A 16 Year Old's Dream Chapter 8

Story
Freshman year of high school flew by quickly. A hot summer had passed and it's now the end of fall. The whole school is excitedly preparing for a festival. She was even getting her own corner for a public reading of her novel.

She's nervous. Not only are her fellow students coming, but so are students from neighboring Slum High as well as the general reading public. Maya is preparing to recite her new novel, really a collection of her dreams, by reading it over and over again. All the dolls that had once sat in the display case of her room had disappeared.

"They like it better over there," she thinks to herself. "Anyway, I'm too old to be playing with dolls now. I'm a published author, after all."

Thoughts of Coco entered her mind from time to time, but she had become afraid of dreaming about him. She didn't like thinking about Rose looking at her so coldly. In any case, she oversleeps if she dreams about them. The festival is tomorrow and she cannot be late.

"Don't dream about that place. Don't dream about that place," she whispers as she falls asleep.

She props herself up and realizes it's the dream again.

"Oh, why this?" she grumbles at first before telling herself that it's okay.

She just needs to go back before it's too late. She lifted herself up and saw that her bed was resting on the edge of a lake.There are no floating lights here, but a rainbow bridge stretched from one end of the lake to the other.

"Wow, how cool," she said in awe. A pit bull barks in response.

"You followed me!" Tom Tom only follows her into this dream. Perhaps, he likes it here?

As soon as she set foot on the rainbow bridge, her body began floating over it. She felt as if she were riding on a bright, prismatic rollercoaster. Whenever it dropped from its highest point, her body would float up. She feels she might wet her pants. Tom Tom also let out a yelp, though it is hard to tell if it is from excitement or fear.

There was a tall tower leaning before them once they reached the ground. The floating lights adorning the tower flickering in its shape was a beautiful sight to see. She pushes open a door and enters. A man and a woman are together inside. The woman seems to be ill. The man hears someone and gets up. It is Coco, now even older than before. He looks older than twenty now. He gets up, puts on a coat, and walks toward Maya.

"I thought you weren't coming back." He does not smile like he did before. His eyes wavered.

Maya does not know what to say to him.

"What did you come back for?" Rose gets up and lashes out at her. "We are doing just fine."

"All right. I won't come back again," says Maya, her feelings hurt.

I didn't want to come here anyway, she thinks to herself.

Rose quickly walks outside. The sound of a glass cup shattering could be heard. Tom Tom growls.

"Rose likes to look after the sheep, and wolves, and horses these days," Coco speaks to break the awkward silence.

"Follow me. I'll show you an incredible view of the night."

The two climb their way up to the top of the tower. He is not curious about her life at school like before. Coco leans against the railing and tries to hold Maya's hand. Without a thought, she pulls her arm away.

"Don't you like me anymore?" Coco speaks with a hardened expression.

Coco no longer looked adorable as he had when she first saw him. They are both silent.

"I really like you." He draws near her as if for an embrace.

Maya backs away. Then with a snap, her neck was left bare. Coco held Maya's necklace in his hand.

"You won't be leaving now," Coco smiles brightly.

"Give it back. That's mine," says Maya, but Coco has no intentions of giving it back.

Tom Tom runs over to them. He bites Coco's arm.

"Ow." Blood drips from his arm and he drops the necklace.

The sky blue necklace hits the floor of the tower and shatters. The necklace shatters into thousands of sharp fragments that fly out and scatter all over the world. One of the pieces lands in Coco's wound.

Another fragment penetrates into Rose's nail bed as she stands at the bottom of the tower. The more Rose tries to extract the fragment, the deeper it digs into her nail. It punctures through her finger and enters her bloodstream, ultimately piercing her heart. Rose stops dead in her tracks that instant. Her emotions intensify. Her eyes are bloodshot. She looks up at the tower and speaks.

"Evil wench."

She becomes the embodiment of jealousy and sets off for the forest, far away from the tower and opposite the fountain.

"I really hate this yellow brick road. Let's go, you guys."

As Rose walks with a flirtatious swing in her hips, sheep No. 1, a wolf wagging its tail, and a bad-tempered horse follows behind her. Maya wants to go home. She needs to get dinner ready for when mom gets home from work and she needs to make breakfast too. She has to get to school and recite her book. She needs to coordinate with Nipples so she can give her the book. But, she's so sleepy. Her eyes are half-closed, making things hard to see.

"But, this is just a dream. It's ridiculous to fall asleep in a dream..."

With that thought, Maya falls into a deep sleep. She dreams a dream she may never wake from. She lies in bed at the top of the tower, occasionally tossing and turning and murmuring in her slumber. Every time she did that, the earth would shake and all shadows would writhe. Coco sits at the head of her bed and vacantly looks down upon her.

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