CHAPTER ONE
Running. I am running away. I was saved from the flames of a fire. "Forget. Forget me. Forget this all." A familiar girl's voice says. "Go back to your normal life. For me, and for him, and most importantly for you." She says while her blurry face fades in and out before completely disappearing altogether.
I wake up in a cold sweat gasping for air. The burn on my left arm is sore along with the massive headache I could feel coming on. "Shit." I mutter to myself as I sit up and hold my head in my hands. The room around me is blurry just like that dream. A sob escapes my throat and I realize why everything is hard to see. I am crying, just like that night that I can barely remember. I take a few deep breaths and calm myself while I wipe away the tears. After I calm myself down I climb out of bed with a sigh and flick the light switch on by the bathroom door on my right. I stumble to the sink feeling weak like I just stepped out of a desert. Splash! I throw cool water on my face and wash away the sweat attempting to clog my pores. The water feels amazing and wakes me up. Standing strait I grab for the towel that should be to my right…AH, got it. I wipe my face gently and shut off the water. The other 'me' in the mirror doesn't look as tired and sick as I feel. I have been battling a cold for the past week and it has been waking me up with nightmares every night since it started. By now I would have gone to the doctors and gotten some sleep and cold medication prescribed to me but these nightmares have been giving me crazy inspiration for my next piece, a wolf howling at the moon.
I leave the bathroom, shutting the light off behind me, and grab my sketchbook from my nightstand. This time I have the image of three little children standing side by side. One of them is me. The other two are a mystery. The little girl to my right hanging off of my arm smiling as if she had won a prize reminds me of the blurry girl in my dreams. In my dreams we are older, about the age when I got this mysterious burn in the first place. I make us taller filling in the blurs with the little girl from my memories. Then I work on the third mysterious child. His outline is vague and I am unable to fill in any defining features except his eyes. Those ice blue eyes that I could not forget even if I tried. They burned through my entire being, permeated into every dream and waking memory. I will probably never forget those eyes and the way they make me feel safe and alive. I sigh at the sketch before me of the two grown women smiling arm in arm next to the little boy with the ice blue eyes forever accompanied with a frown.
Frustrated I slam my sketchbook shut and throw it onto my nightstand as my eyes droop. Exhaustion was finally settling back in. I glance at my alarm clock to see the red numbers read 3:22. I climb back under my covers and close my eyes already slipping back into the nightmare, feeling the heat of the flames lick up towards me, and the girl who saved my life.
My alarm clock rings knocking me out of a deep sleep. It reads 11:15. Sunlight streams in through my windows on either side of my bed letting me know that it is daytime. Feeling well rested I stretch and grab it off my nightstand to find the off button. I can never seem to remember where it is even though I have had this since grade school. So of course it was purple and Dora themed. Finally I find the switch and turn it off before setting it back down. Swish! That is the sound of the covers as I fling them off me and swing my legs over the edge of the bed. Led by my growling stomach I head to the kitchen and pour myself a bowl of cereal. Using coconut-almond milk of course. I heat some water for tea while I flip on the TV. The news hums in the background as I munch on my cereal and wait for the water to boil. All of a sudden the words scrolling on the bottom of the screen register in my brain. 'Previous Beacon Hills resident Laura Hale, was found dead last night. Anyone with any information is urged to call this number.' Why does that name send chills down my spine and tears to my eyes? Suddenly I hear the word murdered and glance at the screen to see police cleaning up a crime scene and the picture of a girl in the corner of the screen reading, Laura Hale. I feel the bowl slip through my fingers but I don't care. My body jumps away from the impact and scurries to my sketchpad. I grab it and flip to the sketch I had drawn last night as I run back to the TV. The picture is still there and I hold my sketch up to it unnecessarily. I already knew what I was trying to prove. I finally know who saved me that night, and she has been murdered.