Chapter 1

One cold night, the door of my room bangs open and for a second I think that it's the cold December wind. But when two men pass through the door, I immediately dismiss the thought.

I try to scream but one of them jumps on the bed and covers my mouth and eyes with his enormous hands. I kick and thrash but it's all useless when they soon overcome me with their strength and inject me in the arm with a needle. I quickly fall into a deep pool of thick dark water.

"Mary Alice, honey?! Are you ok?!" my mother shook my arm trying to get my attention. I must've dozed off.

I regained my composure and smiled up to her. She looked at me worried

"Honey, you were shaking. Are you sure you're ok?"

"Yes, mother" I smiled up to her again.

I didn't want to say anything about this dream to my mother because she might have thought that I was very naughty little girl. She said that one's dreams reflected what one most desired in the world. And I didn't want to be taken away from my parents by some men that could harm me in many ways.

"You had me worried for a second there, you had this dazed look on you face and your eyes lost their focus"

"I'm fine, mother" I insisted, even though I didn't feel fine at all. That dream really shook me up, it was so realistic.

"Mary Alice, Mary Alice, come play with me" said my little sister Cynthia.

She was just 6 years old, three years younger than me. She had short brown curly hair, blue eyes and dimples appeared on her cheeks when she smiled, unlike me. I had long black silky hair, green eyes and no dimples appeared on my cheeks when I smiled.

She grabbed my hand and took me to our room so we could play with her dolls.

We had two small beds on opposite sides of the room; each one with a different colored quilt, mine was violet and hers was yellow. The windows were opened so the smell of the Mississippi River would fill up the room. The sun was shining down on the fields of vegetables behind our small country house. We had to grow our own food and animals and fish down in the river, just so we could eat everyday. We weren't like the people in society that had everything handed to them by other people that worked to give them those things. We weren't the family that constantly appeared on the newspaper, but I was happy like this. I like my privacy and my family's.

Around nightfall, our father appeared for dinner. He had been working on the steamboat that we owned all day.

"Hello, my angels" he said kissing both my and my sister's foreheads and then he sat at the head of the table

"Hi, daddy" we said while our mom served us some of the fish our dad had caught this morning

"How was work?" she asked when she sat down across the table from him

"Well, today, a young man asked me if I needed some help in my boat"

"Did you give him a job?"

"Yes, he seemed like a strong, trustworthy fellow. His name is James"

"That's good, dear" she answered

"But a weird fellow he is"

"Why do you say that?"

"Well, he has red colored eyes; he's very strong and fast"

That was odd. I had never met a person with red eyes

"Well, I'm sure you're just being superstitious and paranoid again, dear" she said with a smile. My parents loved each other very much, that's how I wanted to love my husband when I got married.

My dad was very superstitious, he believed in dark spirits that overtook a person's soul and then the spirit would take over the body and do bad deeds.

"Yeah, maybe"

During the night, I had a very weird and scary dream:

A girl with short black hair is being followed through a forest. The man behind her is very fast and scary looking, but she's very fast too. But there is something weird about these two: they both have burgundy colored eyes and their skin shines whenever the sun touches a part of their body. But then suddenly another man is following them too. He looks like one of those men from my first dream, he has their same clothes. He jumps really high and lands on top of the first man. They fight and fight until the first man rips off the head of the second one with such rage and anger. The girl sees everything from a branch of one of the nearby trees. The first man looks for her but doesn't find her and then screams outraged.

I woke up covered in perspiration and my heart was racing. There was something about this dream that made me call out for my mom; the girl in the dream looked like me, except maybe a little bit older and grown up, but I knew it was me.

My mom stayed that night with me because I wouldn't let her leave my side. I was so scared that the dream might come true that very same night.

"Shhhh, Mary, please sleep now, you need it" my mom tried soothing me but I just couldn't be calmed

"Cynthia, why don't you go sleep with your father tonight?" my mom said when she saw that Cynthia started crying too when she saw me. She got up and ran to my parent's room in a flash with one of her dolls clutched at her side.

At then end of the night, I ended up falling asleep in my parents' bed. I had begged my mom to take me to her room, so I could sleep with all my family together. I was scared stiff, so my dad had to come and carry me to their room. I had this feeling that no matter what I did that dream was going to come true and that the first man was somebody I was going to meet very soon.

HEY!!!! SO THIS IS MY ALICE STORY. I GUESS THAT I'LL BE WRITING BOTH MY ROSALIE AND MY ALICE STORY.

TELL ME IF YOU LIKE IT AND IF I SHOULD CONTINUE

LOTS OF LOVE TO YA

--LAPRINCESASM