
    It was finally fourth period biology, which was actually a little interesting sometimes. When I walked into the class, I was greeted with a dead frog at my table. Out teacher greeted us with his usual idiotic tone, which proved that sometimes he was more of a kid than any of us. He handed out a lab sheet to all of us once everybody was present; we were going to dissect frogs that day, something that I never found really fun or appetizing, especially since lunch was right after. I reluctantly picked up my scalpel and got to work with my lab partner. In the background our teacher kept on talking about how when he was in school they would use live frogs. His childish excitement made me smile at the comical scene that occurred almost every day in his class.
    When we finished, I spent two minutes washing my hands just in case I got something nasty on them. I rushed out of the class to go meet up with my friends for lunch at the fountain at the middle of the campus. Liz, George, and a new Japanese transfer student, Yuki, were there taking out their lunches, while as usual Rachel wasn’t there yet. Yeah our group wasn’t that large, but we were all really good friends, even the new girl. Nothing had changed from the usual happy mood and group of odd but wonderful friends. I was happy to see everybody this way, but I couldn’t help but feel that I was changing, becoming so distant.
    Suddenly a treacherous noise tore through the vibrant air. Liz fell to the ground. It was nothing like in the movies. When it hit, her body went limp, her knees faltered and thudded to the ground, her breath was a sharp gasp, and her chest fell past her knees, twisting her body into an unnatural position, planting her face in a pool of her own blood. It felt as if my heart was in rhythm with her last heavy beats. Her open eyes were blood stained and devoid of life. A cold sweat broke across my brow as I looked up from the fresh corpse with tear filled eyes to see the murderer. The smoke blowing in front of her face from the gun could all but hide the malignant glare in her eyes.
    Screams resounded all around me, ringing off of the walls, and the echo of their rushed footsteps pounding against the ground dimmed with each second as the adrenaline flowed through my mind. It was just me and her.
    “W-why?” my voice nearly failed me as my tear filled eyes stung from the vicious wind that whipped at my raven black hair “this can’t be happening, please tell me this is a lie, Rachel” I tried with all my might to hold back the rush of adrenaline that fueled my inner rage.
    “….a lie? This is reality; those superficial lives that you all lead are the lies.” Rachel spat angrily, her expression distorted and her brows furrowed.
    “PLEASE, stop this, this isn’t you,” I pleaded with a sob.
    “Me? You never even took the time to know or understand me. Did you really think that everything would be happy and fun?” her furious face smoothed out into a jeering smile “but it doesn’t matter anymore, by the end of today I will have made you feel the same pain that I had to endure all by myself, and after that I’ll make sure that we both die.”
    Why did she choose me? Why did it have to be ME? I wasn’t ready to die, not yet, and probably not later either. And I knew at the same time that I was the one to be wrong for asking why. Even though I was scared I felt like it was supposed to happen. Even though, I still didn’t want to die so I guessed that it wouldn’t hurt to still try to persuade her to stop.
    “Are you saying that you wanna throw away your life?!” I screamed, scared of letting her kill herself, yet fearing for my life at the same time.
    She preached maliciously to the crowd of one person, “Life? I died a long time ago, I died when my father killed my pregnant mother and then committed suicide right in front of me, do you really think you could ever understand me? Do you really think you could understand my pain? All these years you knew me I haven’t lived for a single moment. I remain tormented by the past that had destroyed everything. My bitterness towards people like you; can you really understand that? That you always carelessly smile, blind of the truths and horrors of this world, while people like me are eaten away slowly by the demons that lurk deep within each person? I’m sick of it, acting like nothing had ever happened, I’m tormented by your laughter and your happiness; never can I truly be peaceful until everybody has felt what I had to feel”.
    Tears of frustration streaked down her face as she pointed the gun at me. I stared straight into the barrel; feeling like my life was being sucked away through it. The adrenaline finally took over and a dull booming sound was instantly followed by a splitting pain that rippled from my left shoulder through the rest of my body. Everything felt like it was burning, my whole arm was engulfed in a blaze of pain and the stream of warm blood running down it only added to the torturous sensation. The violent flame of pain had thawed out my frozen body and when the next gunshot sounded, I had escaped death by an inch. Everything happened in an instant as the bullets that were zooming right past me kept barely missing and I had instinctively started to run, leaving Liz’s body behind. I ran towards the cafeteria in hope of finding a large crowd to hide in. my heart dropped in despair as I saw the large building as barren as my blank mind. Another bullet zoomed past me sending a wave of air pressing against my cold skin. I broke out in a run again as I swung around the back of the cafeteria and ran straight through the kitchen doors. I looked around trying to find a suitable place to hide, but still too scared to be trapped if I got found. I ran to the closest oven and upon opening it up, I found that it would be impossible to cram myself in there. While frantically searching for a way to escape, I head the creak of the door and the squeak of blood soaked shoes. I grabbed the closest object to me, just to make me feel the littlest more courageous. I looked up at the light streaming through the open door. Suddenly a large section of the light was blotted out and a dark shadow occupied that space. The shadow stepped into the harsh fluorescent lights of the kitchen; Rachel had finally caught up with me. Rachel with her gun in hand calmly approached me with a maniacal look on her face; I gripped the object in my hand even tighter. I winced as the object sliced my skin and sank into my flesh. While I was about to glance down to see what I was holding, the quite squeaks turned into a running step as Rachel sprinted at me with her index finger twitching on the trigger. As I pulled the handle of the object in my right hand it sliced across my hand and I could feel the blood dripping off of my fingers. An acute pain in my left shoulder reminded me of the spherical chunk of iron lodged in my shattered bone as I pulled the object from my right hand like a warrior unsheathing his sword. Rachel was right in front of me, but her expression was pained, sorrowful, tortured, but most of all it reminded me of the strange man from my nightmare. In this moment I finally noticed how vibrant and beautiful her wavy red hair was; how piercing her pleading green eyes were. I felt utterly defeated by this sight and my body started to go limp and numb.
    “Are you just going to give up, love? Just die here without being able to live your life first? Destroy them, the things that obstruct your path” I heard it again, the chilling sadistic voice of the cloaked boy.
    Rachel’s stomach caved inwards as the knife in my left hand threatened to puncture her skin. As she fell closer to me, I could feel the tension on her skin break as the kitchen knife sank deep into her gut. My arm lifted up as if it was led by a puppeteer leading the knife through her chest and up her neck. Her boiling blood gushed out staining my body and soul with its crimson sins. Her limp body still thudding away the last of her life fell upon my shaking chest. A cracked chuckle escaped from between my frozen lips; it was filled with my sorrow, my relief, my shock, and my insanity.
    The sirens of the police broke me from my trance and I finally realized what had happened. I picked up the blood stained knife to look at my morbid reflection. My pale face was smeared with her blood and still washed over with the sheer terror I had felt when I saw a gun pointed at my face. Several officers rushed through the door to surround me pointing their guns at me just like she did.
    “Miss, drop the knife and put your hands on your head” the large officer in the middle cautiously commanded me.
    Finally feeling the weight of the crime I had just committed, the knife rung against the floor as my arm hung limply with defeat. Slowly, I tried to lift my arms up, but was interrupted by my sudden reflex to scream at the unbearable pain in my shoulder. Doubled over on the floor, clinging to my arm, I glanced up at the officers wishing that they would hurry up already.
    “Hey look there, that other girl has a gun in her hand, maybe this was just self defense…” the short Asian officer on the far left pointed out.
    NO DUH IT WAS SELF DEFFENSE, LOOK AT THE ******** HOLE IN MY SHOULDER, I screamed in my mind, unable to make any audible sound. Luckily for me a stalky Mexican lady with a mustache who was standing to the right of the large officer came over to make sure I was ok. She pulled out her radio and called for a stretcher. Shortly after, the paramedics came in and the mustache lady gently lifted me up onto the long cloth cradle that was carried by four paramedic doctors. The up and down motion of them walking was nauseating, yet it lulled me to a deep sleep that was partially due to immense blood loss
    “Jamie…Jamie, love”, it was that child again “open your eyes, your nightmare won’t end until you live through it.”
    I slowly opened my eyes, unprepared for the chaos in front of me. I was there again, the place of my nightmares. The maze of carcasses had started to break apart; the mutilated bodies pulling away from each other despite their grafted flesh. Pools of black blood remained where the successful bodies had split from the rest. Mystified by this odd occurrence I stepped forward to inspect the peculiarly colored bodily fluid. In it I saw a reflection of myself, blood spattered and maniacally laughing; I had the grin of a demon. Involuntarily mesmerized by this sight, I couldn’t move my eyes or my body; I was being sucked into this alternate world more and more by the second. My shaking eyes saw deep into the reflective pool. I saw a familiar parking lot; the book The Secret Life of Bees was open to page 62.
    The macabre scene around me started to fade away and was replaced by the familiar campus that I went to almost every day of my high school life. I was confused when I saw myself at the fountain with all my friends. I felt a rush of rage and bitterness as I raised the gun trying to aim for myself. My shaking hand couldn’t be stabilized as I dreaded what I was about to do. “Do it, these bitches don’t deserve a better life than you” I heard Rachel’s thoughts command me. I mashed my eyes closed as I held back my tears. “Jamie you idiot, you shouldn’t have come today” I silently scolded the other me. I opened my eyes and coldly stared at my target, my finger creeped upon the trigger. My frustration with the other me’s cheerfulness made me clench my hand as close to a fist as possible. Not realizing that I still had a gun in my hand, the kick from it reminded me of the reality of my action and my being. The sound split the carefree atmosphere as I saw Liz, my friend since day care, fall in a sickening manner into a puddle of her own blood. This wasn’t happening…I didn’t just kill my best friend, NO THIS ISNT REAL, LET ME OUT OF THIS DREAM! I could have sworn that I screamed it as loud as I could but the sound didn’t make it out of my vocal cords. It seemed as if it was already decided, I was going to relive the day again from Rachel’s point of view.
    This time my whole body had stopped shaking and my actions were full of determination and confidence. “stop looking at me like that, I don’t want this Jamie, leave, leave now” Rachel’s voice said pleadingly in my mind as I saw myself looking straight at me. The same dialogue that I had so painfully endured once, made me wince with internal pain especially when I, as Rachel, recited her feelings to the other me. I saw my own terrified face. I was filled with pain, but also with Rachel’s frustration and sorrow at the same time. I pulled the trigger once again. The blood spouted out of the other me’s shoulder. The shock on her face showed just a second late as she started to fall backwards, still gripping tightly to Liz’s pale bloodstained corpse. I shot again, again, and yet again, each time barely missing. The other me dropped the body and started to flee. I chased after her with a smile; the thrilling feeling from Rachel’s memory subdued my own sorrow and terror. I saw myself clumsily try to escape my pursuit, but for some reason I started falling behind. Oh yeah…that’s right Rachel always had a bad cardiovascular system I remembered. “She’s definitely going towards the cafeteria, so what do you think?” the Rachel’s thoughts asked. “…the kitchen, going inside the spacious cafeteria defies human logic, she will want to go somewhere smaller and with more places to hide” I stated with Rachel’s voice. I sprinted to the cafeteria finally catching up to myself. I shot once more, sure that I grazed her cheek because of her reaction. She ran ahead of me and as I suspected, she went to the kitchen. I slowed down to a walk and was soon at the backdoor to the kitchen. I opened the old screen door with a creek. The blood on my shoes made a squeaking noise but I could still here her frantic breathing. She grabbed the blade of a knife from behind her with her right hand, the fear on her face was exhilarating to me, I had finally lost my own thoughts and all I could do was watch myself come closer to killing myself. She grabbed the handle and pulled the knife from her right hand, flinching at the pain in both her hand and left shoulder. My finger was itching to pull the trigger again as I started to run at her. All of a sudden a wicked smile split across her face. A crazed glare shone in her eyes as she challenged me with the knife. I couldn’t stop Rachel’s body and even though I didn’t want to fight, but she continued on to accept that challenge. The other me lunged at me, plunging the knife deep into my gut as she chuckled with glee when the blood poured out and stained her. Slowly I felt my consciousness slipping away and my sight started to blur. I closed my eyes, not wanting to see my other self taken over by insanity. When I felt the chaos within me subside, I opened my eyes to see myself as I had remembered it; shaking and afraid, not one bit murderous at all. I closed my eyes again, somewhat relieved as I waited for a different dream to take over, a dream that would never come. It flashed by so quickly like a stop motion film. First it was me and the silver haired man. Then it was me covered in blood looming over his cringing body. After that I saw myself start to slice off strips of his flesh from his face, lining them up around him. I saw myself look into a pool of blood and fall into it. I started to drown; I was being smothered by the infinite depths of hatred and fear that lay within the vividly red liquid. Just as I thought I was going to die, I started to breathe even in such conditions, and I knew that I was drifting closer and closer to the real world again.
    I slowly forced my heavy eyelids open to be relieved at seeing a white ceiling above me. I looked around the room to make sure that it wasn’t another tangent off of my tormenting nightmare. My mom was fast asleep in a small chair next to the window on my right side. Embraced in her seemingly fragile arms was a very familiar object.
    “Mom...Hey mom...” I whispered as I nudged her awake.
    “...J-Jamie, dear? You’re awake, I’m so glad, but you shouldn’t move too much right now, the doctor says that it’ll take a while for the broken bone to heal up right.” She said urgently gently helping me back down. “Oh, I almost forgot, look what I brought,” she held up ebony, the clown puppet with the black face “you always loved it as a child, so I thought that you could at least still keep this one. How do you like it, I just got it polished.”
    “Aw, you shouldn’t have, thank you so much mom” I lied. She really shouldn’t have brought ebony, I mean my nightmares were already freaky as ********; I didn’t need anything to make them worse.
    She placed it next to me as she got up to leave “Sorry Jamie, my boss really needs me at work for a bit, I’ll be back later tonight alright, oh and by the way your father just flew in from Seattle, he came rushing here when he heard what happened, we sure are lucky to have him in our family”; she leaned over to kiss my forehead.
    I stayed in the hospital for a few days before they discharged me. Visitors came and went; among them was my father, a thin and tall man with elegant black hair. The police also dropped bye to ask me a few questions to ensure that nobody would question my innocence. It was heartbreaking to see Rachel’s family visit me though, I couldn’t help but feel as if it was all my fault. When I was finally able to go back home I was a bit hesitant, unsure that I would be able to resume my former lifestyle, but there wasn’t any turning back, I had to keep going forward. Nothing would be the same again. Everything was about to get much worse than I had ever imagined it could be.
    PART I END