Part 4

Lucy awoke to a crowd of ornery adults standing in her bedroom. She sat up in bed and looked around confused, trying figure out what happened.

"You're finally awake!" Jeff growled, disgruntled as he crossed his arms and jeered down at her.

She frowned at them all confused. Pouting a little, she held a hand to her mouth as she looked around at all the people in her room. "What happened?"

Marissa stepped forward. "That's what we wanted to ask you. We all woke up when we heard you suddenly scream bloody murder. We all rushed in here as quickly as we could and saw you whimpering and tossing around in bed. What happened? Was it a night terror?"

Lucy frowned at them, unsure of what to say. She glanced down at her white sheets, remembering all the blood that dripped down and stained them before. She touched her face and hair, not feeling anything out of the ordinary. Then finally, she reached up and touched her neck. She flinched a little, expecting the pain to be there from the man that strangled her, but to her surprise, her neck was fine too. She looked back up at all the annoyed faces and lowered her head. Was it all a nightmare? It couldn't have been when everything felt so real...

Finally, Lucy sighed and nodded her head in shame. "Yes ma'am… I had a nightmare." She accepted their words, not sure how to explain to them all about a man breaking into her room and trying to strangle her to death. Plus, it's not like they would listen to a small girl's stories anyway. They hardly believed her from the truths she said anyway.

Marissa let out a long groan and held her head. "Jeez… Well at least you're ok."

Jeff rolled his eyes and glanced back at the group of visitors. "Come on everyone, let's go back to sleep. It was a false alarm. One I wouldn't care for at four in the morning…"

Everyone grumbled and nodded, groggily heading back to their rooms. Sally and the other kids gave Lucy the stink eye, upset she had disturbed their peaceful sleep for nothing. They stuck out their tongues and made faces before leaving themselves when their parents dragged them off.

Lucy frowned down at the bed, a little angry at herself for causing a ruckus and disturbing everyone. She glanced over when she heard Jeff mumble to Marissa.

"It's HER kid again. Probably did this to get attention to herself…" He trailed off as they left her room.

"I would too if I were that poor child. She doesn't get enough of it as is." Marissa murmured and closed the door after her, leaving Lucy alone again in the dark.

Lucy hugged her legs to her body, frowning sadly as she buried her face in her knees and tried to hold back tears. She whimpered quietly, careful not to wake the others again as she sat there in the silence. A quiet crackle and flutter tore her from her sobs. She sniffled and looked up. She saw something off in the corner of her room and stood up to go check it out. She sniveled and wiped away her tears as she picked up her notebook.

'My drawings…' She thought picking up the bulk of them and stepping back to her bed. She plopped down and began to skim through them. When she flipped to a picture she liked, she smiled a little and giggled, feeling her drawings begin to assuage the pain and sadness. She thought about all the good times she had drawing. No one could yell at her or hurt her when she was scribbling down the figments of her imagination. It was the small sanctuary that no interloper could break in to.

She stopped when she got to her first blank page and sighed. 'Looking at my pretty pictures always calms me down.' She beamed to herself and started closing the book when she noticed one of the pages was slightly torn out of the binding.

Pinching the out of place paper, she carefully opened her notebook to the strange page. Her eyes widened at the awkwardly placed drawing. It was almost right in the middle of her sketchbook; out of order compared to her other sketches. But this insular picture wasn't what caught Lucy's attention the most; it was what was drawn…

'A cave…!' She thought shocked to see the same drawing she remembered from her nightmare. She stared at it and lightly ran her fingers over the crimpled surface. Whoever had drawn this pressed the pencil roughly into the paper, levying and indenting the scratch marks so much it pressed through to the next couple pages.

She blinked in astonishment. She quickly jumped off her bed and ran for the small mirror on her left wall. She saw small finger marks on her neck, not enough to bruise her, but clear enough to see each finger's outline. She rubbed her neck in amazement as she smiled in slight satisfaction. Her nightmare wasn't a nightmare at all. It was real. But this didn't help matters at all. She was right about the man sneaking into her room, but where did he go and why?

She shot her gaze over to the picture and stared it down. 'The man said something about being trapped in a cave. Maybe he's there.' She nodded and sped over to the sketchbook. 'Momma won't like it if he keeps visiting me every night, and I can't ignore him if he hurts me. So I gotta find him and tell that guy to stay out of my room so Momma doesn't get mad!'

Lucy furrowed her brows and began to change back into her raspberry dress she wore yesterday. She slipped on some shoes and a jacket since it was still cool at night. Walking over to her nightstand, she grunted as she pushed the heavy furniture over to the window as a makeshift ladder. She climbed on to her bed, holding her sketchbook and pencil close to her chest as she carefully scanned the large jump she had to make. Furrowing her brows in concentration, she nodded and stepped back to her back wall and took a run and jump. She gasped as she felt the air fly by her from her leap of faith. As soon as it came, the sensation left and she landed her two feet on the wood, her shoes clanking softly from her land. Grinning at her accomplishment, she placed down her sketchbook and bit her pencil between her teeth as she fumbled with the window. When she opened it, she felt the cool breeze blow her hair back and send shivers up her skin. Lucy picked up her notebook by the edge, not noticing the single page fall out of the bind and slowly flutter down to the floor.

She managed to throw her leg over the window ledge and then half her body. She was almost out! Lucy clutched on to the edge tightly, still holding her notebook with one hand, and looked down at the ground below. It was so high to her, looking down it seemed like she was dangling stories above the ground. She swallowed heavily and noticed a bush sitting right below her window. Closing her eyes, she mentally reassured herself it wouldn't hurt and she let go.

The bush crackled and crunched underneath Lucy's body as it caught her. She smiled when she didn't feel too hurt, besides a few sticks and prickles here and there. She hopped off and dusted herself off before running off to the back of the house. 'I need to find that man.' She reminded herself as she ran around the side of the house, heading towards the path she noticed yesterday. She glanced down at her sketchbook and nodded determinedly as the moonlight shone down on the quiet land, lighting her path as she approached the eerie forest alone.