Finding My Normal

Ch 57: Things of My Nightmares

The elevator doors open and I'm instantly crushed within North's arms wrapped around me.

"Sang Baby are you okay? That was a fucking nightmare! I thought the elevator was going to crash with all the noises it was making." He squeezes me tight and then lets me go and we walk out through the halls toward the entrance. Mr. Morris and an employee the only other people in the building.

"I'm fine, North. Where is everyone else?"

"They started evacuating people. I lost them all in the chaos, but I was able to circle back to come get you. Mr. Morris tried to hold me back, but I got passed him." North says with a smirk towards our History teacher who just rolls his eyes.

Once outside I see Kota, Nathan and Victor first. I run towards them and give them a group hug. Victor swipes his hand through my hair brushing it off my shoulders. "Princess, you scared us."

"The elevator just got stuck. No big deal." Unless you count meeting Volto.

Gabriel and Silas soon find us and Silas gives me the perfect hug while Gabriel shouts, "Oy! Sang, if you wanted to fucking have an adventure you just had to tell me and I'll take you to the county fair. Around here we ride roller coasters--not elevators!"

My friends and I laugh as I search the crowd near the school bus for Luke. My eyes spot Jay leaning against the bus looking towards me. He gives me a half nod and I send over a small wave.

"Cupcake!! I got you some water from the place down the street." Luke runs up behind me breathing hard, with a bottled water in hand and I'm thankful for it, suddenly realizing how parched I am from my encounter with Volto.

Mr. Morris instructs us to board the bus so we can head back to school. Before we are settled I see a BMW pull up and park haphazardly next to the bus.

"Mr. Morris? You called, is everything okay now?" Mr. Blackbourne says as he approaches my history teacher.

"Yes, yes! It was all resolved. How did you get here so fast?"

Mr. Blackbourne ignores his question and scans the bus windows until he settles on my face. "Miss Anderson can you please come out here?"

I sigh and get up to make my way off the bus. When I approach Mr. Blackbourne I take him in from head to toe. Perfection as always except for one tiny detail. A smudge of dust on his right pant leg. "Yes?" I say when I reach him.

"Are you alright? Can you tell me exactly what happened?"

No. And if you're Volto you already know what happened. "The elevator went out of wack. An alarm went off, the doors closed and then it started going up and down until finally it worked again and opened on the main floor." All true. I just leave out the juicy Volto bits.

"Mr. Morris informed me you were in there for over ten minutes. Was it going up and down that entire time?"

"I don't know how long it was. It stopped eventually and I was trapped down there, but I didn't time it. Why are you here?" I ask boldly.

"I'm in charge of the students at Ashley Waters. As such, it is my responsibility to ensure the students are safe and uninjured when such an incident occurs. Especially off school property. Thank you for your time Miss Anderson." He turns toward Mr. Morris, "I'll be writing the report for our files after I talk to the people in charge here to determine what actually went wrong. If they can't get it fixed we won't be having this trip again next year."

He walks off and enters the Old Exchange Building while the rest of us get on the bus and head back to campus.

____________________

With the long day, exhausting field trip and Volto encounter it's easy for me to fall asleep at night. Before I do I think about everything that happened earlier today. Volto insists he didn't murder my parents. He says it really was just an accident. He must be telling the truth, right? I can't remember a time when Volto straight up lied to me. He's kept things from me sure, but like I've said before, secrets are just facts you don't know yet. And if he's telling me he didn't kill them and that it was an accident then it must be true. But what about the second set of tire marks Detective Reynolds found? Could those have been from the vehicle that hit my family? Or are they tracks from someone who saw the accident and stopped to help?

Who is Volto? Jay was leaning against that bus the same way Volto leaned against the dungeon wall. But then Mr. Blackbourne had dust on his pants. That could have been from all the dirt in the dungeon or a smudge from climbing through elevator shafts.  And he got there so fast after Mr. Morris supposedly called him. He had to already have been in the area.

Volto also said he lost his mother. Out of the few things listed in the dossier for my recruiting assignment, the one thing that stood out in Owen's file was that his mother is deceased. Lot's of people don't have mothers--I'm going to need more proof than that, but it's a step in the right direction.

My last thought before I drift into sleep are thoughts of my old family and what it was like for them that day they abandoned me. Did Marie know ahead of time what was happening? Did she ask questions? Did she think she was going to miss me? Her sister. Before I know it I'm fast asleep.

"Did you load the boxes I told you?" My mother screeches while scurrying around the living room.

"Yes, I did." My dad says with a sigh as he carries a sleeping Marie in his arms.

My family looks normal, like how I remember them. Not scary like my last nightmare about them. I'm not young in this dream, I'm sixteen and standing in plain sight of both my parents, but they don't see me. My father rushes right past me and out the door like I'm simply a ghost observing the scene before me.

My mother follows and locks the door behind her as my dad gently places Marie in the back seat of the van and buckles her in. My invisible dream self climbs in after her just as the car takes off down the road. With all the twists and turns my dad is making Marie wakes up.

"Where are we going?" She asks in her sleepy voice.

"We're moving." My mother informs her.

"Where's Sang?"

"She's not coming."

I wait listening for my sister to ask more or show concern that I'm not there, but instead I hear a horn blasting. I turn towards the window and see headlights. My eyes try to adjust to the brightness, but the lights are too strong. They crash into us, pushing our car into the side rail barricading the cliff. It crouches and breaks off as our car continues, but we don't go over.

I'm upside down, my side facing the road ahead. Marie with blood trickling down her face and bruises already forming unconscious, faces the cliff and water below.

I hear a screech and car doors opening, and feet fast approaching.

"Get the girl!"

I see black shoes, black pants. The large figure crouches down and peers inside the car, a Volto mask covering his face. He reaches in and unbuckles my seat-belt while holding me in place so I don't come crashing down and hurt my neck. He easily slips me out of the car window and carries me back to his still running car.

He doesn't say a word and in the background I hear shouting and a loud bang, then the sound of twisted metal scraping against the side of the cliff as my parent's car travels over the edge and into the rocky water below.

As I look up into Volto's eyes I don't see the blackness of the mask, instead I see steel grey staring down at me.

"Why?" I whisper.

"I just wanted to keep you safe, Miss Sorenson." No longer is the masked man speaking in the distorted mechanical voice of the real world I've been living in, but speaks in the voice of pure smooth perfection that I have heard countless times over the course of the school year.