Dreams are nothing more than a figment of the imagination. Sometimes going into overdrive when a particular day inspires images of bleeding necks and ghoulish faces with teeth rotting out. Dreams are the things a person wants to say, but can't.

So they sleep to express what they want to say to the rest of the world. A world which always seems to be teeming with people asleep. People holding back what they think.

Ally's eyes fluttered open for the third time that night, but this time, she wasn't upset, for she was met with the melodic laughter of her mother, coming from outside her door and down the hall. Ally didn't move, not knowing how her mother would react if she saw her. So instead, she closed her eyes again, and listened to Dustin's booming laughter and her mother's angel song mingling together. She imagined her father sitting on the corner sofa, which had holes where Quickly had tried to dig in, smirking at his wife and son.

They would be laughing at Dustin's comical antics, him cracking jokes that weren't really funny and them laughing because they thought the jokes were. Ally knew his secret though. He just restated whatever was being said in an obvious and sarcastic manner. She had to admit, she did find it funny, and had learned well from him, being able to hold her own in a humoristic conversation.

She was envious of Dustin. He didn't have to dream. He was living a daydream, always able to say what was on his mind. She was envious because her mother was in the living room with him and he had been home a matter of hours, and Ally had been trying to wake her up for a month. Trying to shake her out of her constant daze.

She wanted to feel close to them. She wanted to be her mom's baby girl again. Wrapping herself in a blanket, she stepped off her bed, ignoring the fact the Quickly wasn't with her.

That dog loved Dustin more than her.

She positioned herself against her thick metal door, atop a pile of dirty clothing. She leaned her head on the door, and imagined herself out there, with them, next to her mother.

She could go out.

But Dustin hadn't seen them in over a month. It was his time.

Story of my life.

Ally woke up the next morning with a crick in her neck, after having slept on it at an awkward angle all night. Her head arched in what she imagined to be a graceful curve.

Ally looked up at her alarm. The flashing red 12:00 indicated that it had been unplugged last night. Abbey's eyelids slowly closed to create a protective barrier from the alarms visual voice.

It was screaming at her.

The deafening silence of the clock's scream finally forced her eyes to emerge from their shields and fend for themselves against the bleak light filtering through her pink curtains.

Ally bolted up to her feet when she realized what she had just seen. Outside light.

It was mid-October. The sun wouldn't awake for another three hours.

Widening her eyes, she made eye contact with the timeless face of the life sucking bane of her existence. Unplugged.

Her glasses were on the window sill, across her bed, as always. But unlike normal, they were visible without the help of her phone flashlight. Frantically searching for her phone without her lenses on, everything was a blur.

It felt like she was in a box when she didn't have her glasses on. Without her glasses, she couldn't see past a foot and a half, creating a box of space where she could see things verses everything that was around her being a blur.

Her hand came in contact with her small rectangular frames and she slammed them on her face, immediately seeing her phone. She jabbed her finger into the home button and it came to life, beeping at her that it had low battery.

"Ally, what are you doing?"

Ally had an apple hanging out of her mouth. She had showered in record time and threw on some clothes off of her floor, ready to hitch hike the entire way to school, knowing her dad would be at work.

Grabbing the apple, and shifting her textbook ridden book bag higher on her shoulder, she said, "My alarm didn't go off this morning. I have to go to school."

Her father shook his head a rolled his eyes, a disappointed frown permanently etched into his weathered and rough face.

"It is Saturday." She cringed at how stupid she felt. Mentally going over the past week and counting the days, she nodded in agreement.

Why would he still be home if it was a school day? Stupid.

"Sorry."

He glared at her. "Go do your homework. You don't do anything anyway. And then clean your room." His eyes traveled the length of her body, his frown setting even deeper into his face. "It's disgusting. And get you crap together. There was a brief power outage last night. What if there had actually been school? But you are too stupid to think of that, aren't you."

Ally bit her tongue, stepping out of the way to let him through the front door. Her eyes burned with months of unshed tears, but she blinked them back, refusing to let him beat her resolve while he watched.

He slammed the thick door, stomping outside like the child he was. She flinched.

Ally sat her bag down on the table, and began to remove her jacket and hat. Unzipping her jacket and then folding it into her arms as if to protect it, she walked back into her room. She closed the door, careful not to make too much noise, seeing as she had heard Alex's snores from across the hall. He must have been here late and didn't want to drive all the way back to base that late.

She slid down it, bowing her head, she let the sobs rip through her body, losing the bet she had made last August to make it till Christmas without a breakdown. It was silly really. He hadn't really been that mean to her. And yet it hurt.

Her shoulders were shaking, but she kept her screams silent, not wanting to disturb her mother or Dustin.

Her tears spread down the sides of her face and into her sideburns and down the sides of her cheeks.

There is no reason for this, Ally.

She nodded her head, agreeing blindly again. She squeezed her eyes shut and reminded herself that many people had it much worse. She was just being ungrateful. The sun would shine soon.

And besides, to appreciate sunshine, one has to know what total darkness looks like.

Ally sat there for hours, running her fingers across the old messages she had written behind her door. She used to pray her parents wouldn't find them, but always hoped they would. Eventually she had scribbled them out with a thick black sharpie.

There was one she had left. She had left it as a reminder. A reminder of where she had been, and where she was now.

It was a simple word. One word that caused so much pain, yet so much hope.

Help.

She remembered when she wrote that. She had been twelve years old. Her mother had just begun to really fall into her depression. Ally hadn't notice, for her mother had been depressed for her entire life. But this was different. She didn't want to eat, only wanted to sit and watch TV. She wanted to sleep. It had been her very first Orchestra concert at her middle school.

She came running home, slipping all over the glass like roads, excited to begin getting ready for it. Her mother had been sitting there, on her peeling pleather recliner, watching the TV like a trained dog or a robot.

She hadn't acknowledged Ally's arrival with even a blink, her eyes trained on that screen.

Ally kept smiling though, excited beyond her wits.

"Mommy? Are you coming to my concert tonight?"

Ally didn't really know what she was expecting other than an "Of course, honey." But her mother's eyes had stayed there, on the screen, unflinchingly focused.

"I can't. I have a headache."

Ally could feel her smile drop a small amount but she did her best to keeps it plastered on.

"Oh, that's okay. Feel better Mommy. Can you still curl my hair?"

Ally's mother didn't respond. Ally kept her smile on, scared that it was happening again. She walked into her room and closed the door, seeing her black and white dress splayed across her perfectly made bed, her room smelling of oranges. Her room shook.

Ally would've left her room to greet her father, but the voices came first. The screaming.

And just like that, her life started to repeat itself. Happening over and over again.

She wrote that one word to moment she realized this would be her forever. She forever was to be a peace maker, a wall, a room where they put mental patients.

She was never to be anything more than a buffer zone.

She didn't like to remember her life like that, though. She liked to remember how her father used to always have a fire going in their yard, and they would be outside in T-shirts by the house height flame, no matter how cold it was. She liked to remember the way Dustin and she would write letters in the night using flaming sticks, fresh out of the hot fire. And the way her mother used to always bake casseroles and have dinner ready. And how her father was proud of her. And how her skill on the stupid little violin was acknowledged. Her concerts were a time when they smiled and were proud to be sitting in the audience, and it wasn't a big treat to have her mother there.

She liked to only remember the happy bits.

She liked to think that she was molded by them. That the shadowy areas of her childhood had no effect on how she became, and was now.

But people can think things.

It doesn't make it true.

Ally looked at the word one last time in the form it was in. She turned her head and her eyes came in contact with her Leatherman. Swallowing hard, she grabbed it. Fear filled her. But she knew it was time.

She unfolded it just like she had done those many times before. Cutting down trees for marshmallow sticks, having swards fights with Alex, and using it a protection, sleeping with it under her pillow. She ran her finger along the length of the back of the sharp serrated knife.

Closing her eyes briefly, she brought the knife down on the soft surface and slashed, hitting the sheet rock.

No more will I be helpless.

Ally walked through the halls, her hair loose and swishing back and forth, brushing her shoulders and tangling itself in her large hoop earrings. She was painfully aware of what she was doing, hoping a praying they would buy her excuse. She had her dark blue coat on, zipped and adjusted to her liking when she made it to the front desk. She acted indifferent to the women behind the tall counter, acting as if she did this every day. Ignoring their murmurs of confusion, she pushed open the front doors to the school. She had timed it right. The Jr. High kids would be in lunch right then, so at least she could pretend she was an unfortunate high school student that got stuck in their lunch because her schedule wouldn't permit a normal day.

Snow was swirling in the sky, beating down on the ground, creating a fresh white blanket. Her lips quirked but she kept walking. Where she was going was no smiling matter. Clutching the handle to her violin case, she reminded herself that this was her way out.

The night before, she had looked up exactly how much a plane ticket to get out of there would cost, and decided it would be a better investment to get a car and leave. It would last longer than a document that told the airport she was allowed to buy overpriced McDonalds in safety.

She trudged through the snow, the view of her school was obscured by the rows of houses she was walking through. Trying to make out the house numbers on the sides of the buildings, she finally came to house 376B.

"Here goes nothing." Her breath came out in a white puff, her nose was red, and she thought she probably looked like a homeless person with the way her hair had deflated when it had hit the cold.

She pushed the doorbell on the right side of the door, its little orange light disappearing momentarily. She waited, dancing from one foot to the other, holding her violin to her body.

A thin woman with a blonde soccer mom haircut answered to door decked out in heels and full makeup. "You must be Ally."

Ally didn't miss the woman's obvious sneer that was hard to ignore, but Ally managed a smile anyway. "Yes ma'am."

With one more full body scan and an eye roll, the woman gestured Ally in.

"He's in there. And for goodness sakes, for what we are paying you, you'd better be good."

Ally nodded in appreciation. "I won't let you down. Thank you."

The bus slid to a stop perfectly perpendicular to her road, only slightly throwing her forward. Cars slid down the road, trying to stop and adhere to the stop sign attached to the left side of the bus, but have a hard time.

Ally stood up, slightly confused at the reason the bus driver decided to stop in time but not wanting to question it. She saw Austin look back at her and shrug when their eyes met. They shuffled off the bus, hearing the kid who usually got off with them due to how far forward they were complain that this was an unscheduled delay. Ally rolled her eyes as she cautiously stepped off the bus, scared the bus driver was going to take off while she was half on the bus in an attempt to rip her limb from limb with the big yellow beast. The bus took off, not waiting for Austin to cross the road, leaving the two of them standing there.

"What's his problem?"

Ally wanted to punch Austin in that moment. Was he that ignorant? Oblivious? That bus driver hated her.

Ally didn't want to yell at him, so she turned and just started walking away.

With two strides on his part, he had caught up. "What's up with you, Miss Black and Blue?"

Ally cringed, having forgotten her nose. It hadn't done anything but hurt all weekend, which was leading her to believe that the nurse was just a jerk.

"Don't poke fun when you're the one who broke it."

Austin's smirk lifted. "It's only 'cause you were trying to kiss me."

Ally stopped in her tracks. His comment wasn't really the problem. She was just angry. "Kiss you, huh?" She let out sarcastically.

He nodded enthusiastically. "You see, the way I figure it, why else would you be leaning in so close to me."

"Kiss you?"

He closed his eyes and nodded, as if exceedingly proud of himself for coming up with this theory.

"Wow. And what did you say? That I was the one who wanted attention. Well, look at you know. You're practically begging for it."

She was aware the moment his face changed, and she immediately regretted not going along with his fanciful stories. "I don't beg, Ally."

She turned to him, her eyebrows raised high, her hands flying, gesturing up and down at his body. "What is this then?"

Austin rolled his eyes. "Human interaction, Ally. Is that unfamiliar to you?"

"I have plenty of human interaction, but generally I try to surround myself with people who can hold an intellectual conversation."

"I am not an idiot. I am actually pretty smart, you know. If you'd just take a chance and listen to one thing I had to say." Austin followed her when she stomped off. She stopped stomping and tried to regain her usual straight necked confidant walk when she thought about how her dad would stomp off when he was mad. She didn't want to look like that. Ever.

Her legs were working hard, keeping her going at a fast gait, while he was leisurely strolling beside her at an infuriatingly slow and calm pace.

"What do you want?!" Her voice raised to a shill screech. "Why are you following me home?"

"Oh, that's easy, Dez said he was going to be there."

She couldn't deny that she was disappointed that this wasn't for her, but once again, and like always, was for her brother.

"Really?" She couldn't hide the change in her tone of voice. "He didn't tell me."

"That's because he is my best friend."

Ally looked at her phone, noting that it was 2:21. She smiled, turning it face down on the scratched tables in the library at school. Her thick SAT prep book, sat in front of her, untouched, her hand poised to open it having stopped in midair.

You have GOT to be kidding me.

And there, in all his football Jersey glory, was Austin, on the floor, wrestling with another primitive caveman. Scoffing she slammed her book open.

He had stayed at her house until almost ten the night before, laughing with HER brother, sitting on HER stop on the couch, eating HER cheesy popcorn, and, most enraging of all, wiping his cheese covered fingers on HER bright green fluffy pajama pants. She had given up and gone to her room, sliding down her door, running her fingers over that word. She listened to them laugh, smiling when she heard his soft laugh in comparison the Dustin's laugh that carried the whole world with it, making everyone laugh with him.

She had woken up there too.

And now, after all day of resenting him and rejoicing that she was staying after school and wouldn't have to see him on the bus, he was here, in HER library.

She flipped a page so quickly and roughly that it tore out halfway, leaving a sad, dangling, wrinkled, and mangled paper left behind. But worst of all was the noise it had made.

Everybody was looking at her. She sat there, feeling like a deer in head lights, with her lips pursed and eyes trained on the ceiling, unwavering in their attempt to block out all the stares she was getting.

This can't be happening.

He sat across the room when he and the barbarians finish their animalistic game on the floor of the place that was supposed to hold sacred and treasured silence.

His blonde head stuck out like a sore thumb. Everybody else in the library was either a brunette, like herself, or had black hair. Those were usually the hair colors of nerd, right?

He was bent over a book, eating a nectarine, the thick juices running down his arms. He didn't even bother to wipe at it. She shuddered at the thought of having those juices running down her arm. Creating a sticky puddle.

She realized her face was scrunched up is disgust when his eyes flickered up to her in a way that seems to practiced, like he was just checking up on her. Making sure she was still there.

When he saw what she was scrunched up over, he smiled and shook the chewed up fruit at her as if celebrating.

That's nasty.

Nevertheless, she felt a smile stretch across her face, beaming at him.

You're being stupid, Ally.

He took another gnawing bite off of the sad fruit and stood to toss it. When his back was turned, she gathered up her stuff as quickly as she could. As she walked out of the library, she could feel his eyes on her.

But, she decided, he had to be the first to go. The little crush she had retained most of her life had to be purged first. So, if she were to heal, he had to go first. Longing could kill a person.

This was no time for that.

Ally was walking through the housing, making her way to the base gate, clutching her violin to her chest, hating herself for staying after. Three miles isn't that far, but at below freezing temperatures and the stress of a violin in the cold left her exhausted to moment she stepped out of the school.

She snow was creating trails where her feet dragged slowly through it. Her earphones were blasting music that she didn't even really like, trying to block out the constant noise in her head.

The houses all looked the same. The dull tan color boring itself into her retinas, her walk out of base housing being one of the most boring and cold of her life.

A car pulled up next to her, and she immediately recognized the green jeep. Smiling, she jumped in, beaming and throwing her stuff on the floor. "Finally, I thought I was never-." She stopped midsentence and scowled when she saw who was driving the car. "Why do you have my brother's car?"

Austin smiled. "He gave it to me. He just bought a truck." His head ticked to the side. "Didn't he tell you?"

This was going to be mine.

Abby's eyes traveled along the dashboard and up onto the cracked windshield. When Dustin had bought it when he was sixteen, he promised Ally she could have it when he upgraded to "the next best thing."

"He gave it to you." She was nodded and looking out the window, her face contorted in what she imagined to be that equivalent of constipated. "Typical."

Austin smiled slightly. "He told me when he got it that I could have it when he upgraded."

Her mouth agape and her eyes rolling, she sighed.

"He told me the same thing." She watched his expression as it changed to confusion.

"Oh."

She shook her head and smiled at him, trying to hide how she always felt when it came to Dustin and Austin's friendship. "It's okay! At least now I can be as late as I want to the bus and he will keep waiting for you, since you will be driving."

He shook his head and smiled at her. "Yes, Ally. I suppose you can."

Bitter jealousy. That is what she felt when she saw them together.

Absolute, bitter, all-consuming, mind numbing jealousy.

HEY GUYS!

Alright, as you probably can tell, I am a couple days early with this chapter. But I was so excited I couldn't hold up! It isn't the best one, but the next one is based off what happens here, and OMG I am so much excite!

I am going to try to stick to posting every other Saturday, but if the inspiration hits, I may post sooner.

P.S. If Mikaela is reading this, DON'T JUDGE. I KNOW I SAID I WOULDN'T BUT SHE NEEDS SOME GOSH DARN CHARACTER DEVELOPMENT SO I WILL IF NEED BE. Love you!

R&R guys!