I laid there for a while, in the dark, but couldn’t go back to sleep. A creepy feeling came over me that maybe this wasn’t my room. It just didn’t feel like my room. Something was different. Wrong.
There was no way for me to sit here anymore. So I threw off the covers, swung my legs over the side and reached for the floor. When my feet finally hit, I knew I wasn’t in my bed. The distance from the bed to the floor was way too high to be mine.
I stood, reaching in front of me and to my left, nothing there but air. I extended my hands to the right and my hands came in contact with a wooden post. From the feel of it, it was a canopy bed. Upon moving my hands further around, I felt that sheer curtains of some kind had been hung around the bed. I let go of the post and took a few steps forward, hands out and feeling around me. But still I felt nothing, until I walked into what felt like a chair. I felt around the arm and up toward the back of the chair, when I found it was occupied.
I jumped back the few feet I walked and landed awkwardly in the bed, where I had started. I felt my pulse racing, thumping hard in my ears. It was so loud I could barely hear when the person got up and started walking toward me.
I started panting in fear. My lungs searching for air, when the person sat down next to me on the bed, so close our legs were touching.
“I’m sorry if I startled you,” said a beautifully mesmerizing voice. It sounded so familiar, but I couldn’t place it. I thought for a moment, but a haze had surrounded my mind and no thought seemed to connect.
“Where were you going?” he asked genuinely concerned.
“I… I don’t know. I…” I spoke into the darkness in the direction of his voice. It made no difference if I looked anywhere else; it was way too dark to see anything. There was no hint of light. “Where am I?” I managed to ask. I felt my heart beginning to slow and my breathing returning to its regular pace.
“You are with me.”
“I don’t know what that means? Obviously, I am with you. But where?”
“It doesn’t matter. You will know when you need to.”
I just sat there, unmoving. He was going to be illusive, fine. Then I am going to sit here and not move, not speak. I crossed my arms over my chest.
He laughed then, and I could feel him leaning toward me. When he spoke again, his voice was in my ear and I could feel his breath moving my hair. “I don’t care if you talk, I almost prefer that you didn’t.” He started moving forward again, forcing me to fall backward, until my back was against the pillow I had so recently been using.
As hard as I peered into the darkness, no escape seemed to open in the empty darkness and this mystery man was still unseen.
All of a sudden I felt compelled to reach for him, to touch him and pull him closer. I closed my eyes knowing sight wasn’t needed in this blackness and reached out above me. My palm had made contact with skin, a warm, muscular chest. I skimmed my fingers down it, feeling the ripples of his toned muscles.
I pulled away, putting my arm down at my side, trying to push away the compulsion.
My back pressed against the bed with him hovering over me, I kept my eyes tightly closed and my arms firmly pressed into the mattress. My hands squeezed into tight fists. Fingernails digging into my palms. That way good, the pain helped clear my head. The need became stronger the harder I forced myself not to respond to his closeness. I found that while I sat there, forcing myself not to touch him, I couldn’t think of anything else beyond the experiences of this room. I clenched my fists tighter but it seemed no use. My mind felt locked and stuck on the one thing I was trying to push out.
I didn’t need to open my eyes to know that this guy was now fully over me, looking down into my face, I could feel him. But as hard as I had worked to keep my hands firmly planted next to me, they suddenly started to move, lifting off the mattress and extending toward him to touch his skin. Both hands landed around his waist, tightening around him and pulling him down.
I didn’t feel like myself, I had no control over what I did, like my mind could feel two things at once then do the opposite of what I tell it to do. But even then, I can’t help but give in because once I feel his body touching mine, feel his mouth over mine; I can no longer keep any distance. Like a drug, I just want more and more.
His kisses start so soft but quickly escalate to something more intense just before he leaves my lips and moves them down to my neck, than as he pulls the collar of my shirt down, trailing his mouth over my collar bone.
I had an urge to move, I needed to move. I no longer wanted to stay trapped under him, but I didn’t want to leave his touch either. So with an unexpected jolt of strength, I lifted my torso off the bed and twisted, flipping him under me. Now, straddled over his waist, my hands rubbed up his exposed chest, while his rested firmly on my hips. When I reach his neck, I lean over to it, just like he had. His hands clamped down, squeezing the place on my hips he had been just holding only moments ago.
I brought my mouth up his neck to his lips, but only for a moment. My right hand had entwined itself in his hair and I removed it, lifting around the back of my head and pulling my hair back behind my left shoulder to expose my neck. Than, putting my hand back in his hair, I removed his lips from mine and picked his head up to place his mouth on my neck. He grumbled something indistinct just before his teeth bit down.
I closed my eyes tight, enthralled by the wonderful pain, and gasped when I felt a chill erupt through my body and his muscles tighten under me.
Mt eyes opened into darkness, a dim morning light creeping through my window. My alarm was screaming, telling me to get up. When I looked, I found it had been going off for a half hour.
I rolled over, without shutting off the angry alarm, and stared at the ceiling. I tried to remember why I woke up, freaked out, my heart pounding. I couldn’t remember the dream I was just having, only the darkness. And I was so tired, like I didn’t sleep at all. I blinked a few times, long blinks because my eyes just wouldn’t stay open and tried to remember more than just the blackness. I knew there was more, something important, but it just wasn’t that easy.
I heard a light knock on the door. “Trystie? Are you awake?” Then the door cracked open slightly.
My head turn out of pure reflex as the door creaked open to reveal Kimber peeking in, still in her bathrobe. I sighed and turned back to stare at the ceiling. “I didn’t sleep very well.”
“Are you feeling okay?” she asked, taking a step into my room.
“Just exhausted.”
“You have anything good going on today?”
“No,” I answered, not really thinking about it. “New semester just started.”
“Okay than, I’ll call school. You can stay home today, catch up on some sleep. I’ll see you after work.” She smiled at me quickly, before shutting off my alarm and walking out, closing the door behind her.
I dragged my body over to the other side of the bed, reaching for my phone on my night stand. I picked it up and wrote a message to Jayson, telling him I was staying home today and not to pick me up, than I wrote to Kamdyn.
I couldn’t wait for a response from either of them, the second I hit send to Kamdyn’s message, my arm dropped and my eyes closed.
I woke up again with bright sunlight streaming into my room. When I looked at the clock next to my bed, I saw that it was noon. I flopped back over, knowing that I needed to get up but that I was still tired. I lifted my other pillow over my face, to hide all the light and sat that way just thinking for a while. I was glad that for the last few hours I had no dreams at all, but what really bothered me was that I couldn’t remember the one I had last night. The absence of the dream was leaving a deep pit in my stomach; something about it was very important.
Out of aggravation, I sat up and threw the pillow across the room. I still wasn’t ready to get out of bed yet. Throwing the blankets around me, I found my phone curled between the sheets. I looked at it quickly, and noticed I had four text messages. I hit the button and start
ed reading.
Jayson: 6:15am Ok. I’ll see u later. Call me.
Kamdyn: 6:23am R U ok? What’s wrong?
Kamdyn: 7:02am Trystie? Please answer me.
Kamdyn: 11:29am If you don’t answer me
by 12:30, I’m heading over!
I looked over at the clock again, 12:13pm. I wrote to Kamdyn quickly, hoping he would get it before he skipped out on school again. I waited and waited, watching the clock. But no response ever came.
This is my lame attempt to divert my mind enough that some little phrase or picture or something will trigger the dream I had last night. I stayed home from school today. I am completely exhausted, like I haven’t slept in days. I am having weird dreams again. Worse than the ones I had when I was little. The ones only my parents knew about. The one I had last night, even though I remember none of it, for whatever reason, I know it’s important to know what happened. I know I am supposed to understand something about what it contained. Maybe in it is an answer to one of the millions of questions I seem to have these days.
Could that be a good or bad thing? Who knows?
So…
My plan failed. Moving on…
I sat up from my position, writing in bed. I remember! Not everything, bits and pieces were cut out, but something’s were there and very clear.
It is him! Sitting here now, remembering the first horrible dream and the dreams that have made me feel tired and eerie, they are connected. The guy from the woods, he is the one who has been in my dreams lately. He has been the one to keep me up. The one who makes me feel…
Even just the thought of writing down the things I had done and felt in those dreams made me blush.
Every night he comes to me, and I… I can’t resist him. I want him there. I want him to touch me and kiss me. I have no idea who he is or what he looks like. He is always in the shadows. But every night he comes, I let him. and I tell him to bite me!
My mind no longer belongs to me!
Immediately after my realization, I ran down stairs and locked all the doors, closed all the windows and wrote a note to Kimber and Justin telling them that I wanted no visitors today. When I got back upstairs, I turned my iPod on Breaking Benjamin, loud enough so I couldn’t hear anything else, and curled back up in my bed.
I closed my eyes, tight. I thought about the last few months here and how different my life has been since coming here. I thought about how much I missed my parents. I felt so lonely. The life I had before couldn’t be any different from what it is now. I looked at the picture in my locket, took out my mom’s book and my fathers ring from my drawer but put them away just as fast as I took them out. As much as I liked to remember them, to think about them, it still hurt me to know that they aren’t here anymore.
Then my mind traveled to the dreams. I had no idea where they came from, why I was having them. The only solid thing I could connect them to was Drea. She was the only real thing. But it was only in the first dream, the two I’ve had since then had nothing to do with anyone, besides me and him. His mystery was intriguing and scary but I had to figure out what was going on.
I put everything away, locked my door, closed the curtains and turned the music up louder.
Then I cried myself to sleep.
Chapter Sixteen
The bell rang, screamed loudly in my ear as I slowly closed my locker and walked to class. I was late, again, but I didn’t care. It had become a sort of habit to be late. I had managed to make it to school just in time everyday, walking in just as the warning bell rang, but I never made it to class before the second bell, when class began. I always strolled in late, sometime after the second bell. I never rushed, never cared to. Jayson, on the other hand, from the second we left his truck would run to the doors and upstairs to his locker. He was always there before the bell and after a couple of weeks of trying, he stopped waiting for me or pulling me to get me there on time. I just didn’t care, what exactly was I going to miss? Attendance? Whatever. If I missed anything important, Jayson would always fill me in the second I got there, rolling his eyes in the process, saying, “You know we could avoid this if you actually got yourself to class on time, right?” And my response was always the same, “Yeah, sure.” completed with a big yawn.
Today was no different, except that it was Valentines Day. Today was even more infuriating than any other day. Everyone was dressed in red and pink and all the girls were giddy and excited. I seriously wanted to kick some of them in the head for being so cheery. Even on my best day I wasn’t that happy. But on a day like today, when I felt like this. It was a serious no go.
I was in such a fowl mood that even walking down the hallway between classes, just to damper the mood, I pulled down any decorations I passed, ripped it up and threw it over my shoulder to land on the floor in pieces.
My life had been like this pretty much everyday since the beginning of January, when all of this started. I haven’t gotten a full night sleep since then. As I walk down the hallways to my next class I feel as if I should hide my face thinking about my nights.
I am ashamed of the things I have done.
I get to class, and sit down in my seat, pulling my thin hood over my head to hide my face when I get a flash from last night. I am in a bed, not mine, rapped up in sheets, twisted all about my undressed body. And he is there, entangled in the sheets with me. There are noises echoing through the room, ours, and they all end the same way, with his twin fangs piercing my neck. Everytime I am the one who pulls him in. I am the one who can not resist. I am the one who presses his mouth to my neck, knowing exactly what he will do, what I want him to do.
With my hood securely pulled over my head, covering my eyes, I press my forehead into my arms to hide the remaining visible features of my face as I blushed feverishly. I stayed that way for as long as I could, so no one saw me. It usually lasted until the teacher came in and class needed to start. As much as I wanted to hide forever, I needed to lift my head out of fear that if I stayed this way too long, I may fall asleep. One of my biggest fears these days was that I would fall asleep at school and have one of those dreams here, only to wake up screaming during class.
The one thing I had looked forward to everyday, regardless of my sleepless nights and school, was my lunch with Kamdyn. It was unfortunate that within the last month, I hadn’t gotten to talk to him about anything important. My mind had been completely consumed with concentrating on staying awake that having our ‘talk’ wasn’t making the cut. But today I woke up determined. I was going to talk to him during lunch today. Even though I know he isn’t completely prepared for it, I will at least try and that’s a start.
My determination made the day a little easier. The first two classes were completely review and then I watched a boring movie in the next class. By the time lunch came, I actually had energy. I had decided not to make an appearance at the lunch room today, like I usually did. Instead, I stood in the entrance to the hallway leading down toward the photography room. I stood there, waiting for him to come. I waited and waited. I checked my phone, he was ten minutes late. I looked up and down the empty corridor, but saw no one coming.
A few minutes later, when he was still no where to be found, I left my spot and walked to the empty media center, defeated and deflated, and had a seat in a cubical.
For the second time today, I put my arms up on the desk and put my head down on them, only this time not in shame, but disappointment. I thought over the last few weeks, how spaced I had been. These vivid dreams were plaguing me during my waking hours and, I felt, making me push the people who are most important to me, away. I moved my hand, rubbing it over the wound on my neck that had been there for over a month now. It bothered me, a constant reminder of something I was absurdly ashamed of. I had no idea who he was, but I knew what he was, I just didn’t know why I was dreaming of him, every night. All I knew was, at that moment, it was going to stop.
I was going to stop it.
I didn’t see Kamdyn all day at school, h
e didn’t show up for our lunch and he wasn’t in Algebra, but I didn’t know why he didn’t come to school and not tell me. I checked my phone consistently, every 20 minutes, hoping to see that he called, text or that I may have missed something. But I never got anything from him. By the time school was over, I wasn’t even tired anymore, I was worried and completely frustrated.
Instead of getting a ride home from Jayson today, who wasn’t happy and turned away mumbling, something about Valentines day, I had Lauren drop me off at Kamdyn’s. All I had to do was promise to go shopping with her this weekend and to stop “hiding in my cave”. I agreed, thinking maybe that was exactly what I needed, friends to keep me up and out of my room.
She dropped me off at the end of his long driveway and I walked up quietly. I didn’t want him to know I was coming, but the second I could see the house, I knew he was definitely home, I could feel him.
Plus, I got a glimpse of his car in the driveway.
I walked swiftly up the stairs to the front door and reached for the handle, when it opened. I hesitated, only inches away. I didn’t know if I should push it or not. But after thinking for a second, I was determined to see him, to talk to him, to make sure everything was okay. I reached for the handle and pushed the door open.
It opened to reveal a dark, empty house. All the blinds were down and curtains were drawn, no lights were on and I could barely see anything. I walked in, closing the door behind me and put myself in the direction of the stairs. Once the door was shut, it was completely dark with only the outline of sunlight peeking around the darkened windows. I felt around with my hands, trying to make my way across the house without bumping into anything or breaking something. There was only a very faint glow from somewhere in the house that gave me a slight direction. Finally, I reached the stairs and slowly ascended.
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