Emily lay in bed, her mind was racing and she struggled to clear her head long enough to find peace in the solitude of sleep. There was no particular reason that caused her mind to race, it was just one of those nights when everything went through your mind at once. It also didn't help that she was trying to get used to her new bed.

The summer vacation had finally been and gone and she was finally a senior- which also meant that she no longer had to deal with the seniors o the Synths that she didn't like, but it also meant she had to replenish the amount of girls. Which also meant that she had a new dorm room in a different side of the school, and a different dorm meant a different bed. It always took Emily a while before her body became adjusted to mattress as she couldn't fall asleep until she was comfy enough, or she had someone to sleep next to. She didn't get it, any other time she needed to get used to the bed for a few weeks, but if she had someone sleeping next to her, she could fall asleep within a matter of minutes.

She preferred soft mattresses that her body could sink into and relax her body as she became one with the bed, however the mattresses that the school provided were hard- good quality- but hard, so it usually took at least 2 weeks before the firm mattress began sinking into a comfortable haven for Emily to find solace.

Soon though, the weight of the new academic year became heavy on her mind and her eyelids because she soon found herself drifting away from her body as sleep took over her tired form. She knew she was in for a wild night when her subconscious showed the first few images behind her tired eyes. It was rare for her to dream and only really happen when something happened in her life.

Emily was in the quiet music room that she and the Synths practiced in before the school switch. The walls were soothing to her, the cream colour that covered three of the four walls calmed her, and the familiarity of the burgundy wall littered with posters and pictures of the group made her nostalgic and miss her old school and her old life.

The scene that played before her was a familiar one. This particular memory often ran through her mind when she thought back over her life in the synths, after all, she would not have joined them had she not auditioned when she was a freshman. Some said that she only got accepted into the synths because her sister Carrie was the captain, but as soon as people heard her voice and came to like her they soon realised that their previous views and statements were not true.

The scene that had formed around her seemed to fade away into a white cloud and when the white haze disappeared, a small smile appeared on her face. It was from the Christmas Eve that Emily and Carrie had snuck downstairs to see their presents. Their not so quiet 7 and 9 year old feet had already alerted their parents of their antics.

Their father had pretended to be mad and gave them a short telling off before heading to bed leaving them with their mother who allowed them one early Christmas under the promise that they were not allowed to tell their brother or their father, and especially not Santa.

The happy memory of her mother made her miss her even more. She often pushed memories of her mother to the back of her thoughts because it hurt a lot to think about her, she didn't like crying for things that couldn't be changed; the past being one of them. It didn't mean that she didn't miss nor love her mother any less, she just came to realise that she couldn't change the past so there was no point crying about it.

Whilst her thoughts were wrapped up in the past and the happiness she didn't notice the world shift around her into the now familiar setting of Dalton Academy. The emptiness of the school sent shivers down her spine, not because she was scared, but because the familiar halls felt cold without the background noise of people's conversations. Without the endless chatter, the school felt lifeless and cold. This was not a memory.

Even though she wasn't thinking about it, she found her body moving against her will to the direction of the library. This is what scared Emily. The lack of control over her own body paralysed her thoughts, leaving her numb and out of control, unable to maintain control over her mind and body again. She felt like she was a passenger in the car with no say of the destination, someone- or something- was driving her body and she just felt helpless, unable to stop the movement.

It wasn't like she didn't know where she was going, because she did, she wasn't scared of the destination either, it was the pure lack of power over her own body that froze her core and made her feel even colder than before.

When Emily stepped inside the library, a boy stood at the window with his back to her, his hands were clasped behind his back in a very formal manner, which made her feel very nauseous as she remembered the last person she saw with their hands behind their back, who delivered the worst news to her.

Emily sat in the hard plastic chair that made her legs and butt numb, waiting on any news that may make the endless hours of waiting worth it. All she needed was a nod of the head and a small smile from the doctor to prove to her that it wasn't all in vain; that there was a silver lining to this very dark cloud that had been cast over her.

She shifted in her seat, trying her best to make herself comfortable, but it never happened, she just became even more aware of how long she had spent in the chair. She wasn't allowed in the room- none of them were. Emily rested her head against her right arm which was supported by the arm of the chair. Her family was surrounding her, all in similar situations with the chairs, yet all seemingly having someone to talk to. Carrie spoke to her boyfriend Joe who, at the very moment looked up and gave her a sympathetic smile. Her two brothers spoke in hushed whispers on the other side of her father and aunt, leaving Emily all out of the loop.

A tallish man approached the family, his hands clasped behind his back and a sorrowful look on his face. She knew it wasn't good news as her father and aunt walked away with the doctor for a private conversation. Carrie let out a quiet sob and was immediately wrapped in her boyfriend's arms, Taylor and Jordan stayed still as tears slowly fell down their face. Emily sat numb, she could feel the tears falling freely down her cheeks, but she didn't make a noise, not until her father came into view wrapped in his sister's arms with red eyes and tear stained cheeks. Her heart broke, even at 12 she had never seen her dad cry.

She curled up into a ball and tuned her father out as he told the small children that their mother- their only mother, the same mother who secretly gave them early Christmas presents, the same mother who gave them hot chocolate when they felt sad, the same mother who wrapped them up in her duvet sheets and hugged them until they fell asleep when they were ill- had died after the short battle with cancer.

Emily wanted to cry, but she couldn't, she had no command of her body.

She tried to attract the boy's attention by calling out to him, however, her lips never moved and no sound was made. A voice rang out into the hollow empty room that had morphed around them, even though it was the library, the room was eerily empty. "Hello?" The sudden sound scared Emily, because that was her voice, but she hadn't made anymore moves or attempts to speak. It was like her mouth was on a delay from her brain.

Despite the echoing of the voice that bounced off the walls of the room, the boy made no move to notice her. It was as if he didn't hear her. He didn't even flinch when her words broke the silence. She tried to go forward, and sure enough, after a few moments, her body listened. She was slowly gaining control of her body back.

She saw her hand reach out to tap him on the shoulder, the contact with another human spread warmth through the end of her fingertip. Despite not making any movement when she spoke, he did react at the human contact. He turned around and a look of distaste spread across Emily's face when she realised who it was, she cursed in her mind, aiming to say it out loud, but her dream seemingly wanted to keep it PG. Her dream. Her mouth formed an 'O' shaped as she realised that she was having a dream about him.

Despite Emily's reaction, he didn't react the same way he normally would have. Instead of the usual arrogant look that she was usually greeted with, he smiled at her and greeted her with a cheery "hello."

Emily was more shocked to see him in her dream and didn't treat him any different, "What are you doing here? Where am I?" her voice had an edge to her tone, that told the person on the receiving end 'I don't like you, I'm only talking to you because I have to' which Emily used very often when she was conversing with him.

He didn't answer instead he walked to the window and looked out. Out of curiosity, Emily followed him and looked out too, but all she saw was white, just plain white. It was sort of like a cloud but, not so much the form of a cloud, it wasn't a solid form of white; it had depth, with varying levels of the white. Almost like a heavy mist surrounding them.

It was as though the school was floating in the clouds.

She turned to the boy again and repeated her question "where am I?" yet she still received no reply from him. Despite the lack of verbal response, she did get a physical response. The boy turned around and connected their lips, in a soft and passionate kiss. Definitely not a memory.

The shock of his lips touching hers mixed with the shock of her dreaming about kissing him caused her to gasp and wake herself; not only did she wake herself up, she woke Hanna up as well. Hanna jumped off of the bed ready to attack any possible attacker or intruder. If she was not still in shock from her dream she would have laughed at the sight before her.

Hanna stood at the side of her bed in a 'karate' pose and her hair in a messy bun with strands falling out- ultimately leading to there being more hair out than in the hair tie, with a face that could only be described as 'having trouble flushing out any bodily waste' (if you get what I mean). As well as her hilarious looking face, she was dressed in a batman pyjama top, rainbow pyjama shorts and hello kitty bed socks. After realising there was, in fact, no intruder she relaxed and asked Emily if she was okay.

But Emily could not get any words out and was still very much in shock over the fact that she had just had a dream about kissing Sebastian Smythe.

***

Look here's the deal. Yes, I have not uploaded this book in about a month, no it has not taken me that long to edit- in a way. I had a large chunk of this already edited and I only had a few paragraphs left, but I've been SO busy. This past month has been crazy, I got my GCSE results, enrolled in college, went to pride, started college...

I am not taking easy courses in college either and I'm seriously so stressed. I probably won't have a new update up until Christmas, no joke. I have no time left in the day. I wake up at 6 am, get ready and all that, get to the bus stop at 7:30 am, and then arrive at college around 8:45 am. then I go to my lessons, which don't end until 3-4pm. Now, now you may be thinking, well she's got a fair amount of the day left, NO I DON'T, cause after this I have to wait around until 5 pm at college until the bus comes and I eventually get home at 5:45-6pm leaving me about 2 hours to do homework, and then at 8 pm I have to get ready for bed and bath and all that. So I only have 2 hours to myself, which is to do homework. I literally have to rely on Fridays to replenish my sanity because I have them off.

Okay, rant over.

The good news is that I know what major changes I'm making to this story, which I kind of hinted at in this chapter. speaking of this chapter... I literally turned the 360 words that were the ENTIRE chapter and multiplied them by roughly 6.5, turning it into 2000 words which I think is wonderful. Also, I went more in depth about what happened to her mother, (whom, if you read the very first draft of this book, used to still be alive, but for drama, I decided to kill her off) and introduced a few other characters.