The Word Cloud

    I arrived at home and entered cautiously, hoping to avoid collision with my mother. Sadly, luck was not on my side and I ran right into her while looking over my shoulder for her.
    "Where have you been? You left over two hours ago!" I wasn't sure if the look on my mom's face was worry, anger, or both.

    "I walked to the park, and saw a school friend there." I tried to push past to get to the safe haven of my room where I could drown feelings out with music, but my mom stepped into my path, cutting me off. "Come on, Mom. I just want to go lie down. My head is pounding and I'm freezing." I realized how stupid it was of me to go to the park in the middle of January, and that Mom would probably think I was lying, but the strange thing was, the entire time I was sitting next to Griffin I was completely warm. Either that or I just didn't notice I was freezing my butt off.

    "Funny. Tell me the truth, where did you go? Some boy's house? That ditch I told you not to go in? Where?" Mom knit her eyebrows together, and now I could definitely tell the look she had was anger.

    "I told you, Mom. The park. Yes, in the middle of winter. I didn't notice I was cold! There isn't any snow on the ground either, I had a jacket on, and I had on my sneakers. I was perfectly fine, but on the walk home I got cold. Let me go to my room, I want to go to sleep." She tried to stare me down again, but I returned her glare with equal force, if not more.

    Finally she sighed and looked away, then back at me. "But you haven't had dinner yet."

    "I'm not hungry."

    "Don't starve yourself, honey."

    "I'm not starving myself." I went to the other side of the hallway and before Mom could step in front of me again I pushed through and raced the few yards it took to get to my room. I shut the door behind me and locked it all in one swift move.

    I started to make my way to my black radio that has been plastered with stickers of my favorite bands, but then I remembered the whispering voice and I stopped and made my way to my bed instead, never turning on the light. I kicked off my black Converse as I pulled my covers over my head, concealing myself in a blanket of total darkness.

    I quickly fell asleep, not worrying about what I was going to do when I woke up. I slept soundly, peacefully and restfully until I heard something small drop to the ground. My eyes snapped open, and I scanned the room. I saw, on the ground, my large blue dictionary. I glanced up at the bookshelf from which it fell and noticed straight-away the black, gaping hole that it left among the other, much smaller books. I pulled the covers off of me lazily and walked across my room to bend over and retrieve the book. I watched around my dark room for anything that might give me a clue as to why the book fell. After that, I felt a cold breeze sweep over my room. I shivered and walked back to the other side of my room to turn on my light. I felt my heart begin to be faster, Thuthump, Thuthump, and watched in horror as I saw an invisible blade cut through the lime green walls of my room a message in scraggly letters and read it aloud to myself as the work was being done .
YOU WILL PAY
   I grabbed my door handle tightly and furiously, my hands almost shaking from fright too much to actually get a good hold on it. I ran out of my room, cold sweat breaking out on my pale face and stringing together my thick brown hair.  I didn't turn back until I reached the doorway, where Galena's strong, scary face awaited me. I screamed and sprinted away from it, the cold of the house growing with every second. My adrenaline pounded through my veins with my blood, almost becoming a part of my being.  I watched as the invisible blade once again cut through the walls of my small house, writing a long line through the paint right next to me as I ran. Out of nowhere, I tripped on lord-knows-what, burning my knee on the carpet of the large living room.  I ran back to the back of my strangely still and silent house and tried to open the back door fiercely, the reassuring sound of my quick, unsteady breaths to tell me that I’m alive. I fell again, and I give up. I flip myself onto my back and stare up as a ghastly Galena Ann Morris towers over me, expression dead-serious (no pun intended), a large glass lamp poised over my head. She brought it down to my face, her expression not changing, and I screamed.

And then I woke up.

I sat upright in bed, clutching the covers over me tightly, as if to make sure that I was alive and actually capable of doing so. I ran my fingers through my sweat-soaked hair and around my forehead which was dotted with large droplets of more sweat.  I looked at the clock on my bedside table and read the time to myself. “1:29 AM,” I wheezed, thoughts flooding through me, memories of my dream flashing through my brain. Whenever I blinked, I saw Galena’s pale face, looking behind the same thick glasses that I had broken, with cracks zig-zagging through the left lens.

I sat in the dark for a minute, listening to the uneven sound of my heart as it pounded in my chest.  I slowly threw the covers off of my body, got up and turned on the lights to examine my wall. There were no lines, the dictionary was safely in it’s place on the bookshelf, and the message that the invisible blade imprinted on my wall was completely erased. It was just a dream, it was just a dream. That didn’t happen. I told myself, trying to ease my thundering heart.

Griffin’s face calmed my bouncing heart considerably, which worried me. “I don’t like him like that,” I told myself, though I knew that was beginning to be a lie. Then I made a decision. I had never been more scared in my entire life, and I really didn’t care who was asleep, but I walked quietly to the living room and picked up the house phone off it’s charger on the coffee table by the couch. I walked with it back to my room and sat on my bed in the still silence, still listening to my heart. I sighed, thinking about how stupid this was. I picked up the slip of paper off of my bedside table and dialed the number on it. It ringed three times before I heard a tired and confused, “Hello?” from the other side of the phone.

“Hey.... did I wake you,” I replied to the voice, concerned.

“Um. Just a bit.” He paused. “Who is this...?”

“Oh, it’s Cadence. You told me to call when I could.... and something really.... frightening just happened.”

“...What happened?” I could tell he thought it had something to do with my dad.

“I just had this dream... Your stepsister.... I think she’s out for me....” I could feel the lump in my throat inviting me to cry, but I held the tears back and tried to keep my voice as normal and non-squeaky as possible.

“Crap.” Griffin said, a touch of anxiety to his voice before he sighed. “What makes you think that...?”

“She wrote a message on my wall, and she chased me through my house and she hit me in the face with a lamp.....” I could feel the fearful tears come and paint my cheeks with clear, salty liquid.

I heard him swallow over the phone. “Well... Didn’t you say it was a dream...?” He sounded like he was trying to make up some excuse for this not to be true.

“Well, yes, but it was so real... and on my radio a few days ago, the music changed to static, right? and it said something like, ‘ou ill ay’ or something, and on my wall in my dream it said ‘You will pay!’” And so I spilled all about the dream all that happened, all that’s happened before that could be linked to the dream, and what I thought.

“Sneak out? I don’t think of you as the type to sneak out.”

“You’d be surprised, but listen, can come or not? Because I can explain two things to you if we meet up.” I could almost see him with his eyebrows raised, testing my toughness.