Chapter one
As soon as my eyes snap open, I look around, taking in the frame around me. I'm in the middle of a street, dead silent. There's no human nor any being in sight. There are woods at either sides of the street, releasing an eerie feeling inside of me. I twirl to my back when a whisper runs past the air.
"Claire." It calls in a mixture of many tone, being intermixed together. I twirl round again, seeing no one in sight.
"Hello?" I call out in a rather, louder voice. I knew in the bottom of my mind that this is not real, that it is all a dream, but the sensation feels real. Whatever the voice wants me to feel is beginning to seem real and more than an ordinary dream, I'd rather call it a lucid dream.
"Have you found it? In the woods?" Ask the increasingly diminishing voice again. I look at the woods and all of a sudden, I'm surrounded by trees. The trees are stagnant, no wave of air passing by. There's no sound of leaves, cracking nor is there any sound that follows the forest like a company.
"Hello? I can't see anything. What should I find?"
"They are coming. Find it, now." Followed by the much different tone — a raging kind, is a life-threatening thunder, momentarily splitting the sky into two, darkening it. I squirm, and cover my head with the help of my hands. The sounds goes down after a while.
"I...I can't see anything. Please." My heart races too fast that I thought it would run out of me, leaving me non-hearted.
"Look at the holes."
The earth splits from behind me and I turn to the path. I see the hole it made, dark from where I am.
"In there. Everything is in there. Go. Run."
I don't know how or why, but I'm running towards the dark hole in the ground. The thunders roars again, spreading and intensifying. I cover my head and run faster towards the hole.
Few steps away from getting to my destination, the sky booms down a crackling, whitish light, causing explosion to take place, and hurl my body away from the spot. I lose my balance totally as my body fly to the opposite side.
Thunder runs down one by one like rain, falling on spots near me. Tears brim my eyes. Why am I being punished?
For some unknown reason, I stare up to the sky and see a flashy, blinding, white light, coming down on the exact spot I'm cowering on.
"Yell, Claire. Yell."
So, I did. I yell to the top of my lungs.
"Claire? Are you okay?" A familiar voice calls me, bringing me into full consciousness. I gasp, bolting up from the bed to sit up and gaze at Steph. She looks down at me with a concern expression as I wipe the beads of sweat away from my forehead.
"I'm fine, Steph."
"Are you sure? Do you need some coffee?" She offers and I smile. I hover my legs off the bed, and put on my flip-flops.
"No, Steph. It is the same dream." I tell her, causing her to pay more attention to me.
"The same dreams again? They have started?"
"Yeah, I thought I was free from them till last week, but now it's no difference. Good morning." I add.
"Morning."
Steph stands up from next to me on the bed, giving me way to go to the bathroom. In the bathroom, I take my brush, put the paste on it and start to clean my teeth when I glance at Steph. She's looking back at me.
"What?"
"Nothing. I'm just watching you." She replies. Odd of her not to give herself away.
Splitting off the foams from my mouth, Steph calls my attention.
"There's an Email for you on the laptop."
"What Email?"
"I didn't check it." She gives me a I-am-not-a-pervert-look. Is she not? My subconscious chimes in, and I manage to ignore, thankfully not having to battle myself inwardly.
"I will check it later, then." I tell her when I'm through with rinsing my mouth. I open the faucet widely, to cleanse my face after applying bath soap to my palms. When I'm done, I take the coloured, tom and jerry in small, printed form towel from its hanger and dry my face.
I look at my reflection in the mirror. My black, wavy hair cascades down my back in a messy shape; amber eyes stares back, becoming more revealing when I pack my hair behind, wearing it into a bun; my warm ivory skin, reflects my sharp features beautifully, under the fluorescent light, attached to the ceiling of the bathroom.
"Are you okay now?"
"I was before." I roll my eyes at Steph. What was she implying by that question? I release a comforting smile to her.
"You weren't. The dreams are really affecting you. If you had listened to me, perhaps you would be okay now, and not get yourself stuck with that stupid doctor, or whatever quack thing he is." Steph says.
Her eyes are staring ahead of me into some sort of remembrance. She isn't at fault that I stopped seeing the doctor she booked for me at first. I was just fed up, living in the same nightmare, just with different scenery and way of approach. I have been living with it since three years back, started on my eighteenth birthday. Back then, I thought it was nothing, later proved to be something hefty, spiraled totally out of my control.
"I'm living with it, Steph. No matter how afraid I might feel, I always knew I wouldn't die. My dreams collides with reality." I tell her, walking back into the bedroom, passing by her.
Steph follows behind me, her arms are folded against her chest, as her heel-sandal clicks after me.
"You can't live with such thing. Well, anyways aren't you going to bath, or you want Thompson to come and yank you out of the house?" Steph points out, chuckling in between.
"Oh, that. The guy is annoying. I can't believe he is my boss still."
"He doesn't look annoying to me. He's rather handsome, but I'm not falling for him in any way." Hayden holds up both her hands, palms facing me in surrender. "He owns the famous pastry shop, at least let him do some big boy thing."
"Big boy? What's the time?" I ask, glancing at the analogue watch, next to my bed, momentarily forgetting that it had gotten smashed by the sleepy-me last weekend.
"Eight-thirty am. You have thirty minutes. I have prepared breakfast, maybe you'd eat it in the car."
I look at Steph's sharp outfit, now noticing she's dressed for her acting work. Steph has a talent as me just on a different account. Her's to become a famous actress someday, while mine is to become the world's best-selling author. Steph has a dazzling chiseled feature, aligning with her tall frame to make her look model-like.
Her porcelain skin is flawless as she has been taking care of it since her young ages; natural silver blonde hair that blends, bringing out more of her existence, packed into a top-knot. She's wearing a short black gown under a red coat that stops at the same level as the gown, reaching below her knees. She has a light makeup on, completing her mode of dressing in a superb way.
"Oh, I hate eating in a rushing manner. Okay, I will go bath." I stand, and walk back to the bathroom, but halt when I reach the threshold, turning to face her. "By the way, you look breath-taking."
"Oh, thanks, Claire." She flushes. Her eyes, growing big, and she reflexively releases her crossed forearms to look down at her cloth. "I thought the heels won't do before."
"They fit perfectly. Stunning girl, I will be back."
I have intended to have a sharp shower, but failed when my body asked for more under the cascading, sprinkling warm water. My thoughts lingers to Steph's advices on going for therapy or something related, but I just can't seem to. If I tell the therapist that I'm battling with an increasingly, diminishing, faint voice, would they believe me? Apart from that, I have a feeling that my answers can not be quenched by following Steph's recommendations.
When I'm through with drying my body, I take the hair dryer to dry my hair, it worked faster. Aand by the time, I'm through, thirty minutes have passed. Oh God! I'm late. I am always late. Sometimes I used to worry if it isn't some kind of curse on me.
I look at my reflection in front of the mirror. I'm wearing a silky white blouse; short, tattered-at-the-knees, long jeans; silver cross-bag, putting it over my shoulder; face-cap to prevent the heavy sun that I have no doubt might scorch anytime.
When I get to the kitchen, passing by the small dining area, I see Steph, packing the food inside a plastic takeaway. She closes it with the lids, before noticing my presence. I gait to the fridge and take out a bottle of water.
"Thanks, Steph. I love you." I peck her on her cheeks, and collect the plastic away from her hands.
"How are you sure that it is yours?" She glares at me, and I blink, confused.
"Isn't it mine?"
"Of course, not. But you can eat it. Let us just go." She says, and walk past me. I shrug her words off, and take thep bottle water along with me on my other hand, to Steph's Honda. When we get outside, the warm air, indicating the closeness of the sun fans on my skin, refreshing me in some ways. I inhale sharply, and exhale with my mouth.
"As my daily chauffeur, please open the car-door for me, my hands are full." I add in a complaining tone when Steph glares at me, saying nothing, but huff.
Steph holds the car-door, while I sit. After hopping in, she closes it for me, then goes to the other side. She starts the engine, the moment she jams her door close, roaring it as she presses down. She pulls out of the parking area that's spaced along the walkway to the front door, and I start to eat.
"Are they treating you well, unlike the other filming industries?" I ask, and Steph glances at me.
"None of them has, not even this one, but I'm managing in this new industry. At least they are giving me some, little projects, like the one I'm going to go do now." Steph explains.
Her journey of becoming an actress hasn't been an easy one, as all the industries she has joined knows nothing, but putting her behind the camera, or featuring her in one, or two scenes. We are both looking forward to the companies we have submitted our CVs to. Hope they accept us.
"What is their name?"
"The Eclipse filming industry."
"Oh." Is all I manage to say, before focusing back to eating my food.
Steph drops me off, three blocks away from my temporary place of work — the pastry shop that is owned by Thompson, my annoying boss. A block away from his averagely constructed shop, I can hear the Orchestra music, playing in the background from his dear radio. I shake my head in jocularity to his character on getting to the shop.
I open the sill, then turn to my back to move to the booth when I halt, seeing Thompson in front of me, as he's maintaining his imperfect stoic expression. He looks amusing rather by the chef cap that's on his bronze, curly-haired head. He's wearing a wine red shirt, black jeans, blue sneakers of the same product as mine, just black in contradiction. There's the red Thomp's Pastry, printed with flakes of flours as design, on the apron he's wearing — the uniform of his bakery shop.
"Hi. Good morning."
"Don't hi me." He whisperingly yells at me, and I stand still on my frozen track.
"Why?"
"Look at the time, you this disturbance girl." His hands goes to the wall clock.
Disturbance? I'm not a wave.
"I was only late for twenty minutes. For goodness sake Thompson, I don't want trouble." I glare at him, and shove past his shoulder when he tries to tower over me with his above six feet height.
"Are you threatening your boss?"
"If you don't shut up, and let me do my work — take orders of the customers. I will leave here, meaning you'd lose customers, and money. You will not be able to answer them by yourself. I'm on a temporary stay so, I have nothing to loss if the land-use taxes closes your shop when you don't make payments." He watches me with wide eyes as if he has not seen this version of me before, but he's seen many of it — we always argue. "Now, that's a threat."
"Go answer the customers." He changes the topic, fuming. "Here it is, their doughs."
"Okay." I collect it from him when we reach the booth. He walks in, while I stay at the opposite side to him, on the outside.
"Good morning." He says as he hands me two chocolate for the two customers he'd pointed to, owning the food.
He is greeting you? You sure scare him. My subconscious is laughing off her ass, falling to the ground in amusement.
"I've greeted you before so, I won't repeat it."
I make my way to the two male customers, sitting on the same table, next to each other, having a conversation, but I interrupted when I place down their order on the table.
"Good morning, gentlemen. Thank you for patronizing us at Thomp's Pastry. Hope you enjoy our doughs. Our bakery make the best baked foods." I say, straightening up from my bent position.
"Yeah, we know. Thanks for the nice gesture." One of the men smiles at me. I don't bother looking at the other as he has started eating the doughs.
"The pleasure is all mine." I smile, letting it touch my eyes, wrinkling it, and walk back to the booth.
"We haven't had much customers since morning." Thompson complains as he is using the roller to mix the moist flour inside a bowl as I enter the booth.
"We just opened, Thomp's. Patience."
"Well, crack the eggs into the flour, and mix it. When you are done, tell me." He says, leaving the flour to me. I walk into the booth, taking off the same-as-his apron from next to the popcorn machine, and wear it. After, I pick the eggs one by one and crack it, and let only the yolk fall inside the bowl.