Chapter 4: Mourning and Strange Nights

3 Weeks Later

Justin was at his house, where he now spends most of his time at. Whether he is sitting in his bedroom, eating in the kitchen, or watching TV in the living room Justin was always miserable. He became horrifically depressed after what happened that day at Sea World. He was filled with so much agonizing guilt over not saving those innocent people. He couldn't get over it. Why did those people have to die? What did they ever do to deserve such a painful demise? Why didn't they just listen to him? These are the questions that clouded Justin's mind almost everyday. Sometimes there were days where he didn't even want to get out of bed in the morning. He fears that if he does the questions would come back in his head, and so would the memories of that awful day. He keeps going over everything that happened and nothing of it made any sense. He still had no clue as to why saw the Aqua Dome collapse before it actually happened.

It was a regular Thursday afternoon, and a dark cloud began to form. And soon it became a hellacious thunderstorm that spread throughout the San Francisco area. Rain came in as huge droplets of water as they fell down from the sky. Lightning struck down like a force from the gods, and the sound of thunder was loud enough to shake houses. The weather fit perfectly with Justin's moodiness that day.

Justin was sitting on a couch in his living room, staring down at a newspaper that was lying on the coffee table in front of him. The storm caused a blackout in the neighborhood, but he could still read the newspaper top story as clear as day. The head line on it read, "Cause Behind Aqua Dome Disaster Still Unknown." This was true because even after weeks of scuba divers scavenging through the destroyed remains of the Aqua Dome, police investigators still have no idea what could have caused it. But Justin knew exactly what the cause was. He had seen it all in his head the day it happened. He can still remember the screams of the people before they drowned.

Suddenly Justin heard footsteps coming from behind him. He turned to see that it was his mother walking while carrying a bunch of candles.

"Hey kiddo."

She leaned down to kiss him on his forehead.

"Why are you sitting in the dark? Are you converting to vampirism?"

Justin faked a laugh at his mother's poor attempt to make a joke.

"I know you were just faking that."

Justin couldn't help but smile.

"How could you tell?" he asked.

"Because I'm not a dummy."

Justin laughed for real this time, and smiled. It must have been the first time in weeks that he had actually smiled since the accident.

"So what's up?"

"Well I just came here to put some candles. Your father thinks that the power will be out till tomorrow at best."

"Where is dad?"

"Oh he's still at work. He had a few more patients that showed up late. One of them needs a root canal, so he won't be back probably till around ten."

His face went back to its melancholy expression, and faced the newspaper again.

"Oh, okay then."

While she was lighting a few candles she noticed Justin looking sad, and saw that he was looking at the story on the Aqua Dome. She immediately took it away.

"What're you doing?" he asked.

"You can't keep torturing yourself like this it's not healthy!"

"It's just a newspaper mom!"

"You know damn well it's more than that. Do you want to keep reminding yourself of that day? Huh, will that make you feel better?"

"Well it's not like anything else can make me feel better."

"Which is why you shouldn't do this to yourself! You can't keep blaming yourself for something that was entirely not your fault."

"Yes it is mom! It was my fault! I could've saved those people, but I didn't. Instead they all died and I'm the one to blame."

"How could you possibly blame yourself that was totally out of your control? How could have known that something like was going to happen?"

Justin didn't have the heart to tell his mom about how he saw it happen before it did. He couldn't put her through that; making her think that her own son might be crazy. So he didn't tell her the whole truth.

"I know mom it's just….it's just I wish I could've done something better. I wish I could have a second chance to make things right. But I can't, and I never will. And that's the worst part of it all mom. Knowing that nothing I do can fix all the damage that has happened."

His mom looked at him with sympathetic eyes, and sat next to him. She embraced him in a warm, nurturing hug and patted his back.

"Justin for God's sake your just a kid. You're not Superman. You can't always be the hero and save everyone. Bad things just happen out of the blue. Sometimes we can perceive them, and sometimes we don't. It's just how life goes honey. But you can't keep blaming yourself. The guilt will just eat you up inside until there's nothing left. And it hurts me so much to see you in pain."

"I know mom. I know."

"The important thing to remember is that you don't have to stop living. You got your whole life ahead of you. You can do whatever you want as long as you don't give up the will to live and the courage to face life. Do you understand?"

Justin looked at his mom, with tears in his eyes, and smiled. His mom always knew how to make things better.

"I understand."

"Good. Now go wash up for dinner. Luckily we were able to roast the chicken before the power went out."

"Okay. I'll be there in a minute."

His mom smiled, kissed him on his forehead, and left the room. Justin wiped the tears off his face, and just sat there quietly for a second.

All of sudden he felt a cold wind blow up against him. He saw the small flames from the candles disappear from the blowing of the wind. Darkness filled the room, and Justin shivered. His spine tingled from the cold chill. He recognized that chill from another time. And then he remembered that he felt it the day the Aqua Dome collapsed. He remembered how he felt it a few times minutes before he had the vision.

A flash of lightning caused Justin to panic, and his heart began pounding like a drum. He could every loud, fast paced beat as lightning continued to strike.

"Justin," his mother shouted, "are you coming to dinner?"

"Y-Yeah mom," he shyly said. "I-I'll b-be there in a second."

Justin was feeling something and it wasn't just fear of the lightning. This fear was different from the other times he was afraid. This fear felt something more than that. The fear was more than just being scared. To him it was more like some kind presence. It was as if something was in the room with even though he was completely alone. And what's even weirder is that it was the same feeling he felt the day of the accident. It was like something from that day followed him, and has never left for even a second.

That he night he tried to get some sleep, hoping that maybe he could shake off that strange feeling. The loud thunder kept him from falling asleep for at least a few hours, but eventually he got used to it. Soon he was able to sleep peacefully even with the lightning and thunder raging outside.

It was around 3 am, and Justin was still sleeping peacefully.

Suddenly he rapidly opened his eyes and stared blankly at his ceiling. Then his eyeballs started going upwards, and went all the way in the back of his head until there were just these two ghostly white orbs. He slowly got up until he was sitting upwards, staring at the wall in front of him with that same blank emotionless look. He turned and got out of bed. He slowly walked towards his desk, took a few pieces of paper, and a couple of pencils. He walked to the center of the room, dropped the pencils onto the floor, and then kneeled down. He spread all the papers separately across the floor. He took one of the pencils, and started drawing on one of the papers. He sketched out on the paper while his eyes were still looking creepy. He stared at the paper with those blank, white eyes as he was drawing. He kept drawing as lightning continued to strike down.

Creepy, huh? Write some reviews, and the next chapter is where the real fun begins ; )