Can't I Even Dream?
Chapter 1.)

My name is Mai Kujaku. I just graduated from college. Everyone I knew would always joke, telling me that the only thing I have is a pretty face; that I'll never do anything productive. But I just graduated with a degree in English. So what will they think now? What will they…

"Mai!" A loud yell startled me. I looked around, bewildered. "You're going to be late for school!" Oh yeah, that's right. I'm still only in the ninth grade.

Shit.

I jumped out of bed and threw on the clothes that I had worn the day previously. I'm very pressured on time, okay? Running down the stairs, grabbing an egg sandwich and backpack and running out the door, in my frenzied state took about ten seconds.

"Don't forget your lunch!" my mother called after me. The door slammed. "Oh, too late."

I made it to the bus stop, only moments before I heard the screeching of the bus as it slowed down around the corner.

My neighbor, Ishizu, laughed at my heavily breathing form. "I don't know how you keep making the bus!"

I grinned at her. "I'm magical," I joked back, as we got on the bus.

For the rest of the day, I contemplated the dream I had. English would be cool. I could torture the students, like our current English teacher liked to do to us.

I was so zoned out during last period that I missed last bell. When I finally got outside, I tried to run after my bus. Don't you hate when you take all this effort and still fail?!

Slowly, I started the walk home. We only lived about two miles away, so it was fine.

I opened to door and dropped my backpack on a chair. The chair's crosshatched center gave way, and the bag of books toppled to the floor.

"Mai, is that you?" my mother called from upstairs, no doubt holding her precious pan.

"Yes, mother," I responded starting to walk up the stairs from whence her voice had originated. I saw her watching the news, but I knew that out of her peripheral vision she was eying the door.

"Mai, wasn't there a soccer game your team was playing today?"

"I'm tired. I don't want to go!" I complained.

"I didn't pay money for you to blow off these games!" she retorted angrily.

You didn't pay any money for me to sign up. I sighed, and sat down next to her.

"Ooh, watch this!" she cried, sounding delighted.

"A murderer?" I asked, looking over the description briefly.

"No. Well… yes. But just look at that body!" she exclaimed. "I want to run my hands up and down that body~" And even though he really that bad looking, I was now officially scarred for life.

"Okay, okay, I'll go to soccer."

"What?" she asked. I brushed off the question, rolling my eyes and stood up to leave. "Don't let that sex murderer kill you!"

Sex… murderer? "Do you mean sexy?!" I questioned, now scarred for life a second time.

"Whatever." She waved her hand. Dismissing me.

She obviously wasn't going to drive me, so I walked to the game. Anything to get out of the house.

I felt like something was watching me the entire time, but every time I turned back, there was no one there. Serious paranoia, I guessed, shrugging.

Much to my surprise, after soccer, my mother was there waiting to pick me up. I guess I really shouldn't have been so shocked, because as it turned out, she just wanted to get as far away from the house as she could. Her ex was creeping on the house again. My mother had been married to this very disturbing guy after my father's death. Every night, he claimed to go bowling. Instead, he went to a bar, got drunk, slept with a ton of girls. When I found this out, he tried to force me not to tell my mother.

Of course, my mother wasn't as dumb as she seemed on first glance and eventually figured out what was going on. She made me tell the truth, which I more than happily did. She divorced him and filed restraining orders on him soon after. Quite frankly, I think we were both relieved.

Somehow, he manages to keep creeping on our house. I don't even know how he does it.

After I had changed back into my clothes at the public restroom near the field, I felt my spine prickle uncomfortably. I turned around just in time to see a man disappear into the woods bordering the area.

Holy shit, it's the Slenderman! I screamed inside my head, but forced myself to stay calm so I wouldn't look like an idiot. I speed-walked to where my mother was waiting, and we walked immediately to Uno's, my favourite restaurant.

We hoped that by the time we got home, her ex would have left.

I was kind of worried about leaving the house alone, though. The last time we did, mum's ex broke down the door, looked inside for us, and left. We didn't exactly live in a good part of town, and I don't know how many people it was, but when we came home, all our belongings had been taken, and for weeks, we had to live off of what was in our pockets. We still don't have much, though. Mother doesn't work because no one will hire an uneducated woman. And that's why she was basically forced into the marriage with her ex. He was a rather astute gambler, and came home with a ton of money. Ton as in the measurement of weight, not the expression. All the money that we had originally sued from him, was lost in the robbery.

Last year, I had to drop out in order to get a part-time job, to pay the rent. This year, I finally saved up enough money that we could live if I went back to school. And so I did.

We also involved mum's ex, because after what he did to our house- he was also blamed for robbery, which made me smirk a little- we were able to sue him for more money, and we moved into one of the smaller houses in a better district in New York. We shared the double-decker with Ishizu's family. Somehow, he still managed to trace us.

I'm starting to wonder if he hid a locator chip inside my mum's hair or something. Her hair is styled so complicatedly that if something was hidden in there, you would never even notice it. It would also make a ton of sense.

Once seated, we both stared into space until a waiter came. My mother ordered a tequila and a deep dish, cheese, pepperoni, and spinach pizza. I vowed to eat one of those one day.

I ordered my favourite meal; the sliders. I also got a Pepsi, because sliders make me thirsty. After dinner, we returned home, and were pleased not to find it in shambles.

However, there was something lying on the ground. A name card? I wondered, picking it up.

It read Mariku S. Ishtar. That name seemed awfully familiar…