Chapter 2:

Ages Present

"You are the future I look forward to, love." Those were the last words she heard from her mother before the police showed up at her door. Sarah didn't even have to speak to the officers to know that it was her mother who died; you could see it in their faces. It was the same look that different policemen had had on when they arrived at her door when she was eight. Sarah had been so excited to see cops up close that she hopped all the way to her mother's room shouting that there were two cool looking policemen at the door. Her mother had quietly opened the front door and stepped out, shutting it behind her. It wasn't until she heard her mother crying hat Sarah knew something was very wrong, because her mother never cried.

"I-it's my mother isn't it?" She stuttered to the nice looking policewoman. She smiled kindly and nodded yes.

"Yes, Miss Wilder. There was a very bad accident. May we come in?"

After that it was a whirl of phone calls that offered sympathy, plans that were made, relatives that were called, and that flight to catch.

"Mother wanted to be buried next to Dad." Her brother had explained over the telephone, "Can you afford to ship the body down to Jacksonville?" Sarah bit back a stinging remark. How could he refer to mom as a "body"? With a sigh she agreed and hung up.

Sarah could expect no less from her brother. When their father died, he was fifteen and dealt with it by alienating his family. The breach he created was never again fully crossed by either herself or their mother.

Mark was filled with surprises, however. After the funeral he took her aside and asked how she was doing. Did she have enough money to get back home? Was she going to finish college? Did she want to stay with him and Lauren for a while?

She answered them: alright, yes, not sure, and it's a nice offer but your apartment is only big enough for two.

As she packed for the return trip home she thought gratefully, "It was nice of him to ask me to stay. I guess he still knows mom's my-was my whole world." He had even given her a present, a custom-made knife from his store.

"I know you're not into the whole "knife collector" thing, but I made this one myself." He said, "It's something to remember me by, ya-know?"

She had smiled and had given him a hug. Then she took her nicely wrapped present to the car.

She still hadn't opened it yet. Something inside her said that if she did something would end, but another part said something would begin. She just stood there, eyeing it with a semi-suspicious air, knowing well that if she didn't decide soon, she was going to miss her flight out.

"Oooo…What the Heck." She said impatiently as she grabbed the present to open it. However, she stopped at the ribbing and shoved it inside her carryon, making a mental note to check it in at the desk. The last thing she needed was to be mobbed by airport security. "For when I get home." She said to herself as she headed for the elevator, "A-a coming home present!" The Lord knew she'd need one when she walked into that house all alone.

It was dark outside the hotel as she looked around for her cab. So dark in fact, that she didn't notice right away when it started raining. Before she could run back under the pavilion, Sarah and her two bags were very wet indeed. That was the straw that broke the camel's back. It wasn't that it was raining or even that her pretty, new skirt was wet, it was because yet another bad thing had happened to Sarah.

"Whaaaaaaaaaaaaa!" she cried, not caring if anyone saw her, but just the same, it was a relief that no one did. Her whole year had been cursed, cursed. First, there was not enough money to get her degree in Nursing, so she had to settle for Medical Transcription. Then her boyfriend dumped her for a younger, prettier blond. Good riddance to him she had said, but it still hurt that at twenty you were considered too old by some men. Then her mother dying in a tragic accident… "And now this stupid rain!" She shouted. "And where is that taxi!" What troubled her more than anything was that all she had to go back to was a friendless life with miles of bills where she didn't know where to begin.

So, instead, she sat down and made a list of all the possible things she would like to do, that she never possibly could. That always cheered her up. "Hmm…Karate champion, super-model (yeah-right), Romance Novelist…that's it!" She shouted, jumping up, "I'll write the next great American Novel!"

But just as she discovered her new found vocation, a very strange feeling crept over her, one that sent chills down her spine.

When she was twelve, their house has been struck by lightning. Right before it hit, Sarah had felt a strange, stifling energy in the air, and then the huge shock wave rolled through the house.

That's exactly what she felt now. "Oh God, am I going to be hit by lightning?!" She said as she ducked to the ground, grasping her bags tightly. Yet it was not a shock wave she experienced then but it was something that scared her just as much.

Things began to fade. Not the fade like when you're about to faint and everything goes black, but the fade when things begin to get hard to see and wobble in and out. She blinked but it did not clear so she rubbed her eyes. That only made her contact fall out. Swearing, she began a panicky search for it amidst the raindrops. It was then she heard a faint voice. She froze and listened hard to hear. It sounded like a monk chanting; only it had a wilder note to it. She stumbled to her feet and grabbed her bags, ready to make a run for it. But then everything turned gray, and the picture before her seemed to blur with another image, she thought of a stone room.

Then in a flash, the rain was gone and all that was left to see was the stone room. She blinked to see that there were…midgets? And men? They all stood staring at her and she stared right back. They all together stood frozen until she began to shake violently and looking around franticly thinking, "What do I do now?!"