Chapter I

I look around me. Thank goodness, it was just a dream. The collar of my nightdress is all wet. I'm sweating. Besides me, the clock shows that's three in the morning. I just have a few more hours before getting up for school. I turn and try to find sleep again, but it's futile. For some reason I can't shake away the uneasiness I felt in the dream. Rising from my bed, I walk to my bathroom and look at myself. I look awful. These dreams are getting a hold on me. My dark brown eyes are injected with blood. Sweat that smells like fear, drips down my neck. I wash my face in an attempt to fix my appearance a bit.

Back in the room, since I have time to spare, I organize my backpack and look for clothes for school. 

"Honey, are you up?", I hear my mother say from the other side of the room. 

"Yes, mom. I'm up. Just another bad dream. Go to bed." My mom worries a little too much for me. It is a result that has come with the years from not having a dad. She never talks about him or what happened, and since she is so overprotective of me, she enrolled me in the Wayland Academy. She said that it's a great school and that she would feel better if I was close to home even though I didn't stay at the house. She has too much work at the office and doesn't want me to be bored at home alone. She prefers me here, where I spend all my time with my friends.

At seven I wrap everything up for the day and head out. 

"Honey, have a good semester. I'll see you next holiday." She smiles at me.

"Yes, mom. Can't wait to spend time with you again. I miss you." I move towards her and envelop her in a warm hug. 

"Oh, I miss you too." We linger in our hug. She was staying in my room for a few days. We don't spend too much time together. She's always busy with work and I'm in an academy.

I go down the stairs. My room is on the third floor of the girl's building. A special request from my mom, since she has an obsession with the number three. I can't deny that she might have passed that onto me, I have a slight obsession with it too. I get to the common room, where everybody hangs out. Well at least me. I don't go out that much.

I open a granola bar and some orange juice from the adjoining modern kitchenette and sit with everybody. They are all watching expectantly the news. I look at the T.V.

"Good morning folks! This is a sad and traumatic day. The police force has found three bodies near the Pattison State Park. The police haven't made comments on how the bodies were found, but our advice folks are to stay in today and watch your backs. In other news..." How can they say the news so casually? They found freshly murdered bodies and they say it like it is the most common thing in the world. 

"Hey, Alice"- Dean snaps me out of my deep thought.

"Hi, Dean. Did you see this?" I motion my hand towards the flat screen.

" Yeah, it's horrible. Please don't let it get you down. I know you worry almost about everything and everyone." Know it all. Can't blame him, he's right as always. He pretty much has known me all my life. He's like my brother.

"Right, let's get to class." Walking down the hallways, I remember the dream. I quickly shake it off before I remember the feeling of emptiness. Of being alone and afraid. A feeling that I have had most every day of my life, sometimes I think it may be a result of something traumatic. It can't be normal.

Once in class, I'm more relaxed. It's my favorite class, Astronomy. I'm taking it as an elective. The stars have always called out to me. It's just what I feel, a connection to outside, to the universe. I also take the class, for the dreamy professor, William Strauss, the hottest professor on campus.

All the girls drool over him and I'm no exception. He starts to talk and I'm lost in his explanations about cosmic theories and in his beautiful green eyes. I'm lost in them when Dean snaps me out of my head again. "Hey! I was dreaming in his eyes." I protest. 

"I know. So was I, but he caught us staring. Do you think that he might swing for my team?" I roll my eyes at Dean and keep writing notes. That boy is a lost cause. He can hit on anything that has two legs and a ding-dong between the legs. 

"Alice, what it's your opinion on the cosmic theories?" Mr. Strauss looks at me expectantly. Green eyes cling to my soul. I think I see a smile in the corner of his mouth. He knows I was talking doing his lecture, but I think is more about us staring at him-drooling- than the talking. I look at my notes and wing it. 

"That's interesting. Anyone else thinks differently?" He says before turning, and I think that he smirks at me. Did he? I don't have time to ponder. Just then the bell rings three times.

"Okay, students please stand up and form a single line." We stand up and follow the professor to the auditorium. It is the standard procedure when the three bell rings are heard. It means that there must be a big announcement or an emergency-situation simulacrum exercise.

I notice that the auditorium is still decorated with the theme of the last party, summer beach party. I guess the staff has been busy. We take our sits in the back, facing the stage and wait. The professors are talking among themselves upfront, on the big long table on top of a built-in stage. Mrs. Karp, the director of the academy stands. The woman has the oddest taste in clothes. Tight knee-high purple skirt, sparkling green blouse, and bold gold earrings. It hurts to look directly at her. 

"Morning students. We have called you here to announce that the academy will be reinforcing the security on campus." Her chirping voice booms around the room without the need for a microphone. "This is because, as you all well must know, there might be a serial killer in the streets. Also...one of the bodies that were found this morning was a member of this academy." There is a gasp all around the room and quickly the whispers start. "Please, don't panic, as I said, the security will increment. In the meantime, no one is allowed out of the academy without an adult. We will be also implementing a body system. I expect your full cooperation. Thank you!" She turns around and keeps chattering with her staff.

I turn to Dean and he's in deep shock too. A memory comes unwelcome to my head. Two years ago something similar happened where I was studying. I was in Chicago and there started to happen something strange. People would disappear and then be found dead somewhere near the school. It was the strangest thing. One night I was out late. I was walking back home from the movies when I saw something unusual. In a dark and dirty alley, there was a man. I could just distinguish his silhouette and the smoke coming out of his mouth. From the corner of the street, I saw two men, cloaked, walking toward him. My head was telling me to keep walking, but my feet were grounded in the spot. I couldn't move. Just watch. The men slowly got close to him. They started talking and the next thing I know both of them were on top of the guy. They were drinking him. Their hands were deep on his neck. It was like feeding. I swallowed my scream. I remembered I had two feet and moved out of the way before they saw me. I could hear their heavy breathing. I looked again into the alley and they were gone. The next morning the news informed about the body. It was a boy from my school that had been missing for two days.

"Hey." I feel Dean shaking my arm.

"What?" I blink a couple of times trying to rid my eyes from the watery film that had started to form.

"Mrs. Karp dismissed us...you were remembering again, weren't you?" Dean looks at me with wary eyes.

"Yeah...don't worry. It was my imagination and this can't be possibly related. Let's go." I say standing. I don't want to dwell in the past. 

*****

"Hey, how you doing?" Mia sweeps back her light blond hair. She's looking into my eyes and knows that I'm apprehensive. It is because of the murders, and the student body, and the memories. She knows, after all, she's like my little sister. She sits beside me in the burgundy common room couch. 

"I'm fine, Mia. Don't start with your weirdness now. Not in the mood." I close my eyes and lay my head back in the common room couch. I try to wipe away the awful memories and my deep gut feeling of something terribly wrong.

"Weirdness? Come on, Alice. You have to admit it, that the bodies and everything sounds like what might have happened in Chicago. Like what you saw." Her sing-song voice is sometimes so annoying.

"Like what I saw? You know I'm not sure of that and you don't even know what the condition the bodies were found, Mia." Exasperated with me she stands up and walks away.

"Now, you royally pissed her off, Alice. You know how she gets when she gets a hunch of something." Dean says to me looking at every available guy that enters our common room. I roll my eyes and stare at the empty hearth. Mia will get over it. I don't have the energy to deal with it. I know that every murder news affects me differently because of what I went through in my last school, so I don't want to add Mia's 'hunches' into my anxiety too. 

Nightfall comes slowly. The orange and blue colors of the sky slip inside the room. It's still warm. August is always warm. I enjoy the feeling of the hot sun in my skin. Soon fall will come with its chilly breeze and brown leaves.

Slowly, the room starts to empty as the night comes.I'm done with my homework too. I walk towards the kitchen to grab some snacks before going upstairs. Mia is there fiddling with an almost empty plate of cereal. She looks up at me and a strange emotion crosses her eyes. I don't dwell on it. I go to the pantry and grab a granola bar. Turning to leave she calls me.

"Al, you're still mad...with me?" Her voice holds hope and despair. Why despair?

"No. It's just that when you usually say things like that...well your hunches are never wrong. They scare me sometimes. You are so forward. So confident. It is unnerving." I linger in the doorway waiting for her to say something. She circles the bowl of cereal with the spoon. It feels like minutes have passed by when she finally talks. "Sit with me. You need to know something."

I walk towards her and sit on the first chair I grab.

"Know what?" A chill runs down my spine. I shake my shoulders.

"Look, I know that what I am about to say it's hard to understand, but please try to keep an open mind." She looks into my eyes hopefully. I just nod.

"Alice, tomorrow it's your eighteenth birthday and there are going to be some changes." She pauses. "What you saw or what you think you saw back in Chicago might have been real...might have been, what do you guys call it...Oh, a supernatural encounter. Look, Alice, I'm different, you are different. You'll understand better all of this tomorrow. What you need to know right now is to be careful."

I just sit there staring at her dumbly. What in the world is this girl talking about? Different? Supernatural stuff? I quickly assume that she's drunk or high. I give her a half-smile and quickly head to my room. I run a bath and pour some vanilla essential oil in the warm water. Soaking in it, I drift off and my mind goes wandering. When I open my eyes again it's almost midnight. Quickly I dry myself up and go to bed.