Evasive Darkness

Chapter One - Alice in Wonderland

Chapter One – Alice in Wonderland

I woke up in the same manner that I always did; as if being pulled by unwillingly and struggling from a better place. Sleep hung like a heavy veil over my mind as I tried to fathom where I was or who I was. I reached over to the bedside table and pushed the snooze button on the small digital alarm clock that was ringing indignantly. I was sure that it couldn't possibly be morning since I had certainly just laid down in bed and closed my eyes. It couldn't possibly be morning already. I was about to settle back into the waves of sleep when the bedroom door creaked open and an unfamiliar voice pulled me suddenly into full alertness.

"Honey you really should get up or you will sleep through your first day of school." I scrambled as quickly as I could to escape the tangles of the blankets and put the bed between myself and the intruder. The lady looked at me wide-eyed. She was approximately in her late thirties. I based this judgement on the deep laughter lines around her eyes yet lack of frown lines between her eyebrows. I had never been very good at assessing age but I always assumed the frown lines really set in during the forties. She didn't look like your average early morning intruder, though I had never had one before to compare her to. She had large eyes that were a deep blue. The kind that looked like they were deep and the more you looked into them the more lost you became. At the moment they were dancing at me, as if slightly amused by what she was seeing. Her full lips pulled tightly, exposing her large, rather horsey yet perfectly straight teeth. "You are so dull in the morning," she laughed. Opening the door further to show me she was fully dressed in a pair of straight black pants and a purple button down shirt. "Are you orientated enough to tell me if I look ok for my first day? Do you think that they will like me in this? Or eat me alive?"

I could feel my mouth starting to sag slightly as I took in my surroundings. The room I was in was not the room that I remembered going to sleep in. I felt an angry ball of fire form in my chest. It was panic. I felt my breath start to quicken as I looked for anything that was my own. But nothing in this bedroom was like anything in my own. The bed that I had just fought my way out of was a large double bed with a black leather frame and from what I remembered it was comfortable. Not at all like my hard mattress. The room was large, square and had plenty of space to walk between the bed and the book case which was something I was unfamiliar with. The walls were cream and the carpet under my feet was woollen and cream. The furniture was dark teak and there was a computer humming on a desk next to the bookcase. There was a window with the blinds drawn above the desk and behind me.

"Are you alright?" laughed the lady again but her laugh had lost its comical edge and with now laced with genuine concern. I felt slightly ridiculous for thinking that I needed to put a bed between her and me. For one she was obviously not trying to hurt me and secondly she look far more athletic then me anyway.

"I'm fine." I croaked out and I felt relief at finding that my voice, at least, was my own and how I remembered it. "I'm still asleep." I decided and felt the burn in my chest subdue at my realisation that I hadn't been abducted by aliens and put into an alternate universe.

"Well wake up Leighton!" she gestured wildly with her hands. I felt a shock at how she used my name so casually, so familiarly. "Today is very important to the both of us and you need to be awake! I know you don't think Forks is a great choice for a fresh start but I want you to give it a shot."

My whole body stiffened and I felt my jaw slacken again. Forks? I instinctively looked at the book case. It was the only item of furniture that I could relate to having in my room, but unlike the bookcase in my room which was stuffed with worn and much loved books this one was barer. I recognised a few of the spines the Harry Potter series and Marley and Me but it was noticeably bare of the four thick black books that had their own proud place on mine, and pretty much every other teenage girl's bookcase in the world. The Twilight series was not in this dream, which was strange considering I was dreaming I was in Forks. I didn't understand why this lady seemed to think that I had previously (Maybe in another dream that I couldn't remember having) resisted the idea of moving there. I was sure that if my mum had offered to move me to Forks for a "fresh start" I would have more then willingly obliged her wished.