"No! Not again!" Jake tossed and turned in his sleep. His head felt heavy, he was unable to lift it. Jake was sinking into the dream, unable to crawl out of its strangled hold on his mind. He hated reliving the memory, it always so real. Jake tried to fight against it, trying to conjure up happier thoughts, but the images came anyway. With a cry, Jake gave in, knowing it was futile to do anything but allow the dream to happen. He'd lost countless times.

The dream was the same as it always was, there was no changing it. It was that day -- the day that she had left him. The seven year old girl sat on his old tire swing with tears streaming down her face. Her golden hair, pulled into two braids, made her green eyes shine out of her petite face like two emerald rings in a jewelry store display. Her chin quivered, "Jake, I can't come see you anymore."

In this dream world, Jake was of the same age as the girl, though nearly ten years had passed since that day. Jake stilled his own trembling jaw by clenching his teeth. "Why not?"

He wouldn't be caught crying in front of a girl, especially, if that girl was Aurora. She was his best friend, his only friend. And though he'd never admit it to her or to himself, Jake loved her. Not just as a friend, but that forever kind of love that grownups talk about.

Aurora wiped away the tears from her pretty green eyes. She sniffled. "I'm not allowed. It's too dangerous."

Jake didn't understand. Dangerous? Did she think he was dangerous? How could she think that after all this time? He was furious at his friend for saying she wasn't coming to see him anymore. He needed her!

"How come?" he muttered, though he was afraid that he already knew the answer.

He could never keep a friend. Aurora was the only one Jake thought would be different than everyone else. She never looked at him like he was some kind of freak. Aurora always said she liked coming to visit him, and she thought his having dreams that came true was really cool.

Aurora sighed and looked away from him. She crossed her arms over her chest and looked up to the sky. Jake stomped his foot. He was equally frustrated, but he wanted her attention. He wanted answers. "Aurora!"

Her head whirled around and she looked at him with hard eyes. Aurora never looked at him that way before. Her eyes were always filled with kindness. She looked older now. Like how his adoptive mother looked when she understood something that he didn't. It was usually something she considered to be for his own good. It was never what he wanted. Jake swallowed, waiting for the upcoming rejection.

She shook her head slightly. "You're not ready."

Aurora wiped at her eyes and took a couple of deep breaths. She closed her eyes. After a moment of silence, she opened her eyes. Jake stared at the neutral expression on her face. It was almost like Aurora was gone but her body was there. She'd shut off her feelings for him and that scared Jake more than anything else. "Come find me when you are. Choose your path. I'll be waiting."

Jake's small face contorted in confusion. Come find me? She wasn't rejecting him? What was she saying then? Jake was baffled. He yelled, "What does that even mean?!"

His mind was racing a mile a minute trying to figure out what he might have said or what he might have done to make her want to leave him. If it wasn't his dreams coming true then what was it?

Aurora smiled sadly at him. And she did look sad, he was glad to note. "It's nothing you've done, Jake," she said as if reading his mind. She got off the swing and took a step towards him. "I just..." She paused and her head tilted as if she were listening to something in the distance. "I'm sorry, I have to go now." Aurora looked at him again and shook her head, "When you need me... just ask."

Jake just stared at her not understanding the nonsense she was spewing. Aurora wiped her eyes, nodded at him once, and then started walking towards the barn. Jake watched her walk away for a minute, every step she took was an echo of his heart breaking. He realized that she was serious, she was leaving him, and he broke out into a run to try catch up to her.

"Aurora!" he shouted after her in a panic. "Where are you going?!"

"Home!" she called back, looking over her shoulder, but she kept walking. Kept leaving him.

"You know you're a stupid girl, Aurora!" he yelled. She walked on, refusing to turn back, which irritated Jake even more. All his frustrations with her, and about her, suddenly surfaced. "Why can't anyone else see you but me? Why do you disappear when other people come around? Why are you leaving?!" he whined at the end, his voice cracking. Jake didn't care that he sounded like a two-year-old. He just cared about stopping her from abandoning him.

Aurora spun around, sticking her petite hands in her overalls pockets. Her eyes narrowed and her face took on that neutral expression again."When you understand, you'll know."

Jake opened his mouth to protest again, but stopped when she suddenly grinned as if a happy thought just popped into her head. "I'll see you later, Jake! I promise!" She ran away from him, and then vanished into thin air, as if she'd never been there at all.

Jake's vision was suddenly obscured. He found himself surrounded by smoke. He waved his arms, sweeping it away only to reveal he was also surrounded by fire. Jake's jaw dropped. The corn fields he had been standing by were gone. The barn, the farm, his house, everything was totally gone and he found himself standing in the middle of someone's bedroom. Glancing at the mirror above the dresser, he saw he was no longer the seven year old from his dream, but instead, his true age of seventeen with long legs and muscular arms.

Jake frowned in confusion at the change in the dream. This was new, he thought. Normally, he had one dream and woke up. He'd never had this dream before and it terrified him as he had no idea what to expect. Not to mention the fire currently lapping at the walls. Jake fought the urge to cough, so that he wouldn't inhale any more of the thick smoke. His chest hurt as his lungs filled with the contaminated air.

A girl's voice rang out in a heart-wrenching cry for help. Without thought, Jake pushed through the smoke, determined to help. He frantically searched the length of the wall with his hands for a door. When Jake felt that he had reached it, he slid his palms around in search of the knob. He finally found it and grasped it. Jake jerked his hand away, yelping in pain, burned by the scorching hot metal. He cursed himself for being so careless in letting go of the doorknob as he'd just have to find it again. He should have just dealt with the pain and opened the door.

With no time for regrets, Jake wrapped the bottom of his shirt around his injured hand and said a silent prayer that he could remember where the knob had been. He reached out, imagining the doorknob where he recalled it had been. Jake's hand found the doorknob instantly, he quickly turned it, and threw the door open.

Stepping into the hallway, he saw movement further down the hall. It was a figure of a man, and it looked as though he was carrying another person over his shoulder. Flames jumped higher in front of Jake and blocked his view.

"Jake!" a girl's voice called out. "Jake! Get out of here!" she cried out to him from behind the thick smoke. "Put me down!" she screamed at her savior, who Jake saw was trying to climb over a pile of fallen beams that were blocking the staircase, while struggling to hold onto the squirming girl. "Let me go! No! I have to get him out!"

"You can't!" the man yelled as he carried them carefully through the debris. "Hold still, damn it!" A loud crash sounded as the guy kicked a pile of crumbled drywall aside.

The girl sobbed, "Get out, Jake! Please get out!"

Jake took a step towards them, wanting to help, and then was forced back as flames flared up around him. There was no way through. The man's voice rang out, "I've got her! You worry about yourself."

"He needs to get out of here!" the girl yelled.

Jake frowned, hesitating about what he should do. The girl screamed as a large beam crashed to the floor behind them, nearly hitting the couple. Through the smoldering air, he saw that the guy had somehow quickly climbed over the rest of the beams and had gotten onto the staircase with the girl still over his shoulder. They disappeared quickly down the steps.

Realizing he would never get out the way that the couple had, Jake backed away from the flames and searched for another way out. Each door he came to was locked. He tried ramming his body into some of them, but they wouldn't open. Giving up on that approach, he managed to get back to the open bedroom where he started from.

Wheezing now, Jake made his way to a corner of the room, where he remembered there was a window. He tried to pry it open it, but it would not budge no matter how hard he strained or pushed up on it. Jake spun around and searched the room for something to break it. He rummaged over the top of the dresser, knocking things over, looking for something solid enough to break the glass. Instead, he came across a picture frame. Picking it up, he saw it was a photo of his Aurora. Jake stared at the picture, puzzled as to why it was there.

"Jake!" the girl's voice screamed from somewhere distant in the house. "Get out! Get out! Get out!" he heard the girl's voice echo in his mind, like a frantic chant. He knew, in that moment, he needed to listen to her and get the hell out. "Now!" Jake tossed the picture aside and continued his search for an object to break open the window to escape. He was concerned for the girl, whoever she was, but she already had help. Jake needed to be concerned about himself, like the guy had said.

Jake coughed again, struggling to breathe as his lungs took in more of the smoke. The flames came closer and closer towards him. He watched in horror as the smoke started pulling together, forming a hideous shape. It was like something out of a horror movie and his mind was struggling to accept what was right in front of him. Red eyes glowed from within the thick smoke and the pure hatred oozing out of it was directed straight at him. As if it sensed his fear, laughter came out of the being, a chilling and evil sound that could only belong to a demon or to the devil himself. Not wanting to stay around long enough to find out which one it was, Jake quickly pulled off his t-shirt and wrapped it around his hand. Ignoring the fast approaching cloud of smoke with the glowing eyes, Jake turned around and punched the window as hard as he could, breaking it open.

*******************************

Jake bolted upright in his bed. He gasped for precious air, having a coughing fit as he tried to clear out his lungs. Jake clutched his heaving bare chest. It felt tight and his heart was pounding at an alarming rate.

Sweat poured down his back. Jake's whole right arm and hand hurt like hell. It had "fallen asleep" and he shook it to try to get the circulation going again. Jake cringed at the pain shooting up his arm. He closed his eyes and focused on his breathing. He was alive. It was only a dream. Jake slowed his deep breaths, forcing his heart to slow its rapid beating.

He opened his eyes and reached across to the nightstand to switch on the lamp.  Jake wiped his face and hair on his navy blue sheets. His mom washed his sheets daily as she was used to him having nightmares every night. Often, even the mattress pad beneath his sheets got wet. His parents had invested early in his life in the mattress pad after he'd soaked the mattress in sweat one too many times. It gave a whole new meaning to 'wetting the bed'.

Jake punched his pillow several times to make it more comfortable behind his back before settling himself against the headboard to think. He hated the dreams. He hated to sleep. Way too often, he dreamed about strange, horrible, and unspeakable things. His dreams were warnings.

He tried to prevent any of the bad dreams from happening in real life because he felt at fault for even dreaming such things. If he didn't dream them, would they not happen? He believed he was seeing the future as it would happen. And, if he didn't try to prevent it from happening? What kind of person would that make him?

Since childhood, Jake told people about the dreams to warn them of the danger. Because of that, he was considered a freak. Jake could see why they'd think that way and he really didn't blame them, but it was worth all the whispers, all the snide comments, even having no friends if he could save just one person's life.

Jake frowned as he thought about this new dream. The fire in his dream especially concerned him. Did he know the girl in the house?  She had called out his name. And, though her voice sounded a bit familiar, he couldn't place it.

Was she someone from his high school? Whose house was it? Jake hadn't been able to determine what either of the two people in the dream looked like. And he didn't recognize the house being one of his neighbors', but his vision had been too clouded from all the smoke to make out much of anything. Jake hoped they weren't anyone he knew yet it usually meant he did. Or someone he would meet in the near future.

Jake remembered the first part of his dream. Why did he keep dreaming of Aurora? His parents, his shrink, heck, it seemed like the whole town always insisted Aurora was just a typical childhood imaginary friend and he'd outgrow it. But to him, she wasn't. Though he could never prove she did exist, no matter how ridiculous or freakish that made him seem to other people, Jake still believed she was real.

After the day Aurora finally left him, Jake never mentioned her again and his parents were happy she was gone. They kept making him go to see the shrink though as something even more disturbing hadn't gone away with Aurora. The dreams that came true still occurred and they came even more frequently.

Over the years, these dreams about Aurora appeared almost nightly. He often smiled at the thought of Aurora yelling to the sky 'For the honor of Greyskull, I am She-Ra!' .

Her fascination with the 1980's spin off cartoon led Jake to name her for the character of She-Ra's alter ego, Adora. At the time, Jake had insisted the name was Aurora, though she argued it was Adora. Jake later found out she was right, but he continued to call her Aurora. She allowed him to do so, liking the name.

Aurora refused to tell him her real name or where she came from. She would never even explain to him why. Aurora would only say it wasn't time for him to know certain things about her. Because Jake didn't have any friends, this was all fine with him. If she wanted him to call her something other than her real name, he'd oblige, just as long as she stuck around.

Often, he even dreamed of her as if she was his age, seventeen. While he couldn't make out her face, he still felt her presence. He felt she still cared for him, but there was something preventing her from being with him. Her figure, deep in the shadows, often reached out for him, motioning for him to come to her, but Jake could never reach her. He could even feel her sadness when he couldn't get to her. Jake would wake up wanting to get to her, but not knowing where or how to find her.

Jake wasn't able to get back to sleep thinking about Aurora. He never could. The whole situation confused and frustrated him. He didn't want to think of her anymore. He'd spent too much of his life doing so. And look where that had gotten him, endless sessions with a shrink, a family and an entire town who thought he was nuts.

Sometimes, Jake thought his younger sister, Sam, might actually believe him, but she never confirmed it. Sam probably pitied him more than anything.

As always, Jake looked for a distraction to take his mind off Aurora and his strange dreams. He reached over to his nightstand to pick up one of the many college catalogs, which he had gotten at his school's college fair. One fell to the floor with a thud. The title "The University of California" gleamed up at him.

"As far as you can get from Iowa," Jake muttered to himself.

He picked up the catalog and then casually flipped through it not knowing what he was looking for since he hadn't yet chosen his major. His parents kept insisting he decide on a major and a college soon since college applications needed to be sent in the next week.

Jake just didn't know what he wanted to do with his life. He was a good student and, by God, he didn't want to end up as a farmer like his dad and grandparents. Jake didn't mind working on the farm, he just didn't want to spend his life at it. But he didn't know what else he could do.

He reached the section on Psychology and chuckled. That'd be a laugh! His parents had him in and out of psychologists most of his life.

"Damn," he whispered in surprise and interest as a paragraph caught his attention.

Parapsychology, the study of the paranormal, it read: Study of ESP, telekinesis, ghosts, goblins, and things that go 'bump in the night' are just a few of the subject areas which are studied.

Jake browsed down the substantial list of courses. They had courses for all forms of the paranormal. Now, that subject had always interested him, especially where Aurora was concerned. Jake always wondered if she was a ghost, which would account for him being the only person who could see her. It was a theory anyway. One that Jake could accept more than to admit that he was crazy.

Maybe he would consider Psychology as his major. His parents didn't need to know it was specifically Parapsychology. And heck, they'd be thrilled he was thinking of being a shrink.

He grinned. And California! It was far away from home, there was the sun, sand, surf, and girls. Heck, it sounded like a great plan to him!

Jake got out of bed, walked to the other side of the room to a small metal desk, which barely supported a computer monitor. He reached under his desk and turned on the PC. Jake took a bunch of clothes, which had been thrown carelessly on the back of his chair, and dumped them at the end of his bed.

He settled into his chair and logged onto his computer. Jake browsed the internet for the University of California and found it easily. He typed in Parapsychology into the University's search browser and found a couple of the campuses offered a few classes, but the one in the small town of Ocean View was the most comprehensive.

Jake browsed through the list of courses under Parapsychology. The majority of them were taught by a Dr. Brian Airheart and Jake wrote the name down to look into later. Maybe this professor had written a book or research paper which could explain his dreams.

He skimmed through the rest of the website looking at pictures of the campus, dorms, and the local sites. It all looked really cool. And the most important thing was it was really far away from home, where no one needed to know a thing about him. Or about Aurora. He could start a whole new life. Jake grinned and began filling out the online application form.