• After an hour of talking with Vale, I came to the realization that I must be insane if I start believing her...
    I sighed and laid on my bed just watching the specks of dust fly around my head.
    "'You may have been that girl in the past... That may be some kind of warning. Watch out okay?'"
    I closed my eyes and sighed. "How am I supposed to 'watch out?'" 'And for what?... Maybe, maybe I should talk with Caleb about it when we talk...'
    I waited hours by my phone. I was slowly drifting out of a calm state to a completely paranoid state as the time passed by. I thought of the things that could ba happening. I thought of how he maybe trying to think of how to say 'We're through'... Panic was gripping me with all it's might.
    Finally my phone played his song... Last Night~Skillet.
    "Hello!" I said egarly to not be left alone in my thoughts.
    "Hi sweety! How are you?" He said cheerfully. I gave a sigh of relief.
    "So much better now that I can talk with you..."
    "Your parents not home yet?" He sounded slightly worried.
    "Nah. Dad left for Alabama today, and mom is working til 8 pm tonight... Then she'll be here around 9."
    There was a long pause before he finally spoke. "Well, is anyone there with you?"
    "Nope."
    "What time is it over there? Isn't it only 4?"
    He knew as well as I did that it was. 'What was his problem? I've done this before! I've been left til around 10...'
    "Yes it is... What's wrong?" I asked him as if I hadn't noticed his stern voice.
    "Can't I just worry about you?... What have you been doing? What are you doing for dinner?"
    "Yes you can worry. I've been reading... and thinking... and maybe, possibly, worrying... Dinner? Don't know yet... Don't really care."
    "Whoa, whoa, wait. Worrying? Why?" Caleb asked even more worried now.
    I tried to gather my thoughts... 'Well, you said we need to talk about something. I love being your girlfriend... Don't leave me. Why are you so concerned?'
    All the things I had to ask were buzzing in my mind... But I did't know where to start.
    "I know you said you wanted to talk earlier, but about what?" I asked as clearly as I could.

    It seemed like forever had been tip-toeing around, making me feel so guilty for asking. But he finally sighed.
    "I wanted to talk with you about somethings, but I don't know how to ask it yet. Why would you worry? I love you. Did you think I would just say, 'Hey, it's not good for me, but we're done?'"

    I felt my face grow red. I was flustered. Angry with myself and with him. 'How can I not worry when we don't see each other? You're the one acting strange!'
    "Well... I'm a girl, I don't get to see you, and if you were me and heard that I wanted to talk with you about something and I sounded grim, how would you feel?" I asked as nicely and as calmly as possible... But that seemed to fail around the end.
    Caleb started to chuckle...
    "What's so funny?" I asked, I felt as if I was missing a joke, especially one that I may have said.
    "You're just too cute... Like always... I promise when I figure out how to ask this, I'll inform you. Deal?"
    "No deal! What do I get when you ask?"
    "Something..." I could hear the smirk in his voice. I just could. What was worse, it made me smile.
    ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
    "What have you been reading?" Caleb asked after the first hour of our conversation.
    I looked down at the phone and up to the celling. "Fallen... There's something strange about it..."
    Something seemed to peek his interest. "What's it about? Vampires?"
    With the craze over Twilight, with all the love and hate, came about a new thing... Vampires were something everyone seemed to be obsessing over now. It sickened me with the whole 'Team this' 'Team that'.
    "Nah... It seems to be about past lives. Maybe angels?" I said as I flipped through some pages.
    Angels always made me wonder about God and other creatures that may be out there... Possible real. But those thoughts changed as soon as I let my logical half take over.
    "Angels? Well, that's cool. Do you believe in them?" Caleb asked as smoothly as possible.
    "Hm... I don't know... All I know is, I've been called an angel many times before and it bugs me... Do you believe in them?"
    "Yes, I do. Remember, Wiccan here and all. Haha..." His voice faded.
    "Yeah, I remember... Ha ha ha... Caleb? Caleb?" No answer... I checked my phone. The screen had went all black.
    Anger filled me as I threw my phone. I knew that it was fully charged, it had no reason to turn off on me. But as I got off my bed, the lights began to flicker on and off. Until finally, they all went out. Nothing could be heard, and darkness surrounded me. I was petrafied.
    I had never been in the dark for long, mainly because as soon as it went dark, I would have a light with me. Being in the dark never made me feel comfortable. It wasn't the darkness I feared. It was the things that I saw in it.
    I had always seen many different spirits while in the dark. But the ones in the dark had more power and could harm me more than the ones I had always dealt with.
    I closed my eyes and tried to find the door to my room. The cold metal handle stuck out enough for me to feel my way out. I dared a peek outside of my door. The hallway seemed to be longer than before. Or that may have been my paranoid mind playing tricks on me.
    The stone floor seemed to be even colder than usual as I walked bare footed.
    "Okay Alice... You can find the lantern just at the edge of the steps... Come on..." I had grabbed my phone just before the lights went out, in case it actaully worked again.
    Once I started for the end of the hallway, all I heard were the whispers of the spirits calling me. All saying the same thing no matter what language they spoke... Salvation...
    'Salvation? To save you from what? Why do I have to help? I can't even help myself out of this!' I thought loudly as I tried to keep myself from screaming.
    I heard something behind me. A wheeze, a hoarse cough... I couldn't tell which, but whatever it was, it stopped me in my tracks.
    I closed my eyes tightly as I heard it walk around me. Opening my right eye, I squinted to see what had appeared.
    A deformed body... It almost looked human if it weren't for the dark blue or black skin, strips of flesh hanging from almost every limb. And the many needles and shards of glass that protruded from it. On its face was a huge gash that started from the top of the left side of his face, down to the bottom right. If it had any eyes, they were not seen. Nor was its mouth.
    The sight of it made me hold my breathe as I tried to pretend it wasn't there. Ice cold skin touched my cheek and began to run through my hair.
    The sweat from my forehead began to move downwards. The hair on the back of my neck stood up. My lips quivered as the fingers traced my face. I could hear it moan, or what it may have been doing... breathing.
    I was almost about to loose all my cool and scream my head off, but as I pulled back, it flinched and began screaming itself.
    My eyes flashed open and I could see it cringe in pain. As it began to burn, I could hear its flesh melt away from its hands. I could smell as the rotting body began to dance in pain. Its screams deafened me to no end as I stood back and watched it... die?
    I covered my ears and began running in some direction. Feeling eyes on me, I couldn't last more than maybe one minute before I came crashing down with fear.
    And it was already too late, since in fact I had stummbled over my own feet and hit the floor. I finally rolled to a stop and covered my face and head.
    "MAKE IT GO AWAY!" I screamed at the top of my lungs.
    This was all too new for me. I had never experienced anything like this. Everything felt surreal and frightening.
    Tears ran down my face as I tried not to be heard sobbing. Finally something broke the long silence.
    My phone rang out. I was shocked that it worked but I was quick to grab it.
    "H-hello!" I had said in a shaken voice. Gripping my phone with both hands, as I tried to listen for the caller.
    "Hello? Are you okay? What happened? Are you alright?!" Caleb had yelled into the phone.
    "Caleb! I am so glad you called!" I had started sobbing into the phone. I began to hear clicks and buzzing.
    "Caleb?" I asked in the phone.
    "What happened to you? Where did you go?"
    I finally opened my eyes enough to see that everything was back to normal... I was in my room, sitting on the floor. Some of my clothes were spread across the floor, a shoe here and there. My crying had finally stopped and I could hear Caleb calling my name in the phone.
    "Alice?! Alice!"
    "I'm sorry!" I had yelled back to him.
    "What all happened? You okay? Go call a friend and get them to stay with you now... Please." He said it almost exactly as Dante did when he ordered me to get onto the horse with him.
    It took almost 10 minutes to describe what happened to me, and to argue that this normally didn't happen and that I would be fine until my mother got home.

    "Caleb, I'll stay on the phone with you... If it helps, do you want me to call Fai and tell him to come over for just 10 minutes?" I asked sofly as I broke down, defeated.
    "Yes. I would love that... Please."
    It took him 20 minutes to get over to my house and to help me calm Caleb down. He was just angry with what happened and Fai was utterly lost as to what happened.

    "Okay... So you're saying that some weird thing came to you in your house while the power went out... Right?" Fai's gentle voice asked. His long brown hair touched his shoulders. His eyes held more knowledge than what he normally showed. He especially knew more about the paranormal life than I did.
    "Yes..."
    Caleb was listening to our conversation on the phone. Ocationally giving his input on the subject.
    "Did you tell him about what it did after it touched you?" Caleb chimmed in.
    Fai gave a look of both confusion and disgust.
    "It touched my face and flinched... Screamed, and burned and finally just died." I held my head down. I was embarassed to be telling one of my close guy friends all of this. But it was nice to have him here. Fai patted my head and gave me the look of you're-fine-love.
    "Hey Caleb, I'm gonna take you off of speaker for a sec, 'kay?" Fai asked as he took the phone from the long, wooden kitchen table.
    "Sure..." Caleb said just before the click.
    Fai covered the speaker and looked to me. "Okay... I just gotta tell you this... Your aura is just so off..."
    Fai saw auras. I saw spirits and heard them. Occasionally he sees what I see and vice versa.
    "I bet..." I whispered.
    "No, I mean that your color is a hell of a lot brighter. And yet so dark... It's like you've matured more but your fear from the thing earlier is keeping it dark... By the way, are you sure you were in your house?"
    I looked to him both confused and unsure. I began to doubt where I was. But then again, I was confused about the aura color being brighter. My thoughts clashed as Fai put Caleb back on speaker.
    "We're back. Thought we heard her mom coming." Fai lied.
    "Alice... I'm worried about you." Caleb's voice had been so stern earlier, but now seemed to fade with every minute that passed by.
    "I know Caleb. But we can't help how things are... You in Texas and me in Virginia... You need to stay in the army. Don't even think about it!" I scolded him. Remembering how he mentioned that if he left the army before he was meant to, was bad... And would make him go to jail.
    "Damn it. Take that one off the list then... How about I request-no. They won't let me... Damn it..."
    Fai waved bye as it was his time to go home. I stood up and gave my taller friend a hug. His long arms wrapped around my back and he pulled me close.
    "Bye Angel," he whispered as he let go.
    "Bye Fallen..." I said back.
    It took my mom two and a half more hours to get back home with dinner in hand as an apology for being so late.
    Caleb and I had been talking that whole time about other things. Mom said hi, he said hi, and we all settled into our places.
    It wasn't long before I had to go to school tomorrow... Which was something I had dreaded a little... But it was a great place to forget things.