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2

"Why does it still scare you though? There's nothing gory in it, no people you know, and you don't die in it. It sounds more like a stress dream to me." He commented, making me roll my eyes.

"Just because it doesn't sound scary to you, doesn't mean it isn't scary to me. Anyways, I'm sure it's just some weird dream created by puberty." At that Mac laughed as we agitated our tanks once again. After we placed them back on the counter, he then grabbed his backpack and pulled out a yellow envelope.

"Speaking of weird, get a load of what I photographed near the school grounds yesterday morning when I was looking for deer," He said, opening it up and handing a pile of recently processed photos.

"When did you process these?" I asked as I began to sort through them.

"I was naughty and took them to professionals. I didn't want to risk screwing them up like my last batch of photos because I probably won't be able to take these again." He informed, agitating our tanks for us as I sorted through the pile.

"These just look like landscape and property photos, what am I looking for?" I asked as Mac put the tanks down and leaned over my shoulder to point to a silver spot in the photo that hadn't caught my eye before.

"What do you think that is?" He asked.

Squinting, I took a hard look at it. It seemed to be a metal structure of some kind, but it definitely wasn't one of the weather instruments put out by the science class. Apart from being a bright silver, it had a can shaped body and the metal rods sticking to it looked like arms and legs, then the smaller can resting on the bigger one looked kind of like a head. Frowning a little, I continued sorting through Mac's photos, now easily able to pick the silver thing out. The weird thing was though, it was in different places and positions each photo. "What is this? Some run away project from the robotics club?" I asked, handing the photos back to Mac so I could agitate our tanks this time.

"I don't know. I just saw it walking around the school near the woods. Crazy weird right?" He asked, putting the photos away.

"Yeah, you should totally ask Mr. Benson if one of their competition projects escaped or was being tested. Not that it looks like anything the robotics club would build though." I then got a glance of the clock on the wall and cursed as I quickly grabbed my backpack. "I have to grab my sister and we need to go home. My parents apparently have some big announcement for us tonight."

"Okay, no worries. I'll finish processing your photos for you and leave them in here overnight. You can get them in the morning." Mac reassured as he began to set up for the next step in processing them.

"Thanks Mac, I'll see you tomorrow," I said, heading for the door.

"Wait, Abigail!"

"Yeah?" I asked, stopping half way through.

"Make sure to text me what the news is," He said, and I smiled.

"As long as you don't write about it in your diary," I teased before rushing out of the room so he couldn't defend himself.

After I left Mac behind in the darkroom, I made my way across the school to the theater building to pick Naomi up from rehearsal. As always, she was sitting in the hallway amongst a giant group of people, who all shouted hi to me as she gathered her things and joined me with a bubbly smile.

"Hey, how did photography club go?" She asked, likely wanting to hear a brief overview of my day before giving me a book worth's about hers.

"It's not a club, it's an after-school hobby with me and Mac. How did rehearsal go?" I asked as we made our way down the hall.

"It was awesome! I'm so excited for you to see the show! I just wish we had more chorus or tech people though." She then nudged me. "You should try being in one of the shows sometime, I think you'd like it," She said, making me roll my eyes a little. Every time I picked her up from theater Naomi would try to talk me into joining but I didn't find it appealing.

However though, I could see why she liked it. It fit her outrageously outgoing personality like a glove.

"You know I won't Mimi. Anyways, I kind of am in a performance. Photography isn't just about pushing a button, there's a lot of steps to get a gorgeous finished product. That has to count for something right?" I asked as I rummaged through my backpack to find my keys.

"I guess." She shrugged, waiting patiently for me to find my keys as we walked out of the school and towards my car. "It's just that, Melody has all her siblings in shows with her, and I wish we were like that sometimes you know." She mumbled, guilting me like always.

"Maybe next show if it's a good one." I reassured, wishing her tactics didn't tug at my heart strings.

"Maybe isn't a yes." She grumbled. Shaking my head at her, I unlocked my car so we could get inside. Once I had turned on the car to get some AC going, I begin to readjust my mirrors.

"Well I don't want to say yes because I don't want to make any promises I can't- " I begin to say but my words then got lodged in my throat as my heartbeat became obvious in my ears.

While I'd been adjusting my rearview mirror, I very clearly saw a face looking back at me that I had hoped to never see outside of my dreams. It was the disoriented face of the blonde boy from my nightmare. He stood directly behind the car, hands in his pockets as he stared at me with lifeless blue eyes and dark creases under his eyes. In disbelief, I turned around quickly to look out the back window, but just as quickly as he appeared, he was gone. Instead there were a group of kids getting into the car behind mine.

"What is it? What's wrong?" Naomi asked curiously as she looked around with me. Swallowing thickly, I looked back into the mirror with trembling hands, expecting to see him again, but the only disoriented face I saw was my own.

"It...um...the...nothing...I thought there was a bee..."

My first instinct had been to say something about it, but I wasn't sure if I had seen it or if my sleep deprived mind was playing tricks on me. He was there then gone so fast it could have easily been a trick of the subconscious. Maybe one of my classmates walked by the mirror and the blonde hair threw me off?

It'd be an easy mistake to make.

"If it was then let's open the windows, I don't do bees," Naomi said as she quickly opened the windows. Gnawing at my bottom lip with a churning stomach, I glanced around one last time before starting the car.

There was no way someone could've been there then vanished so fast, I must have been seeing things. I was tired and that messes up your brain. Like Mac said, my sleep cycle was interrupted because of the dream.

Therefore, I must've been imagining things.

Yeah, that's it, I was imagining things.

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Hey guys! Thanks so much for all the votes and comments on the first chapter, I had expected a response but not from so many of you! As I've said, I'm super excited about this story and can't wait to get to the good stuff ;)

Sooo, who's starting school this week? I'm not because I've graduated but my mom is letting me go to a theater school so I'm excited about that!

What are you looking forward to this school year?

-Mari.