Hey! Here's a chapter that's totally dedicated to a crucial part of Bella's weird, crazy dream! Enjoy!
P.S. Some of the ideas/themes came, once again, from The Wild Things by Dave Eggers. And I don't own that.
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Chapter Thirty-Two: Vampire Are Breakable
My Weird, Crazy Dream – Part VI
As told in 1st Person by Bella Carson
Well, I can't really tell Max what the plan is, because the wild things could be listening. And if they hear me, I know they won't be very happy. They'll probably get so angry, they'll try to eat me, like they did in the first part of my dream.
So all I can do is go to bed by the fire in the fort, troubled by the huge creatures surrounding my brother and I. I'm having a dream within a dream (ha, that sounds weird) about Max sailing in his boat when I jolt awake.
"Wake up, everyone! Wake up! Get out here!"
It's Carol. He's acting really, really strange. Like he's scared of something.
Everyone gathers to where Carol is standing. He's looking up at the sky. "It's not there! It's supposed to be right there!"
"What is?" Ira asks sleepily.
"The sun! It's not there!"
The wild things look at each other like Carol's gone insane. I glance at Max, who's become considerably paler…
And then I remember. That one day he told us that he'd learned in school that the sun was going to die someday. I wasn't here when it happened, but I'm pretty sure that Max passed this information on to Carol. Not the smartest idea.
"I think it's still nighttime," Douglas gently explains.
"No! I've been up all night! It's morning!" Carol insisted.
"But…but it's still dark out," Alexander said.
"That's the point! It's morning, but where's the sun?"
"Maybe it's late?" suggested Douglas.
"Or hiding from you," Judith mumbles.
"That's stupid! The sun is never late! You know what I think? It's…it's dead!"
Oh, no. Now things are gonna get ugly.
"That's not gonna happen for a very, very long time!" Max said, but I can see him starting to worry that the sun really is dead. (I don't know...it's a dream, so for all I know, something crazy like that really did happen.)
"This is all your fault, Max!" Carol shouts. "You're a terrible king!"
"He's not a king," Douglas says quietly.
Carol whips around. "What?"
"He's not a king," Douglas repeats.
I stare at Douglas in disbelief. Why is he doing this now? He's just making things worse. I make my way over to Max, just in case I have to intervene.
"You're lying!" Carol says.
"No, I'm not. He's just a boy pretending to be a wolf pretending to be a king."
Stop, Douglas, I plead in my mind. Too bad I don't have telepathy or whatever.
"You're lying! Everyone's lying! AAAAGGGGHHHHH!" Carol runs at Douglas and rips his arm right off! Instead of blood coming out, sand pours forth.
"Carol, look what you did!" Douglas says. He doesn't sound very angry at all. "That was my favorite arm!"
Carol looks confused, but that's quickly replaced with a look of dawning comprehension as he glares at Max. "You did this!"
"Me?" I can feel Max start to tremble beside me.
"Is this what you wanted?" Carol asks forcefully. "Did you want the sun to die? Did you want to make secret doors? Did you want a bloodsucker to come to the island?"
At this remark I can't help myself. I bare my fangs and arch protectively over my younger brother. No one calls me a bloodsucker and gets away with it.
"Did you want Douglas's arm to get ripped off?" He's acting like Max actually did that, and that makes me angry. That was all him, the big buffoon!
"It's not my fault," Max pips up unhelpfully.
"What, so it's my fault, then? Everything you did, it's my fault?" Carol growls as he inches towards us.
"No—"
"That's what you think, isn't it?" He comes towards us, but I get in front of Max before he gets there.
"Don't come any closer, Carol," I warn.
"Get out of the way, leech," he snarls. "I'd like a few words with our king."
"I'm not letting you near him." I have no idea why I'm so brave. Inside, I'm screaming at myself, telling myself I need to get out of there because Carol looks like he's about to eat someone. But I can't leave Max alone with these beasts. It's too dangerous.
"You'd better move, or I'll throw you out of here. Or worse." He shows his teeth and growls deeply.
"I don't care what happens to me," I say, baring my fangs right back at him. "You're not going to hurt Max."
"Who says I was gonna hurt him?" Carol takes another step, but I stand my ground.
"Isn't it obvious?"
"So it's obvious that I'm a big, destructive monster?" Carol says, his voice rising.
"Bella, get out of here," Douglas instructs me. He's still holding the stump that used to be his arm, and he looks deadly serious.
"No," I answer Carol. "It's obvious that you wanna do more than just 'talk' to my brother."
"Oh, and that's any different from me being a monster?" Carol looks very angry now.
"Bella, get out of here," Douglas repeats, more urgently. "Take Max and run."
I want to. No one knows how bad I want to do what Douglas is telling me to do. But I know that I can't back down from Carol, no matter how scary he is. I have to do this. He needs to know that what he's doing is not okay with me.
"You have to calm down, Carol," I insist. "You're getting out of control!"
This pushes him over the edge. He raises his claws, but not before I push Max out of the way. I feel sharp, shooting pain all over my arms, and suddenly in my back. I'm on the floor, sticks and twigs raining down from where I hit the wall. My arms are a different color. They're redder.
Carol is still breathing hard, but eventually calms down. He walks out of the fort, looking frightened and upset. Douglas goes off to fix his arm, and the others leave, as well, for reasons unknown. Max and I are the only ones left.
I manage to sit up, and try to hide the pain on my face. Max doesn't need to see that I've been weakened.
He sits beside me and bursts into tears. "This…is all…my fault…" he sobs.
"No, it's not," I say soothingly. I want to hug him, but I'm afraid of getting blood all over his wolf suit. Bandages magically appear beside me (Hello! I'm in a dream, remember?) and I quickly wrap up my arms.
"We need to leave, Bella…" he says quietly through his tears. "I have a feeling that if we stay, Carol's gonna do something bad to everyone."
"I've got it covered," I say, telling him my plan. "When they're all sleeping, we can sneak away in your boat and go home."
"No, we can't," he says.
"What do you mean?"
"The boat got away." He looks at me sadly. "The knot wasn't tied properly. I don't know where it went."
That would happen to me, I think angrily. Dumb knots.
Ugh, I can't believe this! So we're stuck here. I mean, I can run fast, but not over the water. (No, not even in my dreams.) And it's not like I'd magically know which way to go. (With my luck, we'd end up on some crazy island…well, crazier than this one, anyway.)
"What are we gonna do?" Max starts to cry again, and begins to sob into my shoulder.
"Don't worry, Max," I say, hugging him gingerly. "We'll figure something out."
