I was running. Running from something. The scenery around me kept changing; one minute I was in a beautiful meadow filled with gorgeous flowers, and the next darkness blanketed me and silhouettes roamed around me.

Suddenly, I was in a house. Scratch that, a cottage. I stood in a country-style living room and everything seemed at peace. Without so much as a warning, I began to hear footsteps off in the distance. Faint footsteps coming toward me.

Only slightly concerned, I looked around me and saw nothing. I searched for a way out of the room and saw a figure of someone. It was a man, I could tell. He began to dissolve in and I struggled to see who it was; Damien.

He reached his hand out to me and opened his mouth to speak. "Come to me, Emma."

The footsteps grew louder, trudging now. Someone would be here any second, and I didn't want to wait to find out who.

I tried to run to Damien, but my legs felt as if they were glued to the ground beneath me. Frantic now, I looked up at Damien and tried to call out to him but no sound came out of my mouth. Confused, I willed myself to move. Surprisingly, I somehow did.

The footsteps slowed and pounded behind me.

I ran to Damien and just before we embraced, his figure began to change. My sister formed from Damien and was in the same position Damien was in before. I didn't have time to slow down and collided with her. She embraced me and wrapped her arms around my body. She was smaller than me; around fifteen, and held me with her tiny arms.




"Don't worry." Her voice flooded into my mind filling me with old memories. "I'm here."

I started to wrap my arms around her, but her figure disappeared. I was stuck to face whatever was behind me alone.

"Emma! I made pancakes and bacon!" A voice said...

"Emma?"

********************

"Emma, get up. I made pancakes and bacon." My eyes fluttered open to see my mom's pampered face above me. She had way too much foundation and cover-up on and the lipstick made her look like an apple grew on her face.

I threw the covers over my face not wanting to look at hers. She just tossed them off completely, and without so much as a warning grabbed my ankles and spun me so that my feet were on the floor. She lifted me up so that I was sitting down on the edge of my bed and sat next to me.

“You’ve been crying, Emms. What’s wrong?” Arms around me, my mom rocked us soothingly.

I shook my head.

“Come on.” She wiped at a tear that got away. “Don’t lie to me, now. Tell me what this is all about.”

“Layla.” One word seemed to change the whole mood of the room. In an instant, my mom was up from her sitting position, and stood in the doorway.

“Get up. Get dressed. Get breakfast. Get out the door.” She seemed angry now as she told me around.

She was like this every time I mentioned my dead sister. Ever since Layla died of leukemia almost two years ago, not even my dad had been his usual fun and playful self. Talking to mom about Layla was completely out of the question, but I thought that she might react a little differently to my dream. After all, I only told her one word. But that one word seemed to totally throw her off.

Whatever, though. I didn’t need to talk to her about it anyway. After all, I’d been having those nightmares ever since the day we stood in the hospital room…

*Flashback*

I walked into the white hospital room and smelled the sterilized everything immediately. Looking over to the bed in the far back of the room, I could only see the feet of the person. I approached it to get a better view. Each step seemed to take to long; I couldn’t get there fast enough. It felt as if I was trying to walk through water with the force of everything pushing me, willing me not to go any closer.

But I did.

When I reached the bed, I looked first at the hands of the person. IV’s were pumping clear fluids into the person’s brittle hands. I scoffed at the thought. If she were this far into the stage, what could medication possibly do? Why couldn’t this have been prevented?

My eyes moved up to the miniscule arms of the patient searching for something unknown. Veins clearly visible in the arms, the skin was practically translucent. Blood had been taken from her main vein in her arm leaving small marks of deep red blood. Not being able to take everything in, not being able to handle anymore, I turned away.

Turned away like the coward was. Like the coward I am.

The door was right in front of me, my source of escape. My freedom, but something in my mind told me I had to turn around and look at the patient. I knew who it was. She was after all my sister.

My Layla.

I did as my inner-self told me, and turned to face Layla. She lay there peacefully not moving a muscle. For a moment, I thought she died right there. Right in front of me. But then her chest moved up and slowly descended back down, soothing my thoughts.

I looked at her pale face and thought aloud, “This is the last time I’ll see you, Layla, so they tell me.” I forced a smile onto my face so as to reassure myself that everything would somehow be okay.

I knew it wouldn’t though. But I clinged onto that one thread of hope that I had left; my love for my sister. In the movies and the books, love always triumphs over death. If there is love, everything is okay, right. Too bad that was only if the people were in love, not sisters.

Ugh.

I began to talk to her again. “I love you, Layla. I know that there’s nothing that I can do now, but I wish I had been able to do something before.” A single tear fell down my cheek as I spoke. She was going to go to a place where she would feel no more pain. Where she would be happy and laugh and be able to play like other 15 year old girls did.

The thought made me happy and I decided that leaving now would be best for me. Layla’s chest rose and fell again, and I walked over to her. I stood there looking at her and bent down to kiss her on the cheek. As I did, her chest rose and fell. It didn’t rise or fall again.

I knew.

I turned, tears streaming silently down my face, and made my way out of the hospital room. Out of the hospital. Out of Layla’s life. Not that she had one anymore.

*End of Flashback*

I sighed and got up out of bed. Reluctantly, I dressed in my dark skinny jeans and a black t-shirt that read “Real Vampires Don’t Sparkle” on it in red letters. My red converse topped everything off and I went to the bathroom to do my hair. Once I reached my attached bathroom, I realized that all of my make-up was still packed away in suitcases. Since I only had thirty minutes till school started, I decided to forget the whole make-up thing and just brush through my hair. Thankfully, my brush was already unpacked and in my bathroom so I didn’t have to worry about going to school with bed-head.

That would not be fun.

At all.

My long, brown hair flowed past my shoulders in a perfect straight line. It was dull and flat and boring, but it worked for me. Bangs lay in my face just above my left eye making my eyes themselves pop. They were green and always fit exactly what mood I was in. Right now, they were remorseful. The intensity was perfect.

After I was done, I went downstairs to grab some breakfast. I planned on just getting a pop-tart or cereal, but then I smelled to bacon and pancakes again. Sulking, I went into the kitchen to see my mom standing over a skillet and a plate full of under-cooked bacon and over-cooked pancakes.

I think I’ll just stick to my pop-tart. I made a move towards the pantry, but was stopped by my mom’s words. “I made breakfast.”

It was more of a question than a statement.

“Oh. Well, I’ll just get a pop-tart or cereal or something.” I started for the pantry again, but was stopped another time by my mom.

“I said, ‘I made breakfast’.” She said matter-a-factly. I was in no mood to put up a fight, so I just plopped down on the bar stool by the breakfast bar. My mom handed me a plate with her “breakfast” concoction on it and sat there waiting.

I looked up at her and raised an eyebrow to say “Are you serious?”

She just looked at me expectantly. I sighed and picked up the fork that was already on my plate. I stabbed a piece of the nearly black pancake and hesitantly placed it in my mouth. I gagged based on immediate reflexes. It was like eating ashes, that was how burnt it was. The pancake practically turned to dust when I stabbed it with my fork.

I put my fork back down and went in for the bacon. Bacon was supposed to pop and sizzle. It was supposed to be crispy and have just enough crunch to it. This bacon tasted like it had just come out of the fridge. I spat it back out on my plate and looked up apologetically at my mom.

“Uh… Can I please get a pop-tart?” I whined not wanting to take another bite of that horrible excuse for food. She rolled her eyes and nodded. Jumping out of the barstool, I darted for the pantry. I searched for what I was looking for and found it. I quickly unwrapped the brown sugar pop-tart and dug in. I knew that my time was running out before school started, so I tried to eat swiftly. Once I was done, I turned to my mom to see her throwing up in the trashcan.

Once she was done, she grabbed the plate of food she made and began scrapping it into the trashcan she just threw up in.

“That was the most disgusting thing I have ever tasted!” She mumbled to herself loud enough for me to hear.

I laughed and picked my iPod up from where it lie on the counter-top. With my purple headphones placed in my ears, I put on “Awake & Alive” by Skillet and walked out of the room. If my mom bothered saying bye to me as I walked out the front door, I didn’t hear her.

Since I didn’t have a car, I would have to walk the four blocks to school. It wasn’t far at all, and I had ten minutes until the first class started.

I turned my iPod up and started singing.

As the music died down and the song ended, someone honked at me. I whipped my head to the side to see, of course, Damien.

“Ugh. What do you want?” I asked. I turned my music down so I could hear what he had to say. It wasn’t like I cared or anything… I just… ugh…

“I just wanted to say I’m really really really sorry for what happened last night. I shouldn’t have blamed everything on you.” He actually sound genuinely apologetic, but I didn’t quite buy in yet. He kept up with my slow walking pace from inside his car.

“Ha! Like you actually care!?” He didn’t. I already knew that. It’s not like he cared whatsoever that his parents now hated me.

“Yes I do, actually.” He mocked my tone. “I just wanted to make it up to you.”

I looked at him through his rolled down window and scoffed. “And how do you plan to do that?”

“Well…” We were arriving at school. It wasn’t anything special; just your typical, two story high-school. Cars were parked in the parking lot and teenagers were flooding into the building. “Hold on.”


He drove away to my surprise, and parked his 2010 Camaro in an open spot by where I was walking. He bounded out of his car with a box in his hands. Headed towards me, Damien held the box out to me.

“I’ll hold it, you take off the lid.” Did he really think I didn’t know what this was? It was kind of obvious what was in the box after last nights pie-throwing. I just went along with the whole thing.

“I’ll open it later.” Ha! What you gonna do now, Damien? Huh? What you gonna do now?

“Uh…” He ran his fingers threw his hair trying to think of what to say.

“So what flavor is it?” I asked innocently.

“What flavor is what?” Jocks can be so dumb. It gets really annoying but comes in handy at times.

Times like now.

“The pie.” I knew it was in the box, but I wanted to indirectly let him know that I was aware of his little “gift”.

“Oh pecan.” He said absentmindedly.

“I don’t like pecan.” I walked past him and into the school building. I heard a grunting noise and then a low amused chuckle before the doors shut behind me.

I heard them open again and before I knew it, Damien was next to me again.

“But, Emma, how can you be sure unless you try some?” He said sarcastically.

“I’ve had pecan pie before, Jock Boy, and I don’t like it.” I repeated.

“Jock Boy? Really?” I nodded. He shook his head and continued. “Well then… if you won’t take my present, then I’ll have to get it to you in a different kind of way.” He hurried his pace, and walked off ahead of me.

The bell rang. Great. Late to class on my first day of school. Worst of all, I have to watch my back everywhere I go.

This will be quite an adventure.