Emma turned into the long corridor, shutting the door behind her and allowing herself to stand alone in the deserted hallway. Her body froze completely as a lone figure walked into the hallway, turning and sneering at her. She felt her blood run cold and her small chest tighten in anticipation.
The figure continued to walk in darkness, whispering along the way, always looming behind a veil of shadows. The small blonde felt her body shake in fear the closer he came. Shutting her brown eyes, she tried to escape from the figure, willing herself to run away, to push open the door behind her and bolt out of Degrassi like her life depended on it…
Slowly, the shadow man stepped out of the darkness, showing his paint covered body and the shiny steel contraption that lay buried in his large hand. Emma gulped, feeling the saliva burn her throat like an acid.
His lips quirked up into a mocking smile, turning her stomach in knots and causing her to lurk forward in disgust. Never before had she felt so violated and mutilated with a single look. She shuttered as he began to speak.
"Hello Emma…" His words were filled with venom and hate, and she tried to find the strength to move away from him, but the shiny metal object tore her focus away. He smiled bitterly and continued to speak, "…Sorry I kissed you."
His apology rung out through her head, and the rest of his words became inaudible. She felt dizzy, but continued to stare at the gun, and his long finger that lay snuggly on the trigger. Her heart leaped as it was brought eye level to her.
"Sorry I kissed you." The words chorused in her head, and tears quickly made their way to her brown eyes. She shut them quickly, breaking the stare she had with the gun. Suddenly, the words died, and it was silent. The frightened girl opened her eyes carefully, but shut them as she saw the weapon in front of her face.
The boy's mouth spread into a greedy smile as his finger pulled back against the trigger.
"SORRY I KISSED YOU!"
"Sorry I kissed you."
Emma eyes shot open as the words echoed in her head. Her small body was soaked in sweat, and her pink mouth was panting in fear and anxiety. She had never, in her life, been so afraid in the middle of a dream before.
She slowly pushed her body up, sitting on the edge of her bed with her feet hanging down below her, touching the cool, concrete ground of the basement. She felt weak, as if she had been walking for miles in a dense fog. A shiver ran down her spine as she remembered those cool, slimy words that had haunted her dream.
Putting her hands to her face, she wept. Every night since Sean had left, it was the same dream, over and over. She was alone in the hallway, without Sean and Toby, and he had found her. She stood there, frozen in fear, and watched as he mocked her, and destroyed her.
He was haunting her dreams; a fate which she concluded was worse then her death.
She needed Sean at Degrassi, and she needed to be protected. She was made herself sick when she realized how weak she truly was. There was no one now, though, who would be willing to put their lives in harms way for her any more.
Sighing, she laid back down on her damp sheets, letting the tears softly roll down her cheeks and wet the pillow under her. Rick was destroying her, even after his death, he somehow managed to come back and kill her from the inside.
Slowly her eye lids fell back, letting two more tears fall from her eyes before sleep finally stole her away from her pain.
"Sorry I kissed you."
Sean sprang up from his bed quickly, panting heavily while looking nervously around his small room. He growled as he lay back down on his now damp bed and pulled his arms above his head, clutching his hair.
The nightmares after the "incident" had gotten worse after he left. Before, it seemed to just replay in his mind, from almost talking Rick down to laying them with his dying body on top of his. It had been bad, but ever since his departure from Degrassi, everything seemed to get worse.
Instead of being with the fragile girl, he watched her suffer at Rick's paint splattered hand. The dream was painful, worse then before, and caused him to wake up screaming and in tears. He couldn't handle watching Emma in so much pain.
He pulled hard on his head, shutting his eyes in pain. Something inside of him wanted to go back to Degrassi, to sit and hold Emma in his arms and to tell her that he felt her pain, something else told him not to. It would hurt Ellie, and Emma was too messed up for anything serious. She had suffered more then he had-then he was- and she couldn't handle a relationship with him right now.
But deep inside of him, he knew that he NEEDED to go back, if only to protect her. She was weak, tragically so, and he was the only one who could protect her. Sure, he could ask Jay to do the same, but he would never put his own life before hers. She couldn't go through that again, he couldn't let her go through that again.
Even if it meant he would have to die to protect her, she wasn't going to suffer like that again.
Sighing, he removed his large hands from his head, bringing them to his sides as he stared up at the blank ceiling above him. Tears came to his eyes as he thought about the beautiful blonde girl he had left. Shaking his head, he turned on his bed and shut his eyes tightly, trying hard to fall back asleep, those four cursed words echoing mockingly in his head.
"Sorry I kissed you."
Spinner sat up, his eyes wide and filled with tears as his heart pounded in his chest. His breathe was short as he tried to figure out what had happened in his dream. True, he hadn't slept peacefully since the shooting, but he never had had a nightmare about Emma Nelson dying.
He had seen it all, from her slightly painted form stepping into the bleak hallway to her eyes shutting for the last time, and it was too much for him. He felt his stomach churn as he recounted on what happened, and ran towards the small bathroom in his room.
He let the contents of his stomach come back up into the porcelain bowl and sighed, letting himself fall back down onto the cool tiles. He panted as he lay there, allowing tears to fall from the brim of his eyes.
It had been his fault that Jimmy was cursed to be wheel chair bound, and he knew that. He thought that was his only burden, and that everything else that had happened was someone else fault. Now it was becoming clear. If he hadn't done anything, Emma wouldn't be in the pain she is.
He lifted his body up, and dragged himself back to his bed, cursing himself as he did so. The tall boy couldn't get the image of the blonde girl out of his head, the way her face contorted when the gun was lifted to it, and the way her eyes widened as she saw his devilish grin. All of which could have been prevented.
Spinner turned on his side, and curled up into fetus position, sobbing into his knees as he continued to think more and more about what had happened. It was his entire fault, Rick's death, Emma's pain, and Jimmy's handicap- everything that had happened that day was his fault, and there was nothing he could do to change it.