ONCE UPON A DREAM I

by ALYSSA

Once upon a dream, I wake up in a familiar bedroom that I know belongs to me, but in reality I’ve never seen. It’s dark, and late at night, but I’m not tired. I go downstairs to get a drink. The stairs are carpeted a light shade of pink, but they look blood red in the black filter of night. When I get to the bottom of the stairs and turn the corner onto a white tiled floor, I see the living room. It’s hard to see in the dark, but there are four stairs leading down into the living room, and there is brown carpet at the bottom. On the left is a brick fireplace, with a small stage near it in the front of the room between it and the door.

In the doorway, which was closed, is another girl, about the same age as me. It was my old friend Isabella! I was excited and happy (and for some reason unnerved) to see my old friend, but she had her brother, and I knew I had to take care of him before Isabella. I was supposed to take him to school for her tomorrow. So I came up to her and gently took her sleeping brother from her arms. In retrospect, I realize there should have been no way that she could have gotten in. All the doors and windows were locked and closed, before and after she entered. After I took her brother, I turned around and set him on the couch.

When I turned back around, she was gone, and out the window I saw her car pulling out. So I turned back around, only to find her brother gone from the couch on which I had set him. I spent a very long time searching for him. I looked under all the furniture, in my room, in my mom’s room, and even in my sister’s room. There was one closet I hadn’t checked yet: The one across the stairs. As I open the door I notice a shadow move and I feel relieved until I realize it’s a large, black cat, with a rough nose. It pounces me and just as it’s nose brushes my face, I wake up, covered in sweat with my heart thundering against my chest.