Red | Chapter 1

I screamed. Two grey wolves were stalking towards me, and I was backed up against the wall. Right as the one on the left was about to pounce at me, its foaming mouth snarling, a huge black figure shoved them out of the way. It turned to me and yellow eyes bored into me. I’ve seen those eyes before…

“Go,” an inhuman voice growled as the thing scurried off into the darkness of the midnight air.

I was just getting some fresh air. My mother was inside, as was her jerk-off of a boyfriend. He was smoking -- he always was. I never knew why she was with him.

I fumble with the doorknob. When it was opened, I saw my mother standing there with a worried look on her face.

“Oh, my God! Ana!” She scrambles over to me and looks me up and down. “Are you okay?” I nod slowly. What was really freaky.

Later, I stared out my window, unable to sleep because of my encounter with the wolves and that… creature…. It was unlike anything I’d ever seen though I didn’t get a good look at it. It was just a black blob.

I turned to my alarm clock that sat next to my bed on my nightstand. 12:47 AM, it read. I sighed and stole one more look out my window, just as one deep, loud howl ripped through the night.

My eyes open slowly and, in a blur, I saw a figure standing in front of my open window. I squint my eyes, close them, and open again. The figure was gone. A dream? Or the beast I saw last night?

I scramble out of bed, grabbing the clothes I laid out before bed last night, plus a towel, and head for the bathroom.

As the shower warmed up, I stared at myself in the mirror. A slim, brown-haired girl I didn’t recognize stared back at me. Her eyes were bloodshot and her hair tousled from sleep -- or lack thereof.

I stepped into the shower, marvelling at the previous night’s events. I could have died. So, that creature was protecting me?

I finish my shower quickly, in need of some movement to keep my mind off the Beast.I brush my hair after I’ve dressed, and zombie my way through breakfast, up until I was waiting down the road at the bus stop. I was clad in jean shorts and a pink tank top under my leather jacket. Even at 7 in the morning, it was at least fifty degrees out. May in southern Maine was amazing.

I listened to my iPod until the bus came, and I stepped on and sat in my usual seat behind the driver. My sour thoughts eventually left me, and my eyes drifted closed. Being the first one on the bus, it was a long ride.

Goodbye to my Santa Monica dream

Fifteen kids in the backyard drinking wine

You tell me stories of the sea

And the ones you left behind

I’m awoken by some unseen force -- my favorite song, Santa Monica Dream.

I’m somewhere… You’re somewhere

I’m nowhere…. You’re nowhere

You’re somewhere…. You’re somewhere

I could go there

But I don’t

I recently found it on a video game soundtrack. The girl’s voice in it was just beautiful, and I always had the strongest urge to sing along, and I did. It was liberating, taking my mind off of everything at the moment.

I quickly paused the song and coiled my earbuds around my iPod as the bus pulled up to school. Sighing, I got up and went down the steps and in through the doors.

As I stood at my locker, carefully emptying my backpack, I felt something watching me. I turned, relieved to find nobody there.

In first period, while only slightly listening to the lecture about the nervous system, I warily looked around the room. Vincent Teller, a seventeen year-old guy with short, unruly black hair who sat behind me, was staring off into space. He was tapping a pen on his notebook, distracting me further from the lesson. 

“Vincent,” I whisper behind me. He looks up and I reel. Those eyes… I tentatively place my index finger to my lips in an attempt to shush him. Vincent nods and looks down again at his blank notebook.

Those eyes had been burned into the back of my mind for the past twelve hours. The yellow orbs were solitarily appearing in my dream.

My reverie was interrupted by a light tap on my shoulder. I turned and Vincent was holding a piece of paper out to me. I took it tentatively and read the messy scrawl on it.

Meet me at lunch later--

I need to talk to you.