AWAKENING

BY MELISSA JEROME

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Prologue

The light was too intense for my eyes. Every colour imaginable reflected off of my glasses, blinding me. Where was I? Voices, too loud, spoke from somewhere out of my perspective, and hands restrained me. I thought I recognised them, but I had to get these glasses out of my eyes; they didn't do anything for my vision anymore. Suddenly, they were off, and I blinked. Everything was so ... rich. Way too real.

My voice crackled as I tried to speak, "A-Alex? Cameron?"

And then I blacked out.

Chapter One

The houses blurred past as I accelerated, and Alex turned the music up deafeningly louder. It was Christmas, and we were on our way to Cameron's for his annual party.

"I can't believe he's still holding these," Alex muttered, "we've had parties since grade school."

"Hey, you used to enjoy them," I pointed out.

"Yeah, well now they're just a pain in the Christmas ass," she muttered, looking down and tapping her nails on the gifts she held in her lap. "Say, since when do you give gifts to Cameron's parents?"

"Since I got a second job, a roommate and a car to go buy stuff," I replied.

Alex scoffed. "Roommate?! Yeah right! I pay half the rent, all of the hydro, and all of the sattelite! Consider me co-owner!" She threw her hands up into the air for emphasis.

I rolled my eyes as my little Pinto bottomed out after a speed-bump. The CD skipped a little, and then we were off.

"So, how much do you want to bet that we're going to end up working on his Civic?" I asked. Every year since we were seventeen, our Christmas parties usually ended working on Cameron's Honda. Now, four years later, he still hadn't upgraded.

We parked on the road and got out into the rain; we hadn't had a single white Christmas since 2010. Cameron greeted us each with a snowball in the arm, and then we were inside. His house hadn't changed much: shag carpet, faux leather sofas, parents loitering in the kitchen. After all these years, he still hadn't moved out.

"Hey! Hey! Guess what I got you?" He asked Alex with enthusiasm.

"A coupon to 7-11 and some nail polish?" she sighed. She had gotten the same thing every year since we were in middle school.

"Darnit!" Cameron huffed, leading us into the living room.

"It's really not that hard to guess," Alex muttered to herself.

"And you got me . . . ?" I prompted.

"You'll see," Cameron said. I was hoping for a new Koontz novel. He gestured to the sofa facing the large-screen TV, which vaguely reminded me of the movies. He then swiftly grabbed a box from under the tree, and dropped it in my lap. This was no Koontz novel, I could tell from the weight of it.

"Open it up!" he encouraged as I looked sheepishly at it. I'd only gotten him a t-shirt and twenty bucks.

Slowly, I tore off the wrapping paper, as carefully as a bombmaker handling explosives. I gasped along with everyone in the room: It was a heavy diamond necklace. I lifted it from the box, tears streaming from my eyes. I had had one exactly like this before, from my grandmother's jewellery set, but it had been lost in the move. I had grieved for it for months, and here was an exact replica.

"Oh my goodness! Cameron!" I dropped the necklace with a tinkle and lunged into his arms.

"I think she likes it," Peter, Cameron's dad, said.

"I love it! Thank you!" I hugged him tighter, and he smiled.

"Can I put it on you?" Cameron asked. Alex rolled her eyes. She wasn't one for the sentiments.

I nodded and he grabbed it off the sofa in a quick swoop, turning me around. I lifted up my hair as he fastened it around my neck.

"I saved up for four years to get this. I had pictures of it from your Facebook, so I took them to my cousin and he made an exact replica." he said. His cousin owned a jewelery shop in Kamloops.

"It's perfect," I whispered.

The moment was suddenly ruined by Steven coming in and throwing a snowball at us. "YOU'RE IT!"

"YOU'RE ON!" We all yelled, and I grabbed my coat before following the others out.

A snow war ensued in his 5-acre backyard, until Steven got the quad and started to chase us around. His property was bordered by woods, so we took off into the thick brush before his brother could run us flat.

"Hurry! Steven knows these woods like the back of his hand!" Cameron yelled.

I plummeted into a short ravine, and the two stopped, jumping in to help me up. Suddenly a harsh wind picked up and we all looked skyward, Cameron's hands on my arms, Alex standing upright. Our hair flew around our heads, and my necklace tinkled on my neck, the diamonds clicking together musically. Alex's baseball cap flew off, but she was frozen in mid-step by an invisible entity.

"Run," she muttered. My boot was stuck in some branches, however, and Cameron wouldn't leave me, so we all stayed put.

"It seems like you three kids need to run along home now," a male voice said. Cameron shuddered.

"What do you want from us?" Cameron asked loudly.

The man advanced, his bare feet barely brushing the snow beneath him. He had long, red hair trimmed into two equally parted curtains around his head. His white dress shirt was muddy and torn, hanging off of his slender, ghostly pale body. His eyes were supernaturally red, a red that couldn't be achieved by any contact lenses. He growled and lunged, stopping just above us, on the edge of the ravine.

"Something you'd never want to give me," he growled. His voice sounded like shattering glass.

"Name your price," I said weakly. I must have twisted my ankle, because I felt dizzy and sluggish.

"Blood."