Lay Me Down

Chapter One

Life for me was always full of love. We went to church, I went to Bible study, I went to a private Christian school every week for education. It was like that for the first fifteen years of my life. I felt happy and close to God, and I thought life was set out perfectly for me. I was such a fool. My father had to switch job locations because the building they had had a surplus of workers in his expertease. So the summer I turned sixteen we moved from our home in Oregeon to a house on the outskirts of a city.

As my parents started looking for a school for me, I was enjoying my summer by watching my teen romance movies, going swimming at the pool, even saying hi to a few people. But I also had my sad times. Missing my friends, my old room, being close to my grandparents, and especially my old Church. We went Church-hunting as well, but we didn't find one anywhere near our house.

As summer started to die down and the school year right around the corner, I grew worried. My parents hadn't found a Christian school or a Church. I remember my mother's words exactly:

"Don't worry, Trina. We'll find you a school. But remember, no matter if it's a Christian school or not, you must keep your faith alive. Don't let anyone change your heart, you are the one in control of it."

As mature as I was, I knew that she was basically telling me I wasn't going to a private Christian school. After that little speech, I became frightened. I wouldn't know anyone and all this novels I had read said that high school was torturous, especially those in the city.

I decided to keep it in though, my parents having their problems with finding a school that was decent, a Church, and work for my mom. To keep my mind off of it, I decided to explore our neighborhood a bit. So I took my water bottle and went out for a walk.

I passed so many houses with New York Giants flags, gnomes and mailboxes. One house even had their car painted bright with their colors. I didn't think my family would fit in at first, since we really didn't watch football, but then I saw that all the houses after those few were ordinary brick built houses.

I passed about a million houses before I came upon a neighborhood park. There were kids playing on the swings, climbing the trees, sliding down the slides, anything usual kids would do. I decided I was hot, and needed to sit down for a while. I walked over to a bench, sat down and took a sip of water.

My eyes scanned the park, with it's beautiful landscape and the little children running around chasing each other. The mid morning dew glistened on the fresh cut grass, and for a moment, I was living in serenity as if it were my home.

That didn't last long. A banged up truck full of teenage boys passed, honking their horn and hollering fowl words at the kids and their mothers. They ran the graffitied stop sign and blared their rap music at full volume.

My first instinct was to holler at them and tell them to cut it out, but then I realized that the ending to that story wouldn't be very happy, so I decided not to go down that road. I just took another sip of water and turned back to the mothers and their children.

One mom was shaking her head. Another was as white as a marshmallow. The other shooed her kids into their van and took off. I began to wonder why when the truck came back creeping slowly to a park.

The driver took the key out of ignition and about seven teen boys came tumbling out of the dented piece of metal on wheels. They stood there for a moment scanning the park until all their eyes rested on me. They began to walk towards me, hands clenched, in pockets or behind their backs.

No sooner than they were within ten get of me was I gone with the wind. I dropped my water bottle and ran as hard as I could all the way to my house. I looked out the window to make sure they hadn't followed me, but no one was in sight.

That night at dinner I told my parents the whole story, making sure not to leave out any details. While I was telling the story my parents snuck, or tried to sneak worried glances at each other.

When I was finished telling the tale, my father said to me, "Do NOT go to that park alone ever again."

"Why not?" For all I knew, they were just wanting the park to themselves, and I gave it to them.

"That's where... eleven teen girls went missing last year. We don't want to scare you, but that's the world," her father sighed. "What has our world come to?"

Her mother sighed. "Closer to the Rapture, that's for sure.

At that point my stomach caved in along with my mind. I got nervous whenever anyone talked about the End of Time when God would take His people up to Heaven with Him and destroy the evil world. I don't know why, it just frightened me a bit. Plus, all the talk about teen girls going missing and those boys coming straight at me in the park really got me worried.

I went up to my room, but did not fall asleep. I spent hours thinking about what my dad had said, to never go back to that park alone.

By the time I started dosing off, I made my decision: I was never going back to that park ever again.

*****End Chapter One*****