Sarah walks in the front door of her house just as the grandfather clock in front hall chimes 6:30. A stern faced woman with Sarah's hair walks out of the kitchen wearing flour-covered apron. The woman, obviously Sarah's mother, puts her hand on her hips with a sigh and look at Sarah with that motherly look.
"You're running late, aren't you?" She said with a disapproving tilt of her head.
"I am not...I was supposed to be home by six thirty..." Sarah panted, her face flushed from the run home.
"Well I have just about finished dinner so go wash up and we can eat." Her mom mutters, shaking her head.
Sarah slowly trudges down the stairs towards her room, which was hidden in the bottom back portion of the house to be as far away from her older, twin brother as possible. Her door, completely plain on the outside, slides inward to reveal a room plastered with posters of Johnny Depp, Green Day band members and in one corner all of the male Harry Potter stars. Her room, a total mess at this point, has only a walk-able path to her bed and away from it and so that the door could open. Across every available surface was covered in random articles of clothing or stuffed animals. Sarah trips over a rather large stuffed tiger and curses as she crashes into her bed. Sitting there, she leaves her backpack and runs back upstairs for dinner.
Dinner passes slowly and after about an hour she is finally free to go back down to her dungeon and start her homework. The exceptionally boring drudgery of math and history nearly lulled Sarah nearly to sleep until her cell began to ring "Angels on the Moon" by Thriving Ivory.
She flipped her phone open to discover she found a message from Daniel.
"So you get home okay?"
"Yeah I got home fine. just a little out of breath" goes her reply.
Looking back to her homework Sarah falls into a bored half asleep state. After another half hour of history, she'd put into to sleep completely.
Again her text tone wakes her from this confused state of sleepy boredom. A bead of sweat trickles down through her next to her ear making her realize that for some reason her room was supremely hot. Looking around, she sees things that she had never seen before and that she knows doesn't belong in her room. The start to a set of heater pipes and a couple of heat gauges.
Fear gripping her mind and reflexes made her instantly look for a way out of this place. Her phone goes off once more distracting her. She looks down at the phone only to watch it melt in her hand, burning her left hand slightly. Looking up from the melted chunk of plastic that was her phone she sees that she is now completely surrounded by a boiler room. A screeching sound from off to her left brings her attention in that direction. Looking that way she sees a man hideously scarred man in a red and green sweater wearing brown fedora. His right hand out of sight in the ceiling appeared to be the source of the inhuman shrieking.
"Listen Bitch," He said, looking her straight in the eye, "I am not going to kill you for one simple reason. You will spread my name around and spread your story about me. And that is going to give me a lot more power. But if you don't do me that favor, I will visit you tomorrow night, and you won't be living after that meeting."
With that said he turned on his heel and walked the way he had come right hand still trailing along the pipes in the ceiling, producing that horrid shrieking sound.
A ringing from near her feet causes her to jump straight backwards in horror where upon she trips over her own feet and land on the metal floor.
Sarah snaps her head off her book to find herself listening to the shriek of her alarm clock.
Panting heavily she preps for school and sets off walking. She steps into the building about twenty minuets before the bells will ring to start first period.
"How'd you sleep last night?" Daniel mumbled near her ear.
She jumped three feet in the air in response.
"I take it the "I-am-not-having-a-nightmare" thing didn't work this time." He said with a wry grin.
She glared back at him in response.
"Actually I had one of the weirdest dreams ever last night." Sarah whispered looking extremely fearful.
"How'd you escape?" Daniel questioned
"Escape? He let me go." She explained.
The look of confusion on Daniel's face was enough to scare Sarah even more.
"And look at this." Sarah lifted up her burnt left hand, which was wrapped in gauze.
"What happened?" Daniel took Sarah's hand carefully.
"My phone melted in my dream and when I woke up, my phone was ok, but my hand was in horrible shape. I'd guess only 3rd degree burns. Nothing too major, but bad enough that I had to bandage my hand."
Daniel looked at Sarah's hand sadly.
"This is all my fault… If I didn't tell you about my dream, you wouldn't be having a burnt hand."
"That's not all…"
Daniel looked from her hand to her face. Confusion written all over his face.
"Freddy gave me a mission. It was like a warning, or else he'd kill me tonight. I have to tell at least one more person about my dreams." Sarah explained.
"Tell Lisa then. She'll be scared shitless if you were to tell her."
"But she's so brain dead, she'd die in seconds."
"I don't need my new friend dying. Not right now!"
"Who's going to die now?" A perky voice chipped in from behind Daniel
Daniel steps aside to reveal Lisa standing behind him, completely hidden. She was looking at Sarah in total need-to-know-gossip curiosity. With a sigh, Sarah began to explain the entire night of what she had just gone through. Lisa's eye get really wide when she hears about the phone burns, and sees the physical evidence.
"Hey Lisa!" a deep throated shout catches their collective attention.
A hugely muscled weightlifter, wearing blue basketball shorts, a black Slayer t-shirt with bright green hair, in a crew cut, rushes up to them hands hidden behind his back.
"Hello Rick." Lisa mutters, eyeing the creep warily.
Rick smiles a stupid jock grin and brings his hands around from his back. In each hand he has a stapler unfolded and readying to be used as a weapon. Lisa shrinks behind Daniel in like total fright. Rick steps around Daniel and begins to squeeze the staplers repeatedly firing staples at Lisa.
Daniel steps in front of Lisa to protect her only a little too late.
"You stupid fucking jock!!!" A shriek escapes from Lisa.
She steps out from behind Daniel and rushes Rick, ignoring Sarah's attempts to hold her back. She tackles Rick, knocking him over then, straddles his stomach and begins to open handedly slap him across the face repeatedly. Blood flies from his nose and she hits him again and again. Daniel finally picks her up body and then puts her in a full nelson hold.
"LISA!" Sarah shrieks shocked and amused. "Relax girl. Relax. Relax and Daniel will let you go."
Lisa breathing heavily stops struggling against Daniels hold. And her feet touch the ground again and Daniel lets her go.
"I am okay. I just can't stand the thought of flying metal." She shudders looking at the staples on the ground.
"Any particular reason why?" Daniel asks, looking at the shaken teenager in front of him.
"Well when I was a kid, my brother was training to be a clown for extra money. He asked me if I could be his practice dummy. He'd told me that his aim was very good and he wasn't going to hit me just as long as I didn't move. Well, he succeeds in not hitting me with the knives and hits the target I was leaning up on. But one of the clumsier clowns bumped the target as my brother was throwing and well…" Lisa trailed off and showed off her 3 inch long and half an inch wide scar.
"Was that from one of the knives?" Rick asked, stupidly.
"Yes, you moron. Have you not been listening to the story?" Sarah asked Rick.
"Yeah… Kind of… Barely." Rick replied, motioning his head downward at his feet.
"Well now you know about my fear. Let's go to lunch please?" Lisa asked in a hurry.
"Yeah, sure." Daniel replied, holding the door open for Lisa and Sarah.
"You think she'll dream tonight?" Daniel asked, concerned.
"Most likely. She sounded pretty freaked out when I told her, and after the encounter with Rick, I'm pretty sure she'll dream." Sarah replied in a guilty tone.
They continued to talk throughout lunch and went to their separate classes; thinking about Lisa's fate and how it will turn out.