Mermaids are Real

Chapter 1

Two people were pulling her, each grasping one of her arms. It didn't matter how she struggled or pulled, they wouldn't let go. They kept pulling her, forcing her to go down the hallway. There was nothing she could do.

They reached the end, and threw her forward onto the ground. She quickly scrambled to get back up. She turned around, going up to the door as quickly as she could, to try and get away. She went up to it as quickly as she could, but just as she reached it, it slammed in her face, plunging everything into darkness.

She blinked. Once she opened her eyes again, she was in a room with three other girls. They were blurry and she couldn't make out their features, but she felt like she had seen them before.

ne of the girls opened her mouth, whispering something, but she couldn't hear her. She wanted to ask what the girl had just said, but as she opened her mouth she felt all of the air leave her body.

She began to gasp for air, and the room started to spin, causing her to lose her balance and fall onto the ground.

Once the room stopped spinning, she could finally breathe again. She looked around her, she wasn't in the room anymore. A strange girl was in front of her, wearing a dark cloak which covered most of her figure.

"You need to leave," The girl said. Her voice was unnaturally deep. "It's not safe for you here anymore"

She opened her mouth again to talk to the mysterious girl, but again she felt all of the air leave her body. She tried to breathe, but nothing came. All of the air was gone. She began to feel a searing pain in her chest, and a pounding in her head begging her for air.

Jisoo woke up, gasping loudly. Air. She needed air. She inhaled as deeply as she could. It was a nightmare. Just a nightmare. It wasn't real. She glanced at her clock. It was 5:02 in the morning. Taking a deep breath, Jisoo layed down. Sleep was out of the question though. Her sleep had been infested with the same nightmare for the last couple of months. It started over the summer holidays. But after school started, it had gotten worse. Everytime she closed her eyes, the nightmares would flash through them.

During the summer, she assumed stress was the cause of her nightmares. Jisoo had looked through multitudes of books, websites, and articles about dreams to find a meaning behind her nightmares. But despite all the effort she put into her research, nothing helped her. It had left her with no choice but to live with the nightmares. But her problem wasn't the nightmares recurring, it was what the nightmares were about. It always felt so real, as if she wasn't just watching images her subconscious had made. It was almost too real.

Jisoo yawned. Her dreams rendered her with little sleep. But falling asleep meant having the nightmare again, and that wouldn't leave her any better off. The clock on her nightstand illuminated the numbers 5:04 in neon red. It was still hours before she needed to go to school. Jisoo stuck her arm onto her dresser, fumbling for her phone. Her fingers landed on the soft case. She yanked it from the charger, and held it up to her face. Only a minute had passed since Jisoo last checked the clock.

The home screen showed three unread messages from Jisoo's friend. They were from midnight the night before. Jisoo opened her phone, and looked at the messages. Why had she gotten a text so late in the night? The messages were asking her what she had packed. It suddenly dawned on Jisoo. The class trip. It had completely escaped her mind after the nightmare.

Tossing her phone aside, Jisoo climbed out of bed. Her class was going on a three day long trip to Busan, and they had to be at the train station by 7:00. Jisoo had been dreading the trip for weeks, ever since it had been announced. Almost every night, she tried fighting her parents against going. But they were adamant. It would be a good experience for her. Even after promising she would never argue with her siblings again, she was still forced to go.