Zeya's POV

It was so cold out that Zeya could see her own breath swirling in the air. She didn't know where she was or how she'd gotten there. All Zeya really knew was that she was surrounded by an endless ocean of trees.

"Hello?" Her voice echoed, the air as still as death.

The silence was eerie.

It was a lethal silence, like the stillness in the house before the killer strikes and murders its victim. Or the quiet in the water before the shark swallows its prey whole.

Zeya stepped forward, a chorus of leaves cracking under the power of her bare feet.

"Run!"

The command startled Zeya so much that she jumped. Whirling around, surveying the area, she struggled to find the source of the sound.

"Whose there?" She called, half-expecting a response. Of course, she was met with utter silence. Zeya was too afraid to think, too afraid to move. She just stood still, trembling.

"RUN!" Zeya felt someone's hot breath on the back of her neck. The voice was so close it was almost as if whoever had said it was right behind her.

Nonetheless, when Zeya spun around, no one was there.

She began to panic. Her quivering increased as did the intensity of her breath. Zeya was now standing in the middle of nowhere panting like a dog in the heat.

"Whose there!?" She screeched, her throat burning.

And that's when she saw him.

He looked exactly as he had when he approached her at the party. His eyes still brown and mesmerizing and his hair trimmed yet greasy.

He hadn't been standing there two seconds before. It was as if he'd just materialized out of nowhere. His eyes were wide with terror and he kept trying to run to her.

But he couldn't.

It was almost as if his feet were cemented to the ground.

"Run!" He cried out. "He's coming!"

"Whose coming?"

"Run!" Though he stood in exactly the same spot, his voice somehow was getting more and more distant with each warning. "Run!"

A thunderous boom erupted. It shook everything: the trees, the ground, even Zeya. It was so ferocious it knocked Zeya off of her feet and threw her to the ground.

"What's going on!?" Zeya sobbed, tears springing from her eyes. Her heart was racing and she couldn't breathe she was so terrified.

Once the quaking had ceased, Zeya sat up and looked to him. His hand was resting against his stomach. Blood was pooling down his body and in-between his fingers as he tried to hold his wound.

"It's too late," he croaked. "He's here."

And then someone grabbed a chunk of her hair and yanked her backwards.

Zeya woke up with a scream. She was encased from head to toe in sweat. She'd somehow managed to kick her alarm clock off of her nightstand.

Scooping it up off the floor, Zeya glanced at the time: 5:30AM. She sighed and took a moment to catch her breath.

This had been her second nightmare in less than a week. Zeya was used to nightmares: She'd have the occasional one about her father. But these one's had been different.

They had been so real.

Zeya practically sprinted for her shower. It was, after all, what she had done after her first nightmare. If these things were going to keep happening, she was going to have to come up with a system to calm herself down afterward.

The shower helped some. The warm water was just so inviting. After her oddly long shower, Zeya threw together an outfit for school and made her way downstairs.

That's when she realized that she had yet to clean her home. Zeya had slept her entire Sunday away, expect for brief potty breaks.

Whatever had happened to her Saturday night had drained her.

With a heavy moan, Zeya went into the kitchen for a trash bag and began collecting. For the most part Zeya accumulated empty beer cans, but grossly enough she had also found a couple of condoms on the floor, a half eat slice of pizza, and mysteriously enough a rotten pear.

After gathering trash, she began sweeping up broken glass and assessing the damage. Someone had destroyed the vase that sat on their coffee table. Another had knocked over and chipped one of the big lamps.

The thing that had upset Zeya the most was the fact that someone had wrecked a picture of her family. The glass from the frame had shattered to pieces. Zeya tossed away the chunks of glass and parts of the frame before holding the photo tightly.

It was a picture they'd taken during their first trip to Disneyworld. Her mother was laughing, her father was smiling, and eight-year-old Zeya's face was blanketed in a thick coat of chocolate ice cream.

Zeya traced her thumb over her father's face. She knew that, if her father was still around, he'd know what to do about the events in the woods the other night. She knew he'd probably find and scream at Chris until he was blue in the face.

Because he loved her.

The alarm on Zeya's phone began to blast and she rushed for it, laying the photo on the counter. Turning off the alarm, Zeya realized she only had twenty minutes to drive across town and get to school.

She locked up, turned off the lights, and left the remaining mess behind to be cleaned up later.

After nearly running through three red-lights and dealing with a soccer mom with some serious road rage, Zeya managed to turn into the schools parking lot with ten minutes to spare.

Only two spots were left in the main parking lot. One was in-between two rather large trucks. The owners of those trucks would stand in the parking lot after school and yell horribly corny pickup lines.

The next was directly next to Chris and Sadie: the two people she didn't want to see more than anything. So, she was left with a choice. Be stuck next to a couple of horny teenagers or deal with her best friend and the guy she'd thrown off of her with her mind.

Zeya wavered on her choice long enough for someone to steal the spot in-between the two trucks, forcing her to pull into the spot next to Chris and Sadie. She took in a very deep breath, gripping the steering wheel so tightly her knuckles turned white.

"This is such a bad idea," she whispered to herself as she emerged from the car.

"Is someone actually early?" Sadie taunted as Zeya yanked her backpack out from the car and smashed it shut behind her.

"Haha," Zeya dryly responded. She avoided eye contact with Chris as much as possible as she made her way over to them.

"How bad was your hangover? Cause I was throwing up food I don't even remember eating all weekend." Zeya eyed Sadie with pure disgust. "What?"

One of Sadie's current flings snuck up behind her and picked her up. Sadie punched whoever it was, laughing hysterically as they walked away.

Great.

"Hey," Chris said. Zeya stared at him, unsure for a moment if he was speaking to her. When their eyes met, her stomach flipped.

"Hi . . . what are you doing here?" Zeya questioned. He'd already graduated.

"Well," he sighed, glancing around, "I loved it here so much I reenrolled." The two shared an awkward laugh that ended almost as quickly as it started.

Zeya stared at her feet. All she kept seeing in her mind was him on top of her one second and the next halfway across the woods.

"Look . . . about the other night I . . ." He paused. Zeya had no idea how to explain what had happened. "I'm sorry." Zeya looked at him.

"You're sorry?" She hadn't expected an apology at all, let alone that quickly.

"Yeah, I uh . . . I shouldn't have made you do something you weren't comfortable with. I just wasn't thinking straight and . . . It was wrong. I'm sorry." Zeya's heart fluttered. The fact that he was even speaking to her was still slightly thrilling.

"Thank you." The two exchanged large smiles.

"Can I at least walk you to your locker? I've got to be off school grounds before the first bell or dean Jackson will try to give me a tardy slip. Trust me, I have enough of those to make a mural." Zeya giggled, nodding along to his request. The two started towards the school.

"Why exactly would you make a mural?" Zeya questioned with a smile on her lips. Chris shrugged innocently.

"Never know, dean's got a birthday at some point this year. Maybe I'll make him something nice."

"Oh how thoughtful," Zeya chuckled.

"I know right? I think I was his favorite student. We spent almost every Saturday together roaming around the school picking up trash and scraping gum off the bottom of the decks." Zeya laughed along with Chris, slightly disgusted at the thought of all the gum hiding underneath each desk she sat at.

Chris continued to explain his bromance with the dean as the two made their way from the far end of the parking lot to the beginning.

"Can I ask you something?" Chris wondered aloud, moving in front of her. The two came to a stop halfway to the school. "What exactly happened?" Her heart stopped.

"What do you mean?"

"Well . . . when we were together uhm . . . something happened . . ." Chris continued to stumble through an explanation.

Zeya's eyes wandered, her brain moving a thousand miles an hour in an effort to think of an explanation.

And that's when her gaze found him.

The stranger from the party and the leading role in her nightmare. He was standing near at the beginning of the parking lot, starring at her intently.

Chills ran up Zeya's spine and a lump formed in her throat. She got peculiarly hot in a matter of seconds. It was the "oh my god I'm going to pass out" kind of uncomfortable heat. She felt as if her body had been run over by a steam roller.

Every single inch of her body was instantaneously exhausted.

She would have fallen backwards and onto her back if Chris hadn't been paying attention.

"Woah!" He exclaimed, catching her as she teetered backwards. "Are you okay?" Zeya's vision blurred and it took her a moment of squeezing her eyes tightly to process the fact that he was speaking to her.

"I'm fine." She waved him off. Zeya looked back to the stranger. If he'd been an animal, his ears would currently be pricked. It was clear that she'd caught his attention.

"You just got really pale," Chris stated, staring at her. Zeya's stomach flipped and she felt like she was going to hurl any moment.

"I don't feel so good," she admitted.

"Do you want me to take you home?"

"No no," she shook her head. Zeya made an effort to move forward and found that her entire world had begun to spin. She latched onto Chris's wrist to stable herself.

"I'll have a buddy pick me up there. I don't mind." Zeya glimpsed in the stranger's direction a final time. He was making his way across the parking lot, eyes locked on her.

"Okay." Zeya handed Chris her keys and allowed him to guide her to her own car. Chris helped her into the passenger seat. Zeya watched as the stranger took off into a sprint.

He was coming.

Chris got into the car and unhurriedly settled in. The moment he turned the car on, the radio blasted. Zeya was given the worst headache of her life, and she rushed to shut it off.

Chris didn't say anything, just put on his seat belt and backed out of the spot. He must not have even seen the brown-eyed stranger charging toward them because Chris almost backed in him. The stranger stopped in his tracks, jumping back as Chris drove off.

Zeya watched him disappear in the side mirror.