dreams

0.1

I get off the bus. The golden sand around me in hot and unsettling. I hear shouting.

"You're a fucking fool!"

"Look at her!"

"She's so ugly!"

I can feel holes beginning to widen in my chest. I look back at the bus one last time. To my surprise, my only sister is there along with other classmates shouting. She looks me dead in the eye but she is still laughing. Laughing at my decision to get off the bus. Laughing at my appearance. Laughing at ME.

My cheeks become warm and choked sobs escape my mouth as the bus slowly rolls on. I could catch up with it if I tried. My eyes teared and streamed forever. The tears wouldn't stop no matter how many times I wiped them with my sleeve.

"You're assholes! Evelyn you're an asshole!" I shouted and screamed with no avail. I sprinted to stay with the bus."I hate you! I hate you! I hate you!" They still laughed.

Abruptly, the bus stopped. My sister and two other boys came out of the bus. I turned and darted to the nearest hiding place. I watched as they walked around, trying to justify where I was. I was up on the top of a sand dune laying down so they wouldn't find me.

Dizzied in my own thoughts, I lost sight of them and I heard shouting behind me.

"There she is!" I heard the familiar voice. I turned and saw Evelyn and her two side monkeys running up the sand dune. I quickly ran down the other side and took cover behind a bush in the nearest picnic area. The sand had evened out into ugly brown grass. They stumbled and rushed down the dune to find me.

There was a big rumbling noise. All the kids from the bus were seen running up and over the dune. They were running from something. I saw it coming, a wave of dry dirt and sand, coming over the crest of the dune. I stayed in my place. There was a large concrete wall behind me and if I stayed on the ground the dirt would go right around me. I looked around and saw my sister huddled with another kid behind a very small grassy hill. She looked at me with fear in her eyes. She looked to me for help. And I wanted to help, like a big sister should but it was too late. The dirt circumvented the hill. She and the other child grasped the surrounding grass and held on for dear life. It happened in an instant. She was buried and disappeared.

Once the dirt had settled, and was no longer avalanch-ing I stood. There were no sounds except for the wind and my single step onto the dry dirt. I heard muffled screams from my area. And the sound of sand moving. I looked around. I started to dig furiously in a place where the sand was moving. A small toddler had been there. He was shoved and violently pushed up against the wall by the dirt. He stood to his full height which allowed him to climb a bit farther to the surface of the dirt. I took his hand and we wandered to look for any survivors. There were none.

I had always known Evelyn was a warrior. Always fighting and trying to win. But she couldn't fight through this. She couldn't live through this and be able to at least say good-bye to me. I sat on top of our shared concrete cover. I grabbed my phone from my pocket and called "911".

"Hi hello, hello? Um My name is Daisy and I have this small boy with me. We are the only survivors of a mudslide that occurred around 15 minutes ago. Our bus stopped when it was traveling from Phoenix to San Diego. We are in the desert. Not exactly sure where."

notes;

In which I could vividly feel myself screaming at the bus.

In which I woke up crying.