• The article in the paper glared at me and practically screamed ‘IT’S ALL YOUR FAULT!’. It wasn’t fair. Life wasn’t fair. It’s never fair.
    'LOCAL TEEN MISSING’ was all that I could see in my head. It wouldn’t go away. It would never go away as long as I felt responsible. But, in a way I didn’t . Mainly because everyone I knew told me that it wasn’t my fault. It was more of an ambivalent feeling. I was so uncertain of how I should feel.
    Tears continuously, almost endlessly, streamed down my cheeks.
    Why did you let this happen? You could have stopped Anna from going to see her brother for just one day. You could have stopped her from being in the wrong place at the wrong time. You know those vision thingies always come true, but you never listen to them. You, my friend, are in denial.
    I groaned and rolled over onto my back and hit the play button on my iPod dock. The music lulled me to sleep as it hushed my mind.
    The peace and quiet didn’t last long as the usual nightmare rolled in and completely took over my mind.

    The strange blond-haired man stood at one end of the dormitory, Anna on the other. The man approached her, smiling in an almost believable manner. They exchanged only a few words when the two started down the hall and into a janitor’s closet.
    Screams erupted from the room. I ran down the hall screaming my best friend’s name, tears rushing down my face as her muffled screams of agony were suddenly cutoff. I reached for the knob, but the door opened before I could open it myself.
    I stumbled back and fell to the floor in fear as the murderer stepped out of the closet with blood splattered all over his hands, shirt, and face.
    “No,” I whispered. My breath came in short gasps as the realization that my friend was dead. Forever gone.
    The blood-covered man smiled at me in a sick and twisted way and said, ”hey. You are going to be with your friend soon, don’t you worry.” He threw his head back and laughed evilly. The nameless man grabbed my neck and yanked me to my feet. He smiled again as he drew a knife.

    My eyes shot open as I woke in a cold sweat. I realized I was still gasping for air as I slowly sat up. This nightmare never went away and it always felt like an infinite night. Like I was never going to wake up, never escape the strange blond-haired man.
    My body felt heavy. It always did. It was almost like the ambience of every place Anna was, had turned from joyful and happy to dark and depressing. Of course I would never be able to avoid those places. Anna and I went everywhere together.
    The images from the nightmare continued to replay in my head, along with the actual vision I had before Anna was kidnapped. Or possibly killed. I cringed. I couldn’t bear to even think that my best friend could be dead. Let alone murdered by some creep who decided that it was okay to kill a 13-year-old girl for no reason at all. Some people are just sick.
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    I sat in home room staring off in outer space, our friend Carolyn sitting in her usual spot on the other side of Anna’s now empty seat gazing at the table in front of her. We missed her dearly. And it always seemed that every place we went, we couldn’t escape that grey, depressing cloud that loomed over us. The cloud seemed to be bothering Anna’s and my orchestra friends as well.
    The bell rang and I steadily made my way to my next class, face still blank, mind still clouded with guilt and sadness. It’s all your fault, I thought over and over again.
    The final school bell rang and I made my way to my locker which was right in front of my homeroom/science class. I put away all the books and notebooks that I didn’t need for that night’s assignments. As I shut the door to my locker I glanced at Anna’s. I cupped my hands over my face and let out a soft cry.
    “Kasey?” said a gentle voice. This person softly placed her hand on my right shoulder. I turned to her, teary-eyed. It was Ms. Marsan, my science teacher.
    “You okay?” She asked. Her normally bright blue eyes were now darkened with concern.
    “Yeah, I’m fine. It’s just been hard to get used to all this…sadness. This absence of happiness and laughter. I used to be surrounded by it and now I’m not. It’s like another world to me; like all the colors of the rainbow have been stolen by the clouds who decided that it was okay to block the sun’s light.” I sighed.
    “I know it’s been rough, but it has been four months since her disappearance. You can’t continue to walk around acting like it was your fault. And you can‘t keep alienating your other friends.” She said, sounding truly worried.
    “ I still care about my other friends.” My voice cracked.
    “Who are you trying to fool, Kasey? Me or you?” She smiled at me in that strange worried way and walked away.
    Was I really alienating my friends by moping around with all my doom and gloom? Was I really alluding to the fact that I was alienating my friends? Was what she alleged me of doing really true? Considering, I guess she was right. All I had been doing since I heard that my best friend in the world had gone missing, was moping around being all sad and acting like life had turned into anarchy. It was a hard to fact to handle.
    After I had left school I went to one of Anna’s, my, and a our circle of friends’ after school hangout place. It was located at a small clearing that was next to a small creek. I always went there after school. Mainly just to be alone. Plus I could get my homework done with ease.
    I sat at the creek’s edge and pulled out my English notebook. We had to write a short anecdote on one of our favorite celebrities. Since I had already done it during my free period all I had to do was fix any mistakes I had made.
    There was a faint noise off in the distance. My eyes immediately lifted, pointing toward the noise. I told myself it was nothing and continued my work.
    I steadily placed my English notebook back into my backpack while scoping out my surroundings. I quickly grabbed my social studies notebook and took out the worksheet. Again I had almost entirely finished the work, but for this assignment I had to finish defining and explaining what ‘amnesty’ was. I flipped to the back of my book.

    Amnesty: An official pardon granted to offenders against the government, especially for political offenses.
    I wrote down the definition. Now all I had to do was explain it. That was actually a pretty hard thing to do, seeming my inability to actually explain things. Or use them in a sentence.
    Suddenly it seemed as though I had been transported to a place nearby. In fact it was nearby; the other side of the creek. The thing was, I hadn‘t actually moved away from the spot I was sitting. I was having a vision.

    The small spec of shimmering light was rapidly moving toward me… each passing second the spec got bigger and more…human-shaped. How was that even possible for someone to shine and sparkle like a thousand tiny diamonds?
    Just then a cloud floated in front of the sun and the person-shaped creature had stopped shining and I saw just who it was. In that same moment I was on the ground in agonizing pain. Anna had attacked me.

    I was back on the other side of the creek, sitting down with my notebook on my lap and my pen in hand.
    I was in utter shock. Anna was alive. But it all didn’t make any sense. If she could leave at her own free will, why hadn’t she come back home?
    All this time I thought she had been dead which made the vision seem like an anachronism. Like Fate had played some sort of twisted joke on me by pulling her from the past and placing her in a vision of the future. Not. Cool.
    Oh, how I loathed Fate. Guess you could say it was an anathema to me now.
    I immediately took that back. There it was. The glimmering spec of light. It was no joke. It was right. Anna was alive. And she was coming for me.
    I walked through the shallow creek and stared at the spec. I just stood there waiting for it to just happen. For her to rob me of my life.
    The sun’s light suddenly disappeared as the soft, white cloud moved in front of it. Just like in the vision I was suddenly on the ground with the life literally being sucked out of me. I could feel myself growing weaker as the burning pain coursed through my entire body. I cracked my eyes open a tiny bit and tried to speak to her.
    “Anna? I knew it was you. Am I going to die? That’s what I don’t know yet. I knew you would come for me, but I didn’t know what else would happen.” I was surprised at how faint I actually sounded.
    Anna lifted her mouth from my neck to look at me. Fear and humiliation clouded her now crimson eyes.
    “You’re not going die, I promise,” She vowed to me. All I could do was shake my head. I felt myself being pulled into a dark abyss filled with searing pain. I tried to resist, but I just didn’t have enough energy to fight anymore. I let the pain take over, I let it pull me in to the darkness. I had lost the fight.