• ***Note from the author (ME): This work of fiction is meant to be a book, so in case you're wondering, this is the first chapter of it; I don't want to put too much in one post, so I'm going to be only posting one chapter in each post I make. I hope you enjoy the story. It might be a little slow in the beginning, but the story will pick up in the next few chapters, so please bear with me. Thank you for reading my work.

    Book Summary: Sarina thought her life was normal until the day she started having the strange nightmares. Then everything changed and strange things started happening to her. To many people, night time may have been the best time for them to party, hang out with friends, and go out for fun, but for Sarina things weren’t so easy. Night time for her was not the best, but the worst. One night her life completely turned upside-down after having a very extraordinary encounter with a fearsome creature.

    Chapter I: The Nightmare

    “Fire! Fire! Help!” A voice was screaming at me, which I found soon afterward to be mine. The smoke was clogging my throat, I could barely breathe. I was asphyxiating and calling for help in vain; no one seemed to hear me no matter how loud I tried to scream.
    My wobbly legs staggered across the hard floor despite the gray smoke that was coming in, almost filling all the spaces around me, and my hands reached out to a door they could not find beyond the cover of the thick blanket of gray. It was impossible. My bedroom was bigger than any average bedroom in the neighborhood and wandering around in a very thick smothering smoke at dawn was a bad idea. I could feel my eyes starting to rebel and my lungs tightening. I covered my mouth with my arm, trying hard not to cough.
    I could hear sounds downstairs of pans and dishes falling and breaking on the floor as though a person had piled everything up on the counter and pushed them to the edge, watching them fall and break to pieces. There was the neighbor’s dog barking as though in terror and a cat being chased away. The sounds made my head hurt even more, adding to the pain I was already feeling in that moment. Why didn’t anyone come and get me? Why were they just leaving me here to die?
    “Help me, please!” My voice tried to scream once more, but I could only let out a tiny plea, barely a whisper. My hope for a rescue was dissipating quickly along with the few gulps of air my lungs were barely able to take in. It was useless. No one could hear me. The house was on fire, and very soon the fire would get me and turn me into ashes.
    My parents must be hurt and my little brothers were probably in danger, too. Thinking of the worst thing that could happen to them, it didn’t matter to me anymore whether I survived or died as long as they were all safe. Huge drops of liquid either from anguish or despair flowed down my face; I didn’t bother to wipe them away. I told myself that soon I would die and everything would not matter a bit. I retraced my footing back to my bed, being careful not to trip on anything. My hands touched the sheets and I lowered myself down to sit and wait for my death. It was heartrending to think that not half an hour ago I was peacefully asleep and dreaming of a sunny afternoon by the park laughing with my friends. My head felt heavy now, my mind cloudy, and my eyes had already shut close together by themselves. My mouth was dry and my throat felt rough.
    I used my last breath to pray and ask God for forgiveness, begging Him to forgive everything that I had done that displeased Him. The whole time I couldn’t contain the small dry sobs in my throat; my heart was in pieces and my mind recollected all my life’s memorable events that it could evoke in a short amount of time, but my emotions were beaten down by the smoke, and I felt my heart beginning to slow down. Every episode of that last moment seemed to be happening in slow motion. The beating of my heart was like bombs blowing up in the distance; it was as though the sound was gradually fading, pushing me further when all I wanted was to get closer to it. It was as though the wind was blowing against me, keeping me far away from the music I was hearing coming from my heart. I knew straight away that I was dying and felt a strange smile curving my lips. Peace at last, I thought. The irony of the situation was quite apparent.
    But then, as soon as I felt myself die, a bright light shone from above, blinding my now opened eyes. I felt wonderful at once, warmed and contented. God must have heard my call and cry for help, and for His forgiveness. My hand slowly moved on its own and stretched upward toward the light. Then suddenly I was sitting up in my bed, widely awake with beads of sweat pouring down my face like a thundering herd of cattle racing down the hill from where they were pastured from morning until dusk. My surrounding was more real this time and there was no smoke clouding my room. However, my hair was wet and my tank top was sticking on my back. I shivered as a breeze blew in from my opened windows, blowing against the blue curtains. Slowly I got out of bed and walked out of my bedroom still in my pajamas. The sharp cry of the smoke detector was sounding all over the house, enough to make a dog run with its tail between its legs.
    Fear and nerves began to race in my heart. I jumped the stairs two by two and reached the landing in seconds. I almost ran to the kitchen and there I found my father comforting a distraught woman who turned out to be my mother.
    “Hush. It’s okay now. You’ll be alright, honey, be calm,” my dad said massaging my mother’s shoulders and the back of her neck.
    “What happened?”
    Both turned to me and Dad asked me first to go turn off the smoke detector so it would not wake up my little brothers who, despite all the commotions, were still asleep in their room. I pulled out a chair from under the table and pulled myself up on it to turn off the troublesome device.
    After making sure that the detector was off I faced them again and asked my question the second time.
    “She left the kitchen to pick up the newspaper outside and got preoccupied chatting with the neighbor, forgetting what she was cooking.”
    “It wasn’t long. It was only for a few minutes—”
    “Long enough to get the breakfast burned, somehow catch on fire, and set the alarm off,” gently scolded my dad, shaking his head.
    “Ah,” was all I said with a few nods of understanding. I wondered if Mom had in some way poured too much oil in the pan and spilled some on the stove. Knowing her “great” skill as a cook, I could very well imagine it happening, and furthermore Dad had yet to go pick up the new stove from Lowe’s this afternoon. Our stove was old; it was the one Dad used when he was in his early twenties, and that was maybe about twenty something years ago, when he first bought his first house. I didn’t have any idea why he kept it for so long.
    But before heading back to my room, I asked, “Will you be alright now, Mom? Is there anything else I can do?” The second question was directed to my dad.
    “No, sweetheart,” Dad said with a smile.
    “I will be fine, dear,” Mom popped in, still sounding a little shaken up.
    In all my short lifespan on Earth, I had no idea that hearing a loud, piercing sound coming from a simple smoke detector could give me a nightmare I would never forget.

    (to be continued...)

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