Beyond - Volume 1 (YA Paranormal Romance) (4 page)

“Don’t touch that!”
yells the woman in the front seat. My mom. Her voice sounds hushed because of the device that’s clamping my head, but I can tell by her tone she’s serious.

I look at my
mom and follow the sweat that drips from her cheeks onto her mouth and her teeth biting her lip. Sometimes the steering wheel is jerked from one side to the other, while the car seems to accelerate.

Indifferent
, I look out the other window across my seat. Next to us is another car. In the back is a boy that looks at me with remarkable, hazelnut eyes.

All of the sudden
the car next to ours flings about aimlessly. It drives from right to left and smashes into a car coming from the other side. The noise is deafening. With my eyes wide open I see the boy tumble around inside the car, as the vehicle makes a cartwheel across the road.

“You are Raven Stone.”

***

I’m jerked out of my sleep
, clammy from all the sweat. Sighing, I rub my face. I’m worn down because of the nightmare. Even though I’ve had this nightmare so many times, I still get chilled to the bone.

Why do I keep having this
same bad dream? It all seems so real.

I sit on the edge of my bed to calm myself. I
have this dream at least three times a week. It always feels so realistic. My mom used to come to me whenever she heard me screaming when I just had the nightmare. She always found it hard to comfort me, so she just brought me a warm cup of milk.

I blink a few times to take in my surroundings and to assure myself I’m in my room.
Every time I have to tell myself I’m not in that car. I’m just home, in my bed. I’m not in that car, and I’m not witnessing the death of the young boy.

Then m
y cabinet moves.

Stunned
, I look at the piece of furniture. Did that just happen, or was it another fantasy? I’ve just woken up, so it’s not strange to see things that aren’t real. Right? All of a sudden something appears from behind the cabinet. Black smog is coming through the walls. A black ghost seeps like water through the wall, and then the cabinet and reveals its true form. A human. And he’s staring at me with the same wretched smile as he did yesterday when he moved the Ouija board.

This has to be another
illusion.

Sam
flies to my door, and something invisible latches onto him. He wriggles in mid-air, unable to move forward. I watch in horror as the smoky shadow turns about in his invisible prison.

A
nother entity drifts through the wall.

This one is much faster and blue
, and moves with flexibility through my room. He looks human. This is unbelievable, unimaginable and insane.

I can’t
comprehend what’s happening. The blue ghost follows the black ghost, who’s still wriggling around. Then he breaks loose from his invisible prison, and his arms go toward the door. The blue entity comes closer and looks as though he’s pursuing the black one.

I watch as
Sam flees through my door, just before the blue ghost captures him. Sam’s gone. The blue ghost is too late.

T
he blue entity turns around to look at me.

His
body is transparent, accompanied by smoke. His face is unrecognizable, but he has human traits. My desk and the paintings on the wall are visible right through him. Motionless and with my teeth clenched, I stare back at him.

I can’t believe what I’m seeing.
This has to be another ridiculous hallucination.

He stands frozen in my room. Even his eyes are translucent, but they’re there, because they have a lighter color than the rest of his body. It’s as if he’s wearing cloth
es, but only the soft outlines are visible. His body looks like it consists of a million little stars that glisten as he moves. He reminds me of a reflection of the cosmos.

This ghost isn’t like the others. This one seems more like a real human and less like a
horrifying shade. He glows, just like the others, but I sense something that can be trusted in his aura. His body radiates warmth and power, and it doesn’t strike me with fear.
What is he?

Then the mysterious stranger
leaves just as quick as he came.

All I do is gaze at the door. What just happened?

That blue ghost was overwhelming. I felt like a block of concrete
, unable to move my muscles. All I wanted was to look at him for as long as I could. When he left, it was as though someone pulled me out of some kind of hypnosis. It was inconceivable and titillating. I didn’t want to be anywhere else.

Maybe he
’ll come back.

I pull off my blanket and turn
on the light, but I’m faced with the empty silence of my room.

Nothi
ng. There’s nothing here. Is it all just a fantasy? I’m out of my mind. Of course it’s a hallucination. Why am I even thinking about this?

I slap myself a
cross the face and come to my senses. Everything I just saw is caused by my condition. I shouldn’t allow myself to even think about how amazing it was to see that.

I take the bottle from my nightstand and look at the pills inside.
Do these really work?
Why do I still have these strange hallucinations?

I don’t understand why they don’t d
o what they’re supposed to. In the past, these tablets reduced the frequency of the hallucinations, but since living here, things have gone downhill quick.

Why?

My fingers shake. My stomach churns at the thought of these mirages and how they might become worse if the pills don’t work fast.

I
fish out two tablets from the bottle and swallow them. I have to pull myself together, otherwise I won’t bother going to school. I pull up the blanket until it covers my eyes. Hopefully, I won’t see anything else tonight, so I can catch some sleep. Does this house have anything to do with my condition worsening? Or was it the Ouija board?

***

The next morning I awake to a bang. Sitting straight up in my bed, I stare at the yellow figure standing in the middle of my room. A glimmering vapor emanates from his core. His presence fills my room with glistening smoke, dripping off the ceiling and vanishing into thin air. He doesn’t move.

On the floor, in front of hi
s feet, is my diary.

My jaw drops.

He flies through the window and disappears. I blink and rub my eyes.

Why is all of this happening?

I get out of bed and pick the diary up off the floor. Nothing appears to be off about it. Nothing’s changed. It’s not damaged, and all the papers are still inside.

I
t must have been a hallucination. What’s wrong with me? Why is it getting so much worse?

I heave a sigh.
There’s nothing I can do about it; I’ve already taken the maximum amount of pills.

After I put on my clothes, I
bolt downstairs to make some lunch for school. My mom’s sitting at the table. Her shabby breakfast consists of one biscuit topped with jam and a cup of coffee. It looks untouched.

“Mom.”

“Yes, Dear?”

“Could my condition be getting
… worse?”

She waits a few seconds before answering. “Maybe. I don’t know,
Honey. I’m not a doctor.”

I take a glass from the cupboard and pour in some milk. “I’ve got the feeling l
ike it’s this house, because it’s only gotten worse since we started living here.”

“What? What gives you that idea? Your condition has nothing to do
with the house.” She takes a bite of her crunchy biscuit.

I
make two peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, wrap one in foil and put the other one on my plate. “But are you sure that I’m hallucinating? Maybe I’m just seeing ghosts.”

I walk
to the table with my plate in one hand and my glass of milk in the other. My heart skips a beat when my mom’s eyes grow round and she chokes on her biscuit.

It takes her a while to answer.
“Yes, of course I’m sure!” She balls her fists and hits the table, which makes me jump a little. “Raven, you’ve been having problems with this all your life. Don’t you remember all those times? You’re just a bit different … there is nothing wrong with being different.”

“You’re right
… ” I say, then gulp down the remainder of the milk. “Two pills a day is not enough. I’m going to take four per day now.”

Staring at me with wide eyes,
she puts the last piece of biscuit back on her plate. “I didn’t know it was troubling you that much. But you can’t, Raven. It’s too dangerous. Don’t just take extra pills without letting me know. You don’t know what the consequences might be,” she says.

“Do you? Because I know I need them. I’m going insane from all th
ese hallucinations, and they just keep getting worse! Why do you think you had to mop me up off the floor last night? I’m not alright, Mom. Something’s wrong, and I don’t know what.” I can barely swallow a piece of bread, like it’s stuck in my throat.

“It’ll be alright. You just have to get used to the n
ew environment. That’s why you’re feeling off. It’s normal. You’ll see, after a few weeks it’ll be back to normal.” She taps her fingers on the table and then pulls her own collar. She doesn’t eat the rest of her biscuit. Instead she puts the mug against her lips and gulps down the coffee in one go. Then she takes her plate and cup to the kitchen.

What’s bothering her so much?

“I wonder if things are going to be alright … especially at school. What if I suddenly start hallucinating? I don’t want to make a fool out of myself.” I fold my arms together.

“You’re special,”
she says. “You’re not like the other kids, I know, but that doesn’t make them better than you. It makes you amazing, because you’re unique. Who wouldn’t want to be around you? Come on, Honey. You’re lovely company. You study hard, and you know how to pack a punch, so I’m sure you’ll make lots of friends. Go for it!” She waves at me before she walks out the front door. I get the feeling she’s running away from me.

“Great,” I mumble, but I know
she’s too far away to hear me.

What a load of nonsense.

Yes, I might be great company, but I’m also a walking circus. My pain is someone else’s laughter or fear, and I want to see neither of those today.

T
he car rumbles, and judging by the retreating headlights, she just drove off.

I
get up and wrap the remaining sandwich in foil. Maybe I can eat it at lunch, if I’m hungry by then. At this time I’m too jumpy to even think about food. It doesn’t matter how many times I have started over again. It’s never easy going to a new school for the first time. I wonder what they’ll think of me.

How am I supposed to act
, and what should I say?

After so many ye
ars it’s still not easy. Meeting new people is always scary.

Well, at least I have Lillian and Emma to help me get through the day.

Then I realize I haven’t seen or spoken with the girls since that night.

Oh god, what
do they think of me? How am I supposed to explain myself for running off like that without terrorizing them? Nobody will understand why I did what I did.

Then
it hits me. I got ill at the party. I had a fever, or something. And that’s why I saw things that weren’t there. Yes, that’s a good idea. I’d rather have them think that I’m a crybaby than have them think I’m nuts.

***

It doesn’t take me long to find the school building in this small town. It’s discolored and has an awful yellow paint on it. The building only consists of two floors and has a blue pyramid-shaped roof. It’s almost a leaning two-story death trap with fading piss-yellow paint chipping away along the seams. I’ve never seen architecture gone so wrong.

I look at the
premise, find the bicycle rack, and lock my bike to it. I walk up the steps toward the doors. Everyone looks at me like I’m some kind of oddball. Of course they do. I’m new, and there aren’t a lot of newcomers in a town this small. They’re eyeing me like a pride of hungry lions eyeing a piece of meat thrown into their cage.

When I get inside
it’s as if they were expecting me, because a black lady at the counter is signaling me.

“Are you Raven Stone?” She asks, but I think she already knows the answer, since she’s holding
some papers in front of my face. I nod.

“Here’s your schedule, a welco
me letter, and a map of the school.” She licks her finger and presses it down on a piece of paper. Then she hands it over to me. “Your books are in your locker. Here’s the key. Your first class starts in five minutes,” she says as she hands over the key and then gives me a look that says: GO!