The Nightmare

                                                     The Nightmare


The sky was a blaze with dark and orange colors. Smoke billowed into the night sky form various areas of the city. Buildings burned rapidly as fires moved from one area to the next, their flames engulfing everything as if some wild animal were gorging itself on new-found food. It was eerily quiet, except for the flames that arched into the night sky. There was absolutely no movement at all; the city was truly dead.   

   A young pink haired girl cowered in fear as she moved about the area scanning for any signs of life, both friendly and hostile. How did this happen? One moment she was in bed, and the next all hell breaks loose. She walked wearing only her over-sized pink shirt and her slippers, seeing no one. Not anyone or anything.   

   She came across her school, which was her home for many years. She had some of the best times of her life here, and the worst. She met her only friends here. But now their was no one, there was nothing. The school burned as flames arched through out the campus. She noticed people's personal belongings. Backpacks,  coats, shoes. Horrible thoughts raced through her mind as she wondered what happened.  And more importantly where were her friends? Where was everybody?  

She quickly ran to Yumi's house hoping that maybe there was hope. But when she arrived she found the building burned out and in ashes. Tears rolled down her face.  Her heart raced from fear as she shook both from fear and the cold night air. She was alone. Like her parents, her friends were all gone.

Suddenly, she heard someone call her name.

“Aelita?”

She turned her head to see finally someone she both knew and cared for.

“JEREMY!" Aelita screamed as she ran for him.

He stood in the middle of the street. Wearing a dark brown sweater with khaki  pants, he was sweating from the constant running and frantic searching for Aelita.

They ran to each other as they finally met, she hugged him as tears of both joy and fear ran down her cheeks, her hands shaking as she reached around his back and laid her head on his shoulder. Jeremy slowly squatted down till he was sitting on the street trying to get Aelita to calm down. He held her as she cried, saying not a word as he looked at her, his eyes also filling with tears.

“Are you alright?” Jeremy asked as Aelita slowly raised her head and stared into his eyes.   

“Whats happening?”  The pink haired girl asked.  “Where is everyone?"


Jeremy said nothing as he slowly stood up, still holding Aelita. “Come on, we gotta go.”  the young boy said.

  “Go where?  What's happening?”  

Aelita tried to get Jeremy to answer but the boy said nothing. He took her hand and lead her down an alley. The fire hadn't reached here yet. But that didn't stop them from continuing.

After a while they reached the park. The fire had not reached this area yet. The trees bent in the direction of the wind. Their leaves bristled and flowed as the wind raced away from the fire. It would only be time 'till the fire reached here as well.

  Finally Aelita ripped her hand away from Jeremy and looked him square in the eye.

“Jeremy, where are we going? What's going on? Where are the others?"

Jeremy looked at Aelita with sympathetic eyes; he said.  “We're going to the Hermitage. It's the only safe place left.”


Jeremy paused as he turned away from Aelita and spoke softly in a weak and staggering voice.

“Yumi, Ulrich, and Odd are... dead.”

   The young girl suddenly dropped to her knees. She couldn't believe what she had heard. Was it true? It had to be, Jeremy wouldn't lie to her. How? How did this happen? Aelita looked up at Jeremy who was bent over putting his hand on her shoulder.

“H-How?” Aelita asked in a shaky voice.


  “They were murdered.” Jeremy replied in a raspy sounding voice. His eyes changed from sadness to anger. His fist closed in anger of the realizing fact he just said.   

“Who did it?” Aelita asked as she slowly attempted to stop crying.  

Jeremy looked at her and replied.  “It wa-”.

    A  large black and green metallic hand reached down and grabbed Jeremy by the head. The blond boy screamed as he was raised into the air. He kicked and screamed as a shape appeared behind him. Aelita screamed in horror as she saw Jeremy lifted into the air. She was pale from terror, she didn't take her eyes off what was happening in front of her. Suddenly a deep horrifying voice came from no where and spoke in a low and deep voice.

  “You can never run from me child, I will find you."  

Aelita's heart froze as she saw a second hand appear from behind Jeremy and brandished a large curved and sharp knife. It slowly twisted and positioned itself behind Jeremy's backside.  

“RUN. PLEASE RUN AELITA.”  Jeremy pleaded with her as he continued to struggle free. The voice came back and spoke clearly to both of them.
  
“I killed your father. Now I shall kill each person you hold dear to your heart”.

  Aelita screamed at the top of her lungs as the knife punctured Jeremy through his  heart. The blond boy screamed in both pain and terror as he was lifted in the air.

  Aelita looked at her friends killer, her heart, mind, and soul, froze with fear. There in the darkness, were two glowing red eyes. They were shaped like a circle with 3 lines in the bottom and 1 in the top. She knew what they were. They were its symbols; the symbols of the monster that her father died to protect her from.  

Xana's eyes. Staring at her with a fiery red passion. Looking her right in her eyes.

  “You cannot run from me, you cannot hide from me.”

  Suddenly, the fires rose around them as the beast roared in anger at the scared girl.

   “I WILL FIND YOU AND EXTRACT MY REVENGE!!!”



Aelita rose up quickly from her bed. She screamed as she jumped straight out of her bed and landed on the floor. She franticly crawled to the corner and looked around the room. There was nothing. Just her computer and stereo system. A few C.D.s, but that was it. No fire.  No Xana.   

She slowly got up off the floor. Wiping the cold sweat from her forehead, she looked at the clock. 4:09. She knew she had to go back to sleep soon. She had a test in Geometry with Mr. Chelzevig in the morning and she was not ready for it. She tried to calm herself down a little from the nightmare, but was still shaking a little.  

It had been 7 months since Xana and her father's death. She had been through some rough times. The loss of her father, the one person she hoped that she could save,  died saving her and her friends.

  She started to slowly fall into a deep depression afterwards. Her grades started to fall, and she mostly slept a lot. And worse, she had gotten into a fight with her friends. She even once blamed Jeremy for her father's death. A few days later, Jeremy talked to her telling her how everyone worried, and how it had hurt not just him, but everyone to hear the words Aelita shouted that day in the park.

She realized how bitter she had become towards everyone. What would her father think? How could she act like this? Her father would want her to be happy and to live a full life; not regretting every moment of her life.

  
Things did get better. Thanks to her friends she was able to get back on her feet in no time. Yumi was always there to give her advice or to help out when ever she could. Odd and Ulrich hung out with her much more than they used to. They always offered her to join them in a movie, just to hang out with them, or to play some video games at the lounge. Usually it was things she really didn't want to see. Like some action movie with pirates, aliens, and of course, superheroes; or to play some X-Box game.  When they hung out, she was mostly in charge of keeping them out of trouble. But there were some times she went along and enjoyed it, and got into as much trouble as they did. Of course, it was only times when Yumi tagged along and sometimes forced her boyfriend to bend and give in to their demands; then she enjoyed herself the most. They could do some of the things that the girls liked. Odd, however, usually complained about it most of the times.

     Jeremy helped the most. He explained to his parents about how Aelita was a orphan and would have to stay at the school during vacations. So they allowed her to stay with them during vacations, or on the weekends. And now whenever Aelita needed something like a new pair of shoes or something, Jeremy could use his credit card without having to think of some kind of excuse to explain to his parents why he would need a new pair of converse shoes or Nike's.

   Now that Xana was dead, she could actually finish a class for once. Her grades were the best in ages. Her music career though was kind of dead. The Subdigitals broke up about two months ago, but that wasn't really a problem. She was concentrating more on her grades, so her music life might get in the way a bit.

So then why did she still feel like she was being watched? She was constantly jumping at shadows, even after Xana's death. And she still had nightmares of her mother's disappearance.  

And now this dream, that awful nightmare... What did it mean? Could it be that Xana was still alive? Or would it mean Jeremy was going to die? Her dreams had always come true. Her fathers diary, her mother, her father's death. And now, Jeremy. She shook a little with fear as she thought about what she would do if her best friend who she cared for was going to die.   

She reached for her cell phone. She just needed to hear his voice, to make sure he was okay. She slowly lowered her hand and put the phone on her night stand and laid back down.    

“Get Over it Aelita. It was all just a major dream”  She tried to reassure herself.  She slowly closed her Eyes and rolled over.

“It was a dream. It was only a dream...”