CHAPTER 13: The Dream
As soon as we had arrived home, my mother called Mareya's parents. In five minutes, she had been picked up.
"Bye, Elyssia! Mareya see you soon!" the Magnet-Shroom called out as she and her parents started walking to her home.
Then, my mother turned to me.
"Elyssia Antonia, you are in big trouble young lady!" she screeched.
"S-sorry . . ." I mumbled.
"We heard that you killed two of your classmates in the graveyard! Did you know that we could call the police and have you carted off into prison?" my father roared.
"Umm . . . try moving to Ottawa for that. Things are still standing strong over there . . ." I giggled nervously, earning a barberslap from my mother.
"YOU IDIOT! DOUBLE DAMN YOU TO HELL! DID YOU KNOW THAT OUR FAMILY REPUTATION IS SLOWLY NEARING THE BRINK OF SHAME?! FIRST IT WAS MY MISTAKE, AND NOW IT'S YOURS?! I OUGHTA BEAT YOU WITH A WHIP RIGHT WHERE YOU SIT, YOUNG MISSY! YOU COULD HAVE BEEN KILLED IN THAT GRAVEYARD!" she shrieked.
"Look, both of you. I absolutely did not mean what I did in that damn graveyard! My instincts just went outta control! Like, honest to God!" I shot back.
"Excuse me?! And for the one millionth time, you hurt somebody because your powers went outta control! I should've let you die when you were less than a year old! If only I knew how this'd end!" my mother growled.
"Your mother is right!" my father snarled as he went into the kitchen, only to emerge with the same wooden spoon that he used to beat me not very long ago.
"Oh God spare me . . ." I muttered.
Next thing I knew, my father was beating my leaves, head and stem with the spoon, while lecturing me about "the sanctity of plant life", "the importance of controlling my emotions" and "how I should look into the pit to see how deep it is". At long last, my father calmed down.
"You want me dead, then I'll be dead." I muttered as I tramped up the stairs.
I thought about going into the bathroom again to kill myself, but then I felt the necklace around the top of my stem tighten around me as if to say, "No, you will regret this." After that, I just decided to go into my room and sleep, only to wonder how I would deal with what God has planned for the next day. Then I had the weirdest dream that I had ever had in my entire life.
I was woken up by Aunt Mary at an unusually late time. I asked,
"Auntie, where the fricking hell are we gonna go at this hour?"
"School, of course!" my aunt answered indifferently.
But to my immense surprise, she clapped her leaves and we were right there in the schoolyard of St. Henry CS at eight in the evening. Or so the big clock out front said. It was chilly. I never had a hard time dealing with cold weather in my twelve years in this world, but strangely enough, my blood seemed to run cold, causing me to shiver violently.
"This is weird!" I shouted all of a sudden.
"School starts twelve hours earlier, Aunt Mary! Are you sure about this? Because ―"
Before I could finish, my not-so-dear aunt had held a knife right in front of my face. I thought, Wow, where the hell did she get that ish? At any rate, I knew it was a silent way to say, "Keep your big, fat, fricking mouth shut or else I'll kill you with this knife that's thirsty for blood, and feed your bloody remains to the zombies and their lapdogs." I nodded in understanding before the glowing Plantern swivelled straight around and started marching towards the door.
The door opened as soon as she touched it, which struck me as odd, considering the fact that the door could only be opened from the inside of the building.
"In! Quick!" she barked.
I followed, but instead of a hallway, I saw a dark room, with only Aunt Mary illuminating the room . . . to a small extent.
"Let there be light!" she said loudly.
And there was light.
That also struck me as odd, because if I remember correctly, that's how light came into the world. And if I remember correctly, Aunt Mary is not God.
In any case, I saw Ash and a zombie with a ridiculously large head in the room. Peater was also in the room, while being guarded by a zombie that had a great resemblance to a Nazi.
"Nice trick we played there, eh?" the zombie with the large head asked.
"Well, what else could it be, Master Zomboss? Bad?" Ash snorted.
The big-headed zombie who was apparently Zomboss raised an eyebrow.
"Mebbe you're right, Ash. Thanks for reminding me." he mumbled.
"Ho, ho! Nice one you got there, master!" Aunt Mary tittered.
Master? Ash in here? Then it all came flying together. These two were evil.
"So you've got the lassie in here, Mary. All right then. It's showtime!" Zomboss whispered menacingly.
He stood up and walked towards me.
"Do you want paradise for the rest of your life, dear Lyssie?" he asked, taking my face into his rotting hands.
"Well . . . I don't exactly know, sir . . ." I mumbled.
Zomboss gasped.
"You don't know if you want paradise? You don't know if you want to be able to control your emotions? You don't know if you want to be greater than God?" he asked incredulously.
"Well . . . I guess that it'd be great to be able to control my emotions . . ." I mumbled.
"Well then. You can have the world at your roots, but on one condition." Zomboss whispered.
For some reason, I did not realize that I was listening to a zombie.
"What?" I asked.
"I want you to separate yourself from Peater, and from every ounce of this sickly lovelife." Zomboss answered.
"Umm . . ." I muttered.
"Don't, Elyssia! Don't!" Peater shouted, earning a whack from the zombie guarding him.
Before I could answer, a needle had been carried over to me.
"This will help you, Elyssia. This will help." Ash whispered, though for some reason, his image was flickering like a holograph's.
"F-fine . . ." I mumbled as I looked straight at the needle, putting me in a trance.
"Touch it!"
"Painless!"
"No need to be afraid!"
"Puncture a hole right into your leaf!"
"You aren't afraid of Paradise, Elyssia."
"Are you?"
"Are you a bloody coward?"
Those were the voices that danced around in my head as I brought my leaf closer and closer. Just as the needle looked as if it was about to jump right into my leaf, Peater let out a yell . . .
. . . And I woke up. That necklace that I could never remove seemed to be winding and unwinding itself around the top of my stem as if to say, "Go back, Elyssia. Go back!" I closed my eyes and sighed. I remembered times. They were good times and bad times that I spent with Peater. They made the balance of my decision go up and down. When finally, I had made my decision.
"I'm going." I said out loud.
As I checked the tiny clock on my wall, I saw that it was 4 in the morning. "I'll leave . . ." I mumbled as I looked on to the tiny, glowing flecks of pink that were the first signs of the break of day.