Out of My Nightmares

I was running. Down the hallway. Past my locker. I turned. I tried to see it but at the same time I was too scared to look. I kept running. It was still behind me. 

“RILEY!!!” 

I jolted awake and jumped out of bed. My feet got caught on my blankets and I fell flat on my face. 

“Oof!” My mom poked her head into my room as I refilled my lungs with their air. 

“Sweetie, you’re going to be late for school.” Mom tossed clean laundry on my bed and left. 

“Thanks Mom.” I said, still sprawled out on the floor. I glanced over at my clock and would have jumped to my feet had I not been indisposed. I had twenty minutes to catch my bus!!! I wriggled faster to escape the confines of my bed. 

“RILEY!” My mom called again. 

“COMING!” I screamed, pulling on the first pair of clothes I saw. I ran downstairs, took my lunch from Mom’s hands, took my bag from the chair, and took my shoes to the door. 

“Bye Mom!” 

“Bye sweetie!” Mom called back. She was busy helping Bobby, my younger brother, get ready for his school day. 

“Bye Dad.” I gently tapped the top of a picture frame and blew a kiss at it before closing the front door behind me. It had been two years since Dad died suddenly from a stroke and I still felt his absence in everything. Like Sundae Sundays. We’re not the only family in the world to come up with Sundae Sunday, but it felt special to us. We would walk to our favorite ice cream parlor and always order the same thing. I loved the Strawberry Sundae. We would eat our ice cream at the park or, in the winter, inside, playing with the parlor’s chess sets. I no longer play chess or eat ice cream, unless it’s one of those boxed cream popsicles or fruit juice pops that are more food coloring then juice. I definitely can no longer stand the taste or smell of “fake” strawberries without feeling nauseous. The school therapist says that it’s a grief thing, not an allergy, but I’m not so sure. I’ve never heard of someone grieving through vomit. 

“Wait!” I ran to my bus stop just milliseconds before the bus driver was going to drive off. 

“Sleep in again?” The bus driver, Mr. Ortega, asked. 

“You know me!” I said cheerfully. I stepped past him and moved to the back of the bus. I took a seat near the back and let my mind drift until we stopped at the front of school. 

My middle school looked like a normal school. You could picture it easily. Close your eyes. Go ahead, I’ll wait. Now, open them to continue reading. :) Picture a large stone building, all serious and commanding. Yep, that was my school. I walked into one of the hallways, letting my brain float off to another place, leaving me with only a thin string. That was until I stepped into Hallway 15. This hallway was familiar and it took me a moment to place it, but eventually I found it. 

I was running again. Into my dream.  Down this hallway. I was at school and something was chasing me. I could almost see my dream in front of me, creeping over the image of the crowded school hallway, replacing it with an abandoned, shadowy place. Fog rolled over the ground, the emergency lights blinked asynchronously. I had been running for a while, my chest heaved. However out of breath I was, I didn’t stop. I couldn’t stop. I could hear it behind me, snorting and gurgling like a large pig. What I couldn’t hear was its footsteps and that terrified me. Whatever this is, it moved in complete silence. It could sneak up behind me and I wouldn’t even know. I sprinted hard, trying to gain a lead on this creature. Suddenly I found my feet spilling out in front of me. I landed hard on my rear end but my momentum and the slick floor carried me forward still. I crashed into a “Caution, Slippery When Wet” sign and slid along the slick puddle on the floor, spinning with the sign tight in my arms. Luckily, my pursuer couldn’t read English, or at least couldn’t read the sign while I was dancing with it across the puddle, and it slipped too. I heard a thud just short of a redwood falling in a forest and braced for impact, whether that be the tsunamis generated from falling into the two inch puddle, or the creature falling on me. Neither of those two things happened and I felt safe to open my eyes, after I had scooted far enough away. I built up the courage and turned to face the monster.

“RILEY!!!” I was knocked, literally, out of my dream and into the present moment. Someone had tackled me and it scared me half to death.

“Aahhh!” I’m not proud of my reaction, but you try to do better. 

“Relax, it’s just us. What’s wrong with you today?” I opened my eyes to see Millie and Christie standing in front of me. The three of us had been best friends since third grade. Millie was the one doing all the talking, Christie was too busy eating a blueberry muffin. 

“Want one?” She asked, offering out a Tupperware container full of them. 

“Of course!” I felt that in order to successfully recover from the shock of my life, I needed to treat myself to some delicious sugar. Millie needed no such convincing and shamelessly took six. 

“They’re for later.” She shrugged. Christie’s parents owned the most popular bakery in town, Rocking Rolling Pins. My parents owned the only bookstore in town, The Book Haven. Meanwhile, Millie’s parents were investment bankers. I had no idea what that meant. 

“Yum!!!” I took a bite and the flavor of sugar and blueberries and deliciousness washed over me. I was so distracted by the taste that I didn’t notice the bell ring. 

“Come on! We have to go to class!” Millie grabbed my arm and dragged me towards our first class. 

“No!” I struggled against her grip. “There is definitely a monster in there.” 

“Yeah, Algebra.” Christie agreed. 

“We’re still going!” Millie pushed me through the door. Defeated, I took my seat next to Millie and Christie. 

“Good morning children.” Mrs. Harper grinned at us from her desk. We nervously smiled back. There was a rumor at school that Mrs. Harper was a harpy and lived in a cemetery. Some kids said that she was 200 years old and ate the bones of children to stay looking young. I thought that she enjoys torturing children through Algebra. 

“Please open your textbooks to page 150, titled “Polynomial Factoring”. Let’s begin at problem 1.” She smiled at the class as I buried my head into my arm. 

“That was torture!” I told Millie as we walked into the cafeteria. Unlike most kids, we had lunch packs filled with delicious food to save us from the further torture of eating school food. I wasn’t even sure the lunch ladies were servicing anything edible. I bet the white mystery mush was really biodegradable packing peanuts mixed with old homework. Why else was it a white mush with a hint of black and blue. Talk about scary!

“I know!” Millie agreed. We sat at our usual table while Christie joined us with the lunch boxes. 

“Ready for some real food!” She said, zipping open the first box. The other kids looked on with jealousy as we ate classic PB&Js with the best desserts to finish off our meal. Christie sold the rest of her muffins from this morning to our surrounding table and included her standard promotion of her family’s restaurant. 

“These are our Back in Season Berry Muffins. We’re reaching the end of our blueberry season so get them while you can at Rolling Pins Bakery!” Christie’s family took their Rock ‘N’ Roll theme very seriously. They also had Back in Raspberries and Back in Blackberries varieties. 

“I can’t believe how much Christie makes off this.” Millie whispered to me. I found myself unable to move or respond. I just felt tired. So tired. Too tired to move. The table became closer, so close to my face and then the whole world went dark, like someone turned off the light to the universe. Just poof. Darkness. 

When I come to, it’s dark, but not as dark as unconsciousness was. Then I opened my eyes and the world got a lot brighter and easier to see.  

“Oh.” I said, realizing that I had tried to see with my eyes closed. I looked around, this time with my eyes open. I was on a cot in a room covered with medical posters, mostly of the various systems of the body. Others were different variations of the pain scale. According to one chart, I had scored a 10 for unconsciousness, but according to another I was at 0 for not feeling pain.  I guess my pain went from 10 to 0 in 10 seconds. As a result of not feeling any pain, I determined that I was probably safe to stand up. I got out of bed and looked around the room, noticing it was darker than usual with a faint sewage smell.  I slowly walked over to the door, encouraged since I still felt no pain. Then I nearly jumped out of my skin when I heard a loud noise at the door. It sounded like a mix of muttering and growling. Could it be? Was the monster back? I looked around, trying to find a weapon of some sort. No luck. Out of options, I took a step closer to try and hear better. All of the sudden, the door flew open, nearly taking off my head and the sound got much, much louder.

“WHAT ARE YOU DOING UP!!! YOU NEED REST AND A CALM ENVIRONMENT!!! SIT BACK DOWN RIGHT NOW!!!” The school nurse screamed at me before picking me up and plopping me down on the cot. I felt woozy from the noise and the rapid movement. Also the almost being decapitated part. 

“Um…” I started to speak, but gave up. I was in her grasp and I was not going to get out of it. Then I realized the perfect card to play. 

“Can I call my mom to pick me up?” The nurse’s attitude couldn’t have changed faster. I smiled, knowing that my plan had worked. Of course, I was not actually going to call her. I was fine so there was no need to worry her. 

“Of course, deary.” She said sweetly. She patted my head and handed me a corded phone from the wall. I had only seen one in old movies. 

“Okay, thank you. Can I have some privacy please?” I smiled my sweetest most innocent smile at her.

“Of course.” She closed the door behind her as I pressed in the buttons to call my favorite pizza shop.

Five minutes later, I was released from the nurse’s office and walked towards the front of the school to get picked up. 

“Riley!” I turned to see Millie and Christie running up to me. “Are you alright?” Millie asked. She grabbed my shoulders and looked me up and down. 

“Yeah, Riley, you really scared us.” Christie said as Millie finished her inspection. 

“I’m fine, I only blacked out for a few minutes. Wait…why are you not in class?” I asked. “Lunch is probably finished by now.” 

“Girlie, it’s 3:25. You were unconscious for four whole hours!” Millie said. 

“What!” I was shocked. “That can’t be! I must have fallen asleep while I was waiting for the nurse. Yes! That’s it.”

“Mmhm.” Millie and Christie said, unconvinced as they put a hand on their hips.

“It must have been something I ate.” I said, still trying to figure out an explanation. “Like bad peanut butter.”

“Excuse me!” Christie shouted. “That is an affront to my dignity! Me? Give you food poisoning! Impossible!” Christie sat down with fake distraughtness. 

“There, there” Millie patted Christie on the shoulder and the three of us giggled. 

“Besides, if my food was the cause of this, shouldn’t all of us be sick?” Christie asked, standing back up. 

“Beep! Beep! Did someone call for the Mom-mobile!” My mom pulled up next to us in her car. 

“Mom! You gotta stop calling it that!” I said as the three of us hopped in.

“Of course, darling!” Mom smiled innocently at me and I rolled my eyes. My mom was so embarrassing! 

Like usual, Mom drove Millie, Christie, and I to Book Haven. After school, we did our homework and helped with the shop. On Fridays, we usually helped her feature the themed books for the weekend, but we had to spend today unloading a shipment of new books. They were usually scheduled to arrive on Tuesday but this week our shipment was delayed somewhere in Arizona. Unloading the shipment took a while, especially when we had to catalog everything, and on top of that we had homework to finish. By the time we were done with everything, it was time for dinner. Mom dropped Millie and Christie off at their houses and picked up my brother from his playdate before she drove us home.

At home, I went straight to my room, not only because I was exhausted from such a long day, but also because I wanted to avoid my little brother pestering me with questions. Sometimes, a girl needed her alone time. So, I did what I always did when I needed time alone, I gathered my art equipment and illustrated a scene from one of my books. There was something so peaceful about turning the written word into a colorful drawing. I loved using a variety of tools in my art that added more dimensions to the scene until it seemed to come to life under my fingers. I could, and did, spend hours drawing an imagined world. As a result, it was no surprise when I looked up to find the clock reading 12:46 am. I rubbed my eyes, suddenly feeling sleepy. I barely had time to put my pajamas on before I fell asleep, sprawled out on my blankets. 

The sun was bright when I opened my eyes. Too bright, I realized, sitting up. One glance at my clock reveals to me why. 

“Sweet Sugar Cookie!” I said, jumping out of bed. Instead of swearing, my friends and I came up with the alternative of shouting dessert names. I had every reason to swear in this situation. I must have slept through my alarm because now I was about to be late for school! 

I threw on a shirt and pants and ran downstairs. Brushing your teeth was overrated anyways. I quickly looked around for my lunchbox but it was not on the counter in its usual ready-to-go place. 

“Oh well.” I said, getting a granola bar. I checked my watch then swore again. I needed to go now! I threw my bag over my shoulder and ran out the door. 

“Bye, Dad!” I breathlessly said. I ran to the bus stop and looked around. The bus should have been here. I waited for a beat or two, then took off sprinting for the school. I could not believe that I missed the bus! As I sprinted to school, I somewhat regretted not being on the track team. It would have been too much to run the bookstore and go to practices, but the running training would definitely be of use in situations like now. 

When I arrived at school, panting and out of breath, I froze in my tracks. The school was completely empty. No students. No teachers. No one. I looked around, completely dumbfounded. Something was definitely wrong. Today was definitely not a holiday or a Snow Day. Where was everyone?

Before I had much time to think, I heard something. Breathing, but not my breathing. Some else's breathing, familiar breathing. Then the realization hit me. I was back in my dream, except this time it was real. My chest tightened and my legs, which were drained of energy a moment ago, pulled me forward into the hallways of the school. 

I was running. Down the hallway. Past my locker. I turned. I tried to see it but at the same time I was too scared to look. I kept running. It was still behind me.