Family and Protection

Chapter 13: Nightmares

Brelyn's body shot up as she woke herself up. She was breathing heavily and quickly; she was in a cold sweat. She woke up from a terrible nightmare. She began wiping the tears that were falling down her face. She felt her heart beating at a very fast rate. Brelyn began to take control of her breathing. Her breathing slowed as did her heart rate.

She began to notice that her bracelet was glowing. "Really? Again?" Brelyn thought to herself. She checked the time on her phone. It read 4:45. She looked out the window. It was still dark.

Suddenly, there was a knock on the door. Brelyn got up to answer the door. She was surprised to see both Jacey and Cayla at the door. "Brelyn, we have a problem," Cayla said.

"What's going on?" Brelyn asked as she let Jacey and Cayla enter the room.

"Look," Jacey said pointing at both girls' bracelets. They were glowing as well. "We both just woke up from nightmares."

"The same thing just happened to me," Brelyn told the girls. Elaina started moving in her bed. She mumbled something, but the girls weren't able to make out what she was saying. "Oh, sorry Elaina. I didn't mean to wake you-"

"Wait," Cayla whispered. "I think she's still sleeping. Remember, she had a tendency to talk in her sleep once in a while."

"Look," Jacey said pointing at Elaina. There was a red glow coming from Elaina's bed. "Her bracelet is beginning to glow."

"Don't go," Elaina said in her sleep. "Don't go," she said a little louder.

"I think she's having a nightmare," Cayla said. "That's what happened to us."

"Should we wake her?" asked Brelyn.

"Don't go!" Elaina shouted as her body shot up.

"Nevermind," Brelyn whispered.

Elaina began breathing heavily just as Brelyn had just been doing. Her eyes darted around the room as she was brought back into reality. Unlike Brelyn, who only had a few tears, Elaina's tears streamed down like a waterfall. Brelyn, Jacey, and Cayla ran over to comfort their terrified friend. Elaina cried into Brelyn's chest. Brelyn looked down at Elaina's wrist as the bracelet continued to glow. Elaina's eyes began to glow as well.

"Ssh," Brelyn said. "Everything's going to be okay," she said with a comforting voice. "Nobody's leaving you. We're right here."

Elaina's sobs slowly came to a stop. Her breathing became slow and clear. "You okay?" Cayla asked with a comforting tone. Elaina nodded.

It was very difficult for the girls to fall back asleep. The dreams they all have experienced kept the gears in their heads moving. They hung out in Brelyn's and Elana's room.

The sun soon came up, and the girls got ready for the day ahead of them. The tiredness they had finally hit them while they were in class. Brelyn was in Magical History when she began to fall asleep. Her head fell hard onto the table; that definitely woke her up a bit. "Are you okay Brelyn?" asked the teacher: Fairy Godmother.

"Y-Yeah, I'm fine. Just didn't get much sleep last night," Brelyn replied.

Fairy Godmother continued to teach the class, but she still worried about Brelyn. She knew something was up. She noticed the bracelet around Brelyn's wrist. "Ah, that explain some things," she thought to herself.

The class soon ended, and the students all shuffled to their next class. Fairy Godmother watched Brelyn as she met up with one of her friends. Suddenly, Fairy Godmother's heart dropped when she saw who Brelyn was talking to: it was Cayla. Fairy Godmother covered her heart with her hand. Her granddaughter was standing right there across the hall. She looked like Jane just with freckles.

It was then that Fairy Godmother noticed that Cayla looked just as tired as Brelyn did. "Bye Brelyn," Cayla said. "Got to get to History of Auradon." Cayla walked towards her classroom rubbing her eyes.

"I bet none of them got any sleep from those gems," Fairy Godmother said to herself.

Cayla took her seat in her third period class before totally knocking out right on the desk. Suddenly, Cayla felt a light tap on her shoulder. She lifted her head as her eyes adjusted to the hard light of reality. She then adjusted herself so that she was sitting up straight and ready to learn.

"You look like you didn't sleep much last night," the teacher told Cayla. "You wanna-"

"No, no," Cayla said, interrupting the teacher's comment. "I'm good. I can stay up now."

"Okay..." the teacher replied.

Cayla was able to stay up the entire class, but it was not easy for her at all. "How am I supposed to stay up for four more classes?" she thought to herself.

Jacey sat in her fifth period Algebra I class. She couldn't focus on the lesson because of how much sleep she didn't get. Jacey looked across the room to where Brelyn was sitting; Brelyn didn't look much better than she did. She wished the teacher wasn't so strict on seating arrangements. That way, she and Brelyn could discuss what the heck is going on.

Jacey tapped each end of her pencil on her notebook. Her eyes would drop shut before she would shoot her head back up. She would rub her eyes every so often to make the tired itch go away. She tried her best to look as awake as she could. She didn't want the teacher being worried about her like her three previous teachers, with Lonnie being the most worried.

Jacey looked back at Brelyn. Her head was laying on the desk. Jacey shifted herself so that she could see past Brelyn's purple hair. Brelyn's eyes were closed, which indicated she had fallen asleep. "Well," Jacey thought to herself, "might as well catch some Zs too." She lowered her head onto the desk as she drifted off to sleep.

Elaina wasn't much better than the other three. It was now seventh period: the last class of the day. She was surprised by how she was able to last that long. Some teachers even had told her that she could drift off for a little bit if she really needed to. Her teacher for her current class, Safety Rules for the Internet, had asked her if she would like to take a little nap. Of course, Elaina declined.

The truth was Elaina was avoiding falling asleep. Not because she didn't want to make it seem like she didn't appreciate what she was learning, but she didn't want to experience that horrific nightmare she had experienced the night before. Her heart ached at just the thought of it. Just then, Elaina could have sworn she saw her bracelet glow, but it must have been too quick for her to catch it.

Once school was over, the girls gathered in Brelyn's and Elaina's dorm once more. They talked about how they all couldn't focus on school because they were so tired. Elaina mentioned her fear of falling asleep and getting that same dream.

"Maybe we're just doing this to ourselves," Jacey said. "Remember when we first got here? We were all paranoid. Maybe it's just the same thing."

"I hope you're right," Brelyn replied.

"Of course I am," Jacey said proudly. "I'm sure those nightmares won't come back."

Unfortunately, she was wrong. Boy was she wrong. The nightmares continued to take hold of each girl's mind at night. Every night, they got less sleep. None of them knew how to stop them. A couple of the teachers, including Lonnie and Doug, had found out about these nightmares. They had brought it up to Fairy Godmother, Ben, and Mal. Luckily, they all knew the cause of these horrid dreams.