***Benjamin***

I can't get the girl from the woods off my mind. At the house, I turn on the TV, then I turn it off. I try to do some homework, but wind up stuffing it back in my backpack. Who cares, anyway? My parents don't. My teachers might, but I can't concentrate long enough to do a single geometry problem. Grabbing my earphones to listen to my favorites on shuffle, I head for the kitchen to heat up a pizza.

It briefly occurs to me that I had invited Amber over to eat one with me, but I find myself wishing the girl from the woods would be here instead. She must be about my age. I'll have to ask if she's Japanese descent. Is that politically correct or is there some other term. Damn. She isn't cute like Amber, but there is something...wait...I feel poetry coming on...she is alluring. That's not too poetic. But it's true.

Something about her is way attractive and makes me want her here instead of anybody else. If I feel this way about a girl I talked to for five minutes and will probably never see again, should I break things off with Amber or keep going as if this weird encounter never happened? Is that cheating?

I get the pizza from the freezer and pull it out of the packaging. Radiohead's Pyramid Song provides a depressing soundtrack to my lonely cooking. I turn the oven on, distracted.

Between one blink and the next, a coldness lances through my chest. It drives me to my knees. The frozen pizza falls face down on the tiles. I gasp, trying to breathe. Is this a heart-attack? Sharp pains shoot from my heart to my arms. I try to crawl towards the phone. I have to call for help.

Then a new pain - burning lashes hit my back. I collapse, sweating and shaking. I can't move. I can barely breathe. The sensation of falling sweeps over me and my head spins. A thousand voices crowd into my throat, but I can't make a sound. A face appears before me, a little girl who smile sweetly. She holds out a beat-up doll like a gift. I try to lift my hand to take it.

She opens her mouth and her face twists in pain. I know, but not how I know, that she's dying. I can't do a thing to help her. It's worse than the physical pain.

Clenching my jaw against the double agony in my chest and back, I inch closer to the phone. I reach the wall. My eyes roll back in my head.

---------

"Ben! Oh, my God, call an ambulance! Ben!" My mother is yelling from far away. I am lost in the darkness and struggle to find her.

"Mom?" I hear my voice whisper. My voice. I have my own voice. This seems obvious and totally weird at the same time.

"He's coming to, thank God," she cries. I feel her hands on my face and neck. Then my dad is checking my pulse.

"They're on their way, it's gonna be OK, son," he says.

Why wouldn't it be OK? What happened to my pizza? I try to ask these questions out loud, but my mouth isn't working properly. I remember seeing a little girl in the kitchen. Her face showed so much sadness, so much pain.

"Is she OK?" I manage to ask.

"She?" my mom asks. "Was someone else here? Did someone attack you, Ben?"

"No. There was a little girl with a doll. I think something bad happened." I open my eyes, blinking against the bright ceiling lights. My parents are kneeling over me, worried as hell. "I imagined her, didn't I? It felt like a heart-attack."

My mother covers her mouth in surprise. "It's that football practice. I told you that sport is bad for a teenage body. Why won't anyone listen to me in this house?"

My father starts to console her, telling her it surely wasn't a heart-attack but something I ate. The distant ringing of sirens grows stronger as the ambulance pulls up to our house.

I spend the night in the hospital being tested for everything from low blood pressure, to a concussion to genital warts. Well, maybe not warts. But they do take blood and I know they'll test for HIV. My poor little virgin parts aren't worried.

I am officially declared to be in excellent health by evening the next day. My parents drive me home and help me upstairs to my bedroom.

"This is temporary, all you have to do is talk and I'll hear you," my mom explains, setting a baby phone on my desk. She also has the glass of milk I requested. I am hungry for more, but she's afraid I'll get sick if I eat.

I roll my eyes, but chuckle to show I'm not upset. If giving me a baby phone makes her happy. Otherwise, she might have my dad put a mattress on the floor here for her. That's not OK in my book.

"I know you are perfectly fine, but if for some strange reason you get dizzy or nauseated again, just yell and your father or I will come prompt-o."

I'm not sure what that is, but I tell her again that I feel fine. She fusses and tucks me in a few more times, hands me my milk, watches me drink it, adjusts the baby phone. Finally, I tell her I'm tired so she'll leave me alone. Moms...what can you do?

I flip on my reading lamp and sit up to try and read something. My window is open, which is odd. It's too cold this time of year to leave like that. My mom must have come in to air out my room before bringing me home. I get up and lean over my desk to close it.

Out on the lawn below, something dark moves and I see a flash of pale skin. Very pale skin and shiny black hair. I freeze, the memory of pain slashing into my back, clear and fresh in my mind. My hand drops to my desk and touches a sticky cloth.