Valerie Lives in Dreams

CHAPTER 4

I yawned and stretched making my way down the stairs into the kitchen but noticed the sticky note on the fridge.
Cereal is in the cabinet. Milk's in the fridge. Don't leave for school without having breakfast. Take care. Mom Xx
I rushed to change, had my cereal, and hurried to school.
The thoughts from last night came back to me as I walked. I remembered about the tunnel and that mysterious girl.
I decided I was going to go down there.
I took out my flashlight and started making my way behind the building, making sure no one noticed.
"Hello?" my voice echoed off the creepy walls as I crawled through the tunnel.
"It's Hailey Stuart!"
It was the girl I had seen last night. She was wearing the same denim overalls but they had specks of dust on them and her messy brown hair was let down on her shoulders.
"OK? Wait… isn't Stuart the last name of the dead people?" I didn't even realize I had said it.
"If Miller sent you here… back off! I know magic!" she shouted.
"Miller who?"
"I am the daughter of Richard Stuart." Hailey sighed.
"Am I not supposed to be in school right now? I fell down here and I don’t know my way back. My parents are out of town for work stuff and if the school informs them of my absence, they'll kill me!" I made an excuse, completely ignoring Hailey's previous response.
I know very well my parents didn’t quite care. They never gave a crap about my school attendance or whatever. They were out on business trips frequently. They were home sometimes late and sometimes early. I had learned to take care of myself and because of my parents, I had it easy too. I had the freedom to be out late and do what I wanted. I could eat out as often as I wanted and have friends over for sleepovers, homework, and whatnot, without my parents ever finding out.
"I've been hiding out here for years and I'm finally ready to take my revenge on Miller Davis!"
"Miller who, again?" I asked.
"Well, when I was your age, Miller, a greedy, money-hungry monster, killed my family. My little sister Annie, my brother Simon, my parents, grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins, everyone!" Hailey said as a tear streamed down her cheek.
"Oh, I am so sorry for your family... Would you happen to know about the sounds that come from behind the door on the sixth floor?"
"Yeah, that was my m-" she sniffled, "My mother, and my little sister…"
“Oh-” was all I could utter.
“Well, I was one of the people that knew magic and with the help of it, I’ve been surviving in this tunnel for a couple of- I think, a couple of years? I can’t get out of this specific territory until I’m completely ready because Miller will kill me too!”
“He’s alive?" I yelled in shock.
I woke up in cold sweat.
Lord, what was that! What- what was that dream? I was Mary and- and all this stuff that happened to me?
I’m supposed to be Valerie, not Mary!
But since then, every time I went to sleep, I woke up in that world. Nothing paranormal ever happened again. It was all just going to school, just a normal life. It’s like I am living another life in my dreams. I always wake up back in the real world though but I have trouble accepting this reality. It was true what I had said, I loved mysteries and if someone could solve that place's mystery, it was me.
The weird thing was that Mary’s backstory in the dreams was my current reality. I live in Saphimora. Kyle and Emma are my neighbors. The mean old lady whose pool we used to throw pebbles in lives here! Does this mean I am going to move to New Hovey City soon?
It was a few years ago when one of the kids from our school who lived in our neighborhood, Chris, lost his notebooks at school. He’d gone for recess and when he came back, his backpack didn’t have some of his notebooks and he needed them to study for the finals that were only a week away. If he didn’t find his notebooks, he’d have failed the exams and would’ve been expelled. He suggested that Kyle and I were smart enough to figure this out. It ended up being his very own best friend, Connor, who stole his notebooks out of jealousy so Chris wouldn’t be able to prepare for the final exam.
And since then, Kyle and I have been solving all sorts of neighborhood mysteries.
That is what sparked my love for solving mysteries and ever since, I've been into puzzles, riddles and mysteries.
I woke up into my dreams. I was outside the school… but this time a little girl was standing in front of me. The little girl looked like a pale, ghostly hologram.
This girl was Annie Stuart.
This was the girl whose voice could be heard from behind closed doors on the sixth floor of my high-school.
She had tapioca pearls for eyes and an innocent glow on her face. She was adorable and her face was pleading for help, eyes asking for mercy.
If only she'd lived.
"Where is Hailey?"
"She died trying to avenge us," she innocently explained.
"What! No! She was the only living person in the Stuart family that could've avenged the Stuarts. She was so determined," I was devastated.
"It's going to be you, not her." her voice echoed and she faded, leaving me clueless on how this mystery was ever going to be solved.
It's going to be you, not her.
What does that even mean?
We can figure that out after a quick snack break perhaps.