The bad feeling that been troubling him since he went to bed persisted through the night, breaking through his fatigue. It awakened him at odd intervals in the night. The shadows twisted and changed in his room, emanating some kind of chill that seeped under his skin to caress his bones morbidly. He blinked. The turmoil churned in his gut, the thick ash pumping though his veins. Each second he awoke he could feel it, icy terseness scabbing on his skin. A sheet of moonlight falling into his open window lights up the room, then it was gone as clouds rolled over the silver disc. Bright, too dark, dull silver then gray. It was as if somebody was signaling him in Morse code. 'I wonder if Jensen is asleep!" His lips felt too parched to form around the words though the little gesture would provide some solace. Swallowing, he debated going outside for a drink but then, he would have to get up and cross through the world of morphing darkness. 'Better to just forget it all and try to get some sleep!

From the core of his being he wished he could do just that, forget it all and live as carelessly as his brother had taught him how but he couldn't. They needed him tomorrow and he couldn't let his brother down. Hopefully by the end of the week they would still be a family, a whole complete family and he wouldn't have another bulb flashed in his face. It was awful. It reminded him of the white bright light people had to go into after they lost consciousness in the real world. He drifted off to sleep but when he awoke he was as restless and troubled as the night before. He swallowed the tangy dryness in his mouth and tried to summon the courage to face the day. The bitter dread only clung further into the hollows of his body.

THE COURTHOUSE

The reporters swarmed around them and they had to push their way to up the steps into the courthouse. Mikes were thrust into their faces, questions were thrown off them but they were just noise buzzing in their ears, part of their nightmare. The cool air hit him in the face, like coming up for air after nearly being drowned by 50 pounds of liquid. He could taste the coppery saltiness on his lips as he loitered in the space just before the huge brown ornate doors while his parents conferred with their lawyer, his brother flaked between them.

The man he used to look up to turned in his direction to smile encouragingly and though the weight in his stomach felt like a ten tons of brick, he conjured a visage for his brother.

The judge banged the gravel calling for order. He cringed with the noise, echoing in the room along with the chatter. He couldn't help but risk a glance at the other side where the other sides' parents and their daughter sat. The girl was facing straight ahead with unwavering cool but it was visible that she was trying hard to put on a brave face. Her sister sat behind her, anger simmering like a coal fireplace. Suddenly, she turned to catch his eyes. For a split second, the hate and determination was concentrated into his eyes before he diverted them, icy shivers descending his spine in sweeping waves.

He drew in a deep breath to steady his nerves and to prepare himself for the worst. As the lawyer said, "It would get ugly before it got better!" His gaze alternated between the floor and the scene before him. His throat itched and his palms was sweaty. His parents were hanging onto every word, his mother's fingers clenching and unclenching. "We will now pause for recess!" And though there only the sound of the scrap of tables and chairs, he could practically feel the pent-up breath of collective well-wishers release into the air. The atmosphere was tart and suffocating and everyone was glad to leave it.

The people passed beside him in a blur, his mind was swimming and a dull throb was building at the back of his brain. He reached the water fountain on the other side of the building. He leaned over and quickly drank from the nozzle, relishing the cool, sweet water that felt good in his hot mouth. Pausing to catch the eyes of a criminal in chains, tattoos etched into his pasty skin. 'Would that be his brother after prison?' Cold-hardened eyes, a cruel, stern mouth and the distrustful, dangerous urge shimmering like cut glass in his eyes to release his anger into the world" A shudder rippled through his body, he shook it off and blinked away the mental image of his changed brother. Blue eyes faded to ice and handsome features twisted to hatred. He spun on his heel to return when he bumped hard into someone. One look into the icy-unforgiving pools of her soul and it registered instantly who it was.

"Nathan Meade" Her mouth set in a severe line leading itself to her entire demeanour. "Excuse me, I have to go!" Nathan tried to brush past her but she quickly stepped into his way. "How could you do that to your girlfriend?" He shrugged, What else could he really say? "She wasn't a coke-addict. You planted the coke in her wardrobe." The accusatory-vicious tone ripping into him but he kept a plastic mask on his face, just as his father taught him. "Nice imagination, Go write a Jeffery Archer novel!" He snapped, trying to keep his voice level but it was a pathetic attempt at a balancing act when he was emotionally unstable.

"She was trying to do the right thing!" Spitting with acrid venom into his face, "If you had half the guts as her!" "Then I would be a coke-addict too!" He snarked though his voice shook slightly. "Your brother beat up my sister." She ground out through juddering, gritted teeth, "You know the truth and you told your girlfriend. Because she was going to the cops, you framed her!" Her face a sizzler of rebuke and abhorrence and he had to bite his tongue to keep from speaking or risk saying something he would regret. It was all true.

After breaking down, crying as he gave away the sins of his brother. He returned just in time to figure out what she was going to do. Betrayed, he formulated a plan to ensure that her testimony wouldn't hold up in court. All he had to do was to get her to touch some 'extreme party drugs', get her own tape saying how she wanted to get high and planned on getting friends involved. So thrilled with the idea that she would be a news sensation, it didn't occur to her that he would go to great lengths to keep her silence. She hung on his every word, probably to unearth more dastardly deeds of his family but she had underestimated him. When he told his dad what he had done, he thought he could find a glint of pride as misplaced as it was.

His voice raw he told her to leave him alone and tried to walk away but she was in his face again, pupils large and vibrant with energy. "How you feel if it was your mother or your sister? Could you stand by and let the perpetrator get away with it!"

His voice was gravelly detached as the words left his lips, "How suppose the Palestinians feel having their worst enemy living nearby and putting them through hell while the rest of the world looks on. Or how about if your some innocent man ho happened to have an affair then was forced to pay for a baby you didn't want because your stupid girlfriend didn't want to abort because she suddenly developed moral compass. Is it fair for a repeat offender to serve double time just because a psychiatrist says his brain is wired to illegal activities?" "What the hell does that have to do with anything?"

"People have to deal with unfair circumstances everyday; do not think that you or your sister are anything special!" He retorted with equal malice, stunning her and him. Chewing the inside of his mouth that tasted sour, he quickly moved around her and walked away from her. He kept his eyes focussed ahead on him, his mind blocking all the people who openly stared and the heat of her condemning glare on the back of his neck.

They sat down together, ready to begin the next session. The anxiousness rose in his throat again like a throbbing ball and thundered in his chest too. "Our next witness is running a few minutes late but she will be here shortly." The prosecutor said with equanimity. At these words, his body is gripped by a smothering wave of fear and self-recrimination. He has an idea why the key witness in the case has been delayed. His father had ensured that the young women would be in no condition to testify. To say he was sick to the stomach was an understatement and it had less to do with his brother on the stand. Calmly and with a carefree assurance, his father had ventured to manipulate the proceedings. He felt the bile rise in the back of his throat as his head teemed with incoherent thoughts, screaming reproach and guilt. He squeezed his eyes shut, tried to wear a remote and shuttered face for the proceedings. Eyes tried to seal themselves, tried to bury him in the darkness of ignorance. Too much knowledge. Too much happening in his 18 year old life. His feverish, agitated mind conjured up an image for him. T

he witness walking down the street, her feet rapidly shortening the distance between her and the truth. Then the car comes barrelling down the highway, serves at the precise curve, with aiming. Barely, is she allowed the time to react when the car strikes her body with a sickening crunch but it cannot stop. With frightening accuracy, it smashes into a nearby crane, because of the momentum the body bounces to break the window and fall onto the lever. The crane is out of control. People shriek and run for their lives. The crane was for the purpose of building the left side of the courtroom, they were right next door. The crane tilted and fell into building, cleaving neatly through the walls and the judge, jurors and his mom on the witness box. Blood splashes around him. A few drops marking him. Pandemonium broke out. People screamed in terror, dashing out of the way as the ceiling falls on them, crashing them with misfortune. Breathing hard despite the ash, he tried to form words to save the rest of his family members. Beside him, Jensen had ducked under the desk and his father and lawyer were coughing struggling to stay calm, even after what they had just witnessed. Eyes met and his father grabbed his arm. He was gone. A large piece of cement crushed him. Blood and guts splattered his pants legs. The world began to spin. The colours blending to a sickly dark grey that threatened to spill him to the floor. His knees buckled but at the last moment he steadied himself, leaning on the desk for support. The floor was a wreck and it was about to get worse.

The boom head dislodged from the body to crash into the floor and in a sick twist of fate, pummelled the water heater as it is still attached to the wire. It exploded, sending a blast to the ceiling. Pieces of metal skewered the people who were unfortunate enough to be caught in its angle of direction. Cries resounded around him. He shut his ears, desperate, painful but worst, helpless. He directs his focus to helping his brother. He was somewhat fine but his legs were pinned under a collapsed chair. Grunting, running on pure adrenalin, he frantically attacked the pieces of chair, wincing as they prick and pierce his tender hands.

"Jensen!" He whispered. "Nathan!" Was the reply and it lifted up his spirits. "Come on! Let us get out of here!" Movement caught his eye, he turned and pure dread trickled into his insides, freezing into rock. Lilah, the girl's name was lilah and she was stalking towards him, walking over fallen people and crawling over debris. The sharp metal in her hand was reflected in her eyes, only more primal and deadly. She aimed. He tried to move quickly. The shot resounded the loudest, in a room already perforated with sound and trauma. It caught him in the side of his neck. Pain exploded. He had sensed it, saw it but the first he felt it in every fibre of his being. The blaring yell from his brother echoed in his ear. Then nothing.

Nathan's eyes flew open and sucked in deep breaths of air. It was as if his lungs had collapsed. Tears brewed at the corners of his eyes. Surveying the area, it dawned on him with horrible clarity that it was a dream. The notion struck him like a punch to the gut. There was no way it was dream, heart slamming into his chest to force heavy air out of his weak lungs. His insides turned to butter. As he watched his mother on the stand, a terrible, nauseous feeling scratched ominously under his skin that it was a premonition. As his eyes shifted to the other side, still reeling from the macabre barbarity of the dream, it occurred to him he should be more wary of the defendants, one of whom was going to kill him.