I stand noticing the breathtaking view in front of me. My face fills
of confusion. I look up towards the tower, observing every inch of it. It
looks treacherous, futuristic. I am now realizing where I am… I am here.
I wake up gasping, desperate for air. I’m drenched in sweat from
head to toe, shivers running along my body. Once I catch my breath, I
sat up right in my bed. I catch a glimpse in the back of my mind of what
just happened. I’ve had this dream every night since my father died;
which was five months ago. I don’t know where I am, or who I’m with. I
always feel a hand wrap around mine and we walk together towards
the tower.
It scares me to be honest. I have no idea what is happening in the
dream, and especially scary that I don’t know who I’m with. It’s odd
though, for some reason I feel safe. Not of where I am, or what I’m
about to do, but of the person I’m doing it with.
It’s five forty-four in the morning. I’ve been awake ever since
three, when I woke from my nightmare. I desire sleep right now.
Though the thing is, I know if I drift into sleep for just a second the
dream will come rushing back into my delirious mind. So I sit at my desk
and write. I step over and open my window to let the cool spring air
breeze through. I wish I was exploring the world, meeting new people
around the Pangaea and learning new things. I think about this for a
while, wondering what’s outside of our territory.
By territory I mean our city. I live in Vahoma, a city in our
continent Pangaea. There are many territories along the continent but
Vahoma is the least populated. We have two high schools, two middle
schools, and a large elementary school. I go to the east high school,
along with most of the students in our town. Kids who live in the city
streets go to west.
I rise from my desk and start to get ready. I put on my uniform;
khaki pants, red collared shirt. I put my hair in a fish braid and gently
add mascara just to add color to my eyes. When I walk down the rigid
stairs I see that my mother isn’t here. My little sister Klaira is already at
the table eating breakfast in her whole white uniform. I go to Don’s
room knowing that he’s still in a deep sleep. I shake him, rolling him
over on his back. He wakes, drool running out of his mouth.
“Gross.” I say, shoving him out of bed. He just laughs while
walking towards the bathroom.
“Klaira were leaving!” Don shouts to her as were walking to the
door. She comes running with papers and books filling her hands. I
smile at her and she giggles back. She looks a lot like our father. So does
Don. I have my mother’s looks.
We walk on the wrecked sidewalk a half a mile towards the
elementary school to drop Klaira off. I tell her good-bye and give her a
kiss on the cheek. She skip’s away as happy as anyone could be; if only I
was her age. Don leads the way, walking faster than I thought. I have to
sprint to catch up with him.
As we walk into school we go our separate ways. Don’s a senior, I
am a sophomore. I walk to my first class knowing my exact routine.
Stop by my locker, get my books, go to first block chemistry, and so on.
As I step into the classroom the bell goes off; Right on time. I sit in the
middle of the room as I always do and take out my chemistry books. To
be honest, it’s not my best subject, but at least I try. It’s hard not to
drift off seeing as I was up half the night wondering about my
dream/nightmare whatever it is. I feel my eyelids closing shut and for
the first time in a long time, I feel relaxed.
“Mrs. Wyatt!” As soon as I hear her voice I jump out of my seat. I
sit up, straightening my position and smoothing my hair.
“I’m very sorry Mrs. Bergeson; I didn’t get much sleep last night.”
I hope that didn’t sound greedy, I’m not trying to be rude.
“I understand Ivalyn but the consequences remain, Detention
after school until four o’clock, no complaining.”
“Yes ma’am.” The bell rings telling to switch classes.
I walk into the library and sit my books down on the table. The
library is always my favorite place in the school but for detention, not
the best. I decide to find a poetry book to sit down and read. You would
think someone, or anyone else would also be in here for detention but
they are not.
I hear the library door squeak open as soon as I read the first line
of poetry. He walks in with a look. I can’t help but stare. Brown tousled
hair looking as if he just got out of bed, bright blue eyes that gleam
when in the light, olive skin tone with very few freckles running across
his cheeks. Perfect would be the word for him. Perfect. He catches me
staring at him, so I quickly glance away. He decides to sit at the table
right in front of me, fiddling with a piece of paper. I look up at him
questioning myself if I should ask him something. I decide to be my
curious self and take a chance. "Hi." Maybe this was a bad idea. "I’m
Ivalyn." He rises from his chair and walks over to my table.
"It's nice to meet you Ivalyn, I’m Parker." I look at him for a
moment inhaling everything about his appearance. He smells of sugar,
soap, and sweetness. He wears jeans with a few holes ripped into them
and a white v neck which fits in all the right place. Arms, chest, and
shoulders. I smile without even realizing it.
"So Parker, what did you not abide by for you to get this
excruciating pain of detention." I say it in a sarcastic voice and grin
when i finish.
"Out of dress code." He points to his shirt and jeans while
shrugging a little too much. "What about you, you seem like a pretty
uptight girl to be in detention." I frown at him, irritated with the words
that he said.
"I am not uptight. I got caught sleeping in class." I cross my arms
in my defense. He starts bursting into laughter and eventually I do too,
even though I don’t know what we’re laughing about.
"You are saying that you have never slept in class?" He acts
surprised.
"Yes I am saying that. And you're saying that you don’t even
know how to dress in the right clothes?" I gently grin at him so I don’t
seem uptight even though, again I’m not.
"Well seeing as the way you have been looking at me since I
walked in this room I do dress in the right clothes, just not in the stupid
uniform ones we are supposed to wear." I blush as soon as the words
fall out of his mouth. I've never been so embarrassed, but really this is
the first interaction I have had with a guy to be embarrassed about. It
kind of feels nice. I eventually look at him with a quick smile before he
can say another word.
"You know, you smile a lot. I've never met a girl like that."
"Is that a good thing?" I'm hoping, I’m really hoping.
"It's a very good thing." He then smiles and I look at the way his
lips curl at the corners forming a small dimple at the edge of his mouth.
"Well," I say "I’ve never met a boy with dimples."
"Good or bad? ‘Cause I hate them."
"Good." That’s all I say for a while before we start discussing
about our home life, school work, music, and ourselves. I feel for the
first time something I have never felt before while talking to parker,
and I don’t have a clue of what it is.
When I look up at the clock to see what time it is, it's frozen. I
wonder if we have been in here longer than an hour, or even if the time
is up.
"The clock is frozen." I say turning towards parker. He looks down at his
watch.
"Mine is too." We pause for a moment and think. BOOM! BOOM!
BOOOM! BOOM! I jump out of my seat and run toward the library
window. There’s smoke in the air, fire moving everywhere.
“What is happening?” I whisper to myself.
I turn away from the scene and jog back to the table I was sitting
at with parker. He looks at me with a worried expression on his face. He
gently grabs my hand. I look down realizing this familiar touch. It’s
strange but safe. Just like my dream. I bring myself back to reality,
forgetting about his hand wrapped around mine.
“We have to get out of here!” Parker screams over what sounds
like gun shots in the distance. We run hand in hand towards the library
door to escape.
Parker slides the door handle to open it but it doesn’t budge. He
tries again but once again nothing happens. He looks at me in a
delirious state. He’s terrified. I’m terrified. We stare at each other for a
moment before I realize there is another door. I lead him toward the
yearbook room and try opening the door to exit. No budge.
“We’re stuck! Oh my god, what are we going to do? I’m supposed
to be home now! There’s bombs going off outside, and we’re stuck in
the library!” I begin to panic, pacing back and forth. Parker looks down
at me; He must be at least six feet tall. He grabs my shoulders and
shakes me.
“Just calm down. Think of something that makes you happy.” He
talks in a soft voice, a comforting one. That is what calms me down. I
close my eyes and think of him. I know it’s silly but he is the first thing
that pops in my mind. So, I stay like that. I feel his arms wrap me in an
embrace so I lay my hands and face on his masculine chest.
“It’s going to be okay, I promise. We will get through this
together.” He whispers into my ear before I hear the beep of the
speaker coming on.
“You have twenty four hours to save your friends and family. But
you must escape first. The government has taken over. Executing
humans who have imperfections. For some reason you all have been
inactive to the performance. Your time will start now.”
“How are we supposed to get out of here?!” I scream to parker
not knowing what else to do.
“We break the windows and jump, or we can break the door
down. Your choice. But first you have to calm down.”
“Okay.” I take a deep breath. “Which one would be easier?”
“I think we should go with breaking down the door, that way we
don’t have to jump out a window and risk breaking a bone.”
“The door it is.” We walk over to the door to see how heavy it is
and see how much strength it will take to knock it down. First Parker
decides to try to dig his shoulder into it. It’s bolted down with metal
screws on the side so I don’t truly think it’s going to open. He tries one
more time and to my surprise it falls to the ground.
I stare at him with a look of suspicion but with a smile on my face.
“How… how did you do that?”
“I don’t really know actually.” He also has a surprised look on his face.
He grabs my hand to pull me through laying his other hand on my back.
Once we’re both outside of the library, we run.
We run through the school halls trying to find the quickest exit.
His hand wrapped around mine rushing me through the school. This
can't be happening. Once we reach the fire exit, parker is slamming
against the door waiting for it to open; nothing happens.
I see him in the corner of my eye, glance at a window towards our
right.
"We have to break a window."
"What?" I reply knowing this is going to turn out dangerous.
"We will have to break the window and then jump out of it. Can
you do that?" I squeeze his hand.
"Yeah I can do that." And I am going to, no matter what.
Parker walked over to pick up a chair sitting next to the art room.
"I hope this will work."
He picks it up and slams the legs of the chair into the window as
hard as he can. Every muscle in his body strained, pushing against the
glass. In seconds the window shatters to the ground, glass going
everywhere. A sigh of relief is escaped from my mouth.
"On three…one, two, three!" As soon as we jump out of the
window I feel as I'm going to faint. My face is clammy, I feel light
headed, and when we hit the ground I almost collapse completely.
Parker, with one hand grabs my waist and with the other gently holds
my face. My heart is beating faster than ever of adrenaline and I feel
my face getting red; though he keeps looking at me. He brushes a few
strands of hair from my face with his fingers and tucks them behind my
ear. I rest my hands on my side not knowing where to put them. I think
jumping out the window was less terrifying than this.
"Are…are you okay?" He says it in a soft tone.
"Yeah, I'm fine. Just you know a little light headed. It’s not like we
jumped out a window or anything." I give him a light smile and he
giggles with a grin.
He picks me up from the ground and I have to steady myself
before we start walking. There is fire lit to buildings, people running
anywhere they can; gunshots still going off in the distance. All I can
think is how is this happening? Why aren't people trying to hurt us?
"Where are we supposed to go?" I ask him not expecting to get a
right or wrong answer.
"Well we need to check on our families but I don't want to
separate from you." Now after all the smoke and sweat from running,
his white v neck is more of a gray and his hair is even more tousled. He
still smells of sweetness but a mixture of sweat as well. It doesn't smell
bad though, it smells like parker.
"We don't have to leave each other. We can go to your house first,
or mine it doesn't matter!" At this point I am yelling over all the sirens
and fire.
"Let's go to your house first okay?"
"Great." As soon as the words leave my mouth the school goes up
in flames leaving only fire to look at.
We walk at a fast rate until we get to my road, then we run. I find
my house and to my surprise it seems normal. Parker walks in front of
me and I hold onto the back of his shirt. He opens my front door and
we walk in the house that I have lived in for as long as I can remember.
We walk into the living room where I see it. I see my mom tied to a
chair, duct tape covering her mouth, and her hands tied around her
back.
"Mom!" My voice is turning hoarse and the scream comes out
more of a squeak. I run towards her, Parker behind me. Before I get to
her I feel a hand wrap around my mouth and I bag go over my head. I
hear Parker scream, but it’s all foggy. I hear punches and someone
hitting the floor. Then everything goes black.
"Ivalyn wake up sweetie. Wake up please. I really need you to
wake up."
I wake to my mother in my face. She hugs me in a tight grip
mumbling a few words I can't understand.
"Where's parker?" My voice is weak and hoarse.
"He went to get his family. I know a place to put everyone. I have
already sent Don and Klaira. They're safe and we will be soon." I look
around me, noticing red spots all over the carpet and couch.
"What happened when I was, you know, out?"
"Well the man that put that bag over your head was the one that
tied me up. As soon as everything started raging I sent Klaira and Don
off because I knew this was going to happen, just I didn't know when.
The man’s name is Bryan Wilder. He is part of the dimension. He is the
one who started this whole war."
"Why was he coming after you?"
"Because I came after him first." This caught me by surprise. My
mother is like some kind of spy woman.
"You know how I never told you all where I work? Well I am a part
of the DCA. The dimension criminal association. It’s hard to explain and
we don't have much time. Anyways, parker was upset and angry
because Bryan had attacked you, so he beat him up a bit." I think about
this for a while and realize that I'm okay with that. This man attacked
my mother then attacked me so he deserved to get the hell beat out of
him.
A few minutes later Parker walks in with his family. We had talked
in the library about how many siblings we had or if we even had any; he
said he had two. A girl probably around four years old and a boy around
seven. They look just like Parker. Same brown hair, same bright blue
eyes.
Parker walks over to me and embraces me in a huge hug. I wrap
my arms around his masculine neck and he wraps his around my thin
waist. He picks me up and spins me around. I giggle and I feel his smile
even though I’m not even looking at him.
"Are you okay?" His voice is so pure and warm as he whispers in
my ear.
"I am now." I turn my head to where I'm looking at him. His smile is
so soft and so comfortable in his skin.
"I want to kiss you, you know?" My heart beats when he says the
word kiss. What am I supposed to say?
"Well my mom and your mom and your dad and your brother and
sister and umm that would be kind of awkward so yeah maybe later or
umm yeah." I'm rambling now, words falling out of my mouth one by
one. He just looks at me and laughs with a giddy smile on his face.
"Come here." He leads me to our hallway and now my heart is
beating even faster. He intertwines his fingers in mine and he's tall
enough that I have to look up at him. He looks at me one last time
before pulling me close and gently touching his soft lips to mine. I close
my eyes and wrap my hands around his neck. I have never been kissed
before, until now and for some reason I'm glad, because I always
wanted it to be perfect and it is. The perfect guy, the perfect kiss, and
there is still a damaged world. I wish I can stay in this moment forever
with just me and him. But life doesn't work that way. He pulls away and
stares at me with a stern expression. I blush not knowing what else to
do, and turn my head so he doesn't notice. He takes my chin with his
thumb and looks at me again without saying anything.
"What are you doing?" I ask softly.
"I'm just taking in everything about you. Your smile, your long eye
lashes, your hazel eyes, blonde hair. You’re beautiful Ivalyn. And unique
and amazing and intelligent. I've never met a girl like you." He catches
me off guard with the words that he just said so the only thing I can
think to do is kiss him. And I do. I'm not scared or nervous anymore; I'm
safe.
A moment later we walk back to the living room and I say hello to
parker's mother and father. They introduce me to the kids and I
instantly love them. We all talk for a while before my mother gives us
an announcement.
"I'm sorry to disrupt conversations but we are going to have to
leave here and go to the evacuation area. Things are starting to get
worse and we all need to be in safety."
My mother leads us to an old looking barn in the middle of a wide
open field. We walk in and go down three cases of stairs. I feel the
coolness of the earth’s ground and it sends chill bumps up my spine.
Parker lays his hand on my back to steady me while were walking down
these rigid stairs.
We head into an enormous dormitory where cots, food, and people
show up. My mother turns around to us.
"Welcome to the dormitory. This is where you will be staying while
we wait for peace again. Please just make yourself at home and also
showers and restrooms are on your right."
I look around at everything in this room. Well the people mostly.
They look terrified and sick to their stomachs but why don't I feel that
way. Yes I'm terrified but I feel safe with every move I make. It’s like I
always have someone there for me. It feels selfish though, to these
people to me. I feel I'm the only one being protected and no one else is
and I hate it. I eventually lose the thought from my mind and try to find
a cot to lie on.
The next day I wake up feeling weak and fatal. I stand looking for my
mother, sister, brother, and also parker's family but I don't see any of
them around. I see parker leaning against a railing his arms wrapped
around his head. I walk over to him to see what's wrong. He looks at me
with a sick expression on his face.
"They're gone." His voice is shaky and quivering.
"Then we will go after them." Mine is stern and determined. Which
is unusual, I'm mostly the shaky one.
Parker and I walk out of the dormitory determined to find our
families. Together anything is possible and we are not leaving each
other. Until I hear a boom and a POW. Then everything goes black.