A Dreamer's Tide

Chapter 3

By now, she was tossing in bed as the remains of the dream lingered still. Clinging to the blankets she covered herself with like a child afraid of the dark, It only felt like it was getting worse from there, even if it was seemingly in her head at this point.

"Make it, make this stop—STOP!" she shouts.

As if it were some miracle, her eyes shot up. She woke up with a start as she quickly sat up in her bed. Luz breathed heavily as she took in the familiar environment of her bedroom. The morning light shone through the curtains of the window on her desk. Her brown eyes scanned the room, looking for any sign of abnormalities or something off. Remembering the breathing exercises she was taught when she was younger, she was able to calm herself down enough to think and breathe normally. She looked down at her hands, looking at each line, to get herself to focus. She took one final deep breath before lowering her hands and leaning back on her bed. She was lost in thought, with a look of worry in her gaze. The girl was left thinking about the dream she had not too long ago. What was that? No, better question: who was that? How did they know who she was? How much did they know? No, it had to just be a dream. A normal dream for a normal person! Luz groaned as the thoughts ran through her mind. Finally giving it a rest, for now, she rubbed the sleep out of her tired eyes. Surprisingly enough, she woke up early. Like any other teen on the weekend, she would have slept in. Her sleep schedule was already wrecked as is, so it wouldn't have made a huge difference. It was a good thing it was the weekend now. Luz breathed as she rolled out of bed and left her room. The first thing that she noticed was the fact that her mother wasn't home. She looked in the kitchen and found a note on the kitchen counter. The note read,

"Had to go to work early, there should be plenty of food in the fridge! Call me if you need anything Mija, - Mom"

As expected, Luz read the sticky note before grabbing a pen and making a little checkmark off to the side as proof that she read it. It was a habit at this point to do this, but it wasn't necessarily a bad one in hindsight. I kept her on track with what she did, so she saw nothing wrong with it. With this, she started her morning like normal. She was eating cereal for breakfast with some juice. After that, she cleaned up around the house, only stopping after an hour. Their home wasn't that messy to begin with. So it wasn't that hard to pick up and clean the dishes. After a while, she sat down on the couch and scrolled through her phone. She wrote down what she remembered from the dream in her notes app to think about later or to add to her diary later on. Then her mind sidetracked as she recalled the interaction with that lady from the night before. Thinking back to who the woman was again. Having nothing better to do, she slipped on a black T-shirt with jeans and a yellow flannel. She wasn't dressing to impress, so she settled on this for now. Then she grabbed her baseball bat and slipped on her white Converse. After this, she shut off the lights and left the house with a spare key in her pocket so she could lock the house. She didn't want to risk anything after all, so she locked the house as it was before taking off on this new venture.

Outside of her home, the weather felt wonderful that afternoon. The trees hissed softly as the wind blew gently. It was days like these where it wasn't too hot but not cold either. Honestly, it was perfect. Her dark brown locks swayed gently in the wind, giving her a strange sense of ease. She took a look around as she kept walking through the forest. Her thoughts raced through her mind. The more she walked, the more she wondered if she should be doing something like this. She shrugged it off for now, her curiosity taking over now. It didn't take long to get to the old, abandoned house that was there. It seemed eerie as it sat there all alone. It wouldn't be the first time she went there. She only went inside it once, but to her, it was just empty and abandoned. Leaving critters there to reside and do whatever it is that they do in the shadows. Thinking nothing of it, she sees that maybe it was just a chance interaction. After all, there was no way that she would run into a person like Eda twice. There was no way, right? After a moment of thinking, she decided to turn back the way she came until she heard something. The rustling of bushes and what sounded like an owl hooting. Instead of being above her, like most birds were, it sounded like it was coming from the ground. Curious enough, she decided to investigate what it was. Luz moved the brush slightly with her hand, moving it out of the way to see. She then looked down, and there she saw a small brown owl hopping along, holding what looked like a ring with his small beak. Luz held back an 'awe' as she watched the owl quietly from the background. The little owl then hopped towards a giant bag. From the looks of it, it was filled with random junk and knickknacks inside of it. It was hard to tell what was valuable and what wasn't from where she was. The owl then went towards it, lifted its wings, flew over the top of the bag, and dropped the ring inside the bag. After that, the owl flew back down with a hoot. With this, Luz decided that she would try to approach the owl in awe.

"Hey there, little guy," she spoke up using a gentle tone of voice. "What are you doing around here?" she asked, not expecting much in response.

The way Luz tried to approach the owl was slow and non-threatening. She kept her hands up where the animal could see that she meant no harm. The owl looked up at the girl for a moment, unsure of what to think of her at first. Tilting its head to the side slightly with an adorable expression. It was hard not to think of the small gesture as anything but adorable. Maybe it could understand her in its own way? With this, Luz's gaze then went over to the bag that the small owl stood by. It seemed to notice the way she looked at the sack. She couldn't help but feel curious about it, as she said.

"What exactly do you have in there?" the girl asked, pointing at the sack in question.

Surprisingly, the owl simply hoots in response to her words. Then it somehow grabbed the top of the bag with its beak and proceeded to drag the bag away. It wasn't hostile or defensive like a wild animal is with its food. It was just hopping away quickly with the sack in its grasp. Leaving the girl impressed by how strong this tiny owl was. Luz watched the owl scurry away. She thought about it for a moment before taking off after the owl. She tried to call after it as she followed the owl. The owl in question dragged the sack, heading towards the abandoned house. The last thing Luz wanted to see was the little guy, so she followed the owl. The old door somehow creaked open as the owl scurried inside of it without care. Luz watched this and stopped for a moment as the owl ran in. She looked at the abandoned house, wondering what exactly she was doing. Why does she care so much about this creature? What was this owl planning on doing with this stuff? She wanted to know. In a moment of haste, Luz shook those thoughts out of her head for now. Luz decided to run inside the house to see where the owl was going. This owl seemed strange to her. Luz had seen many strange things in her time but this owl seemed different than that. Luz wanted to get to the bottom of this.

"Stop adorably hopping away little- guy..."

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