Chapter 3 – Blocked Address
Brittany put her hands on my shoulders, “Lily, look at me. This is happening for a reason. Something is going on in our world. Something not natural and we’re going to figure out what it is.”
“We are?”
“We are,” she confirmed, “I think I know why you had that dream.”
“Well?” I asked, “Share!”
“Okay,” she replied, “I think you had the dream because you gave up.”
“I gave up?”
“Yeah, a few weeks ago you gave up. You decided to listen to our parents and ignore it. Move on. Whether God or whoever created us is controlling these dreams or not, He didn’t want you to forget about it so he gave you another piece of the puzzle. Another part of the dream. Now we just have to figure out what it all means.”
“I can’t do this,” I told her, “I’m not strong like you are. I can’t handle things like this. I was just meant to be a boring person who grows up and has a boring job and barely makes enough to pay the bills. I can’t handle all these secrets and sneaking around especially when it comes to breaking the law!”
“We’re not breaking the law.”
“Brittany we just did a few weeks ago! We went into the restricted section in the library!”
“Okay, but what if we have to? You were meant to do this Lily not me.”
“That’s not true.”
“It is!” she yelled at a whisper, “If I was meant for it, I would be having the dreams and I would be able to see that palace! But I can’t! I’m just helping you. That’s all.”
“What if I can’t handle what God or whoever wants me to handle? What if he made a mistake?”
“He never makes mistakes. Everything happens for a reason.”
“Then how do we get more research? How do we figure all of this out?”
“I want to do more research on dreams,” she said.
“Okay so let’s each pick a topic to research about and then we’ll get together in two days to combine our research.”
“If I search dreams, what are you going to search?”
“I want to search for that song. It sounds familiar, but I can’t figure out how. I’ll do research on that and anonymous emailing.”
“And I’ll do dreams and death. There has to be a reason that Rolla didn’t die when she got shot.”
“Let’s meet in two days.”
“In the library.”
I stood up and climbed back out the window, “See ya then!”
“Bring your journal!” she called from her window, “And write down everything you remember about the dream.”
“I will!”
I snuck back in my house and laid on my sheets. I looked up at the ceiling, then out the window, and back to the ceiling. I couldn’t go back to sleep. After an hour I got back up out of bed and went to my desk. I lit a couple candles instead of using my desk light so I wouldn’t wake my parents. I took my diary off the bookshelf and started writing in it with my favorite pen.
Dear Diary,
I feel like I’m losing my mind even though Brittany’s positive I’m more sane than anyone else here. Are there other worlds than this? Does something really lie beyond these stone walls that keep us in? Magic’s in the air and I can feel things changing.
We were born and raised to obey the rules. We weren’t taught of the past, only the present and the future. We were taught to live in peace and not to fight. Rebels don’t exist and it seems a crime to even think so.
Brittany’s brain and my brain are wired with curiosity. We want answers where there doesn’t seem to be any. Despite my attempt to give up, the curiosity’s still there but it’s not in my blood. It’s just a part of me. I’m different. I can feel it. I’m changing. This whole world is but how do I stop it? How do I know if all of this is meant to be or if I’m going to be the one responsible for causing a war?
I had the dream again but this time it changed. This time I woke up after I was dead. I didn’t die and I was in the body of a girl named Rolla. I lifted up my shirt and panicking that there wasn’t even a scar. At first I thought it was a dream but my bloody clothes were on the floor.
The phone ringing interrupted my thoughts and played a beautiful unique song. I don’t know what song it was, but the lyrics keep playing through my head. When I answered the phone, it was Rolla’s mom. She was confused and Rolla didn’t say much before hanging up.
She.. or me, I guess, stood up and went to my desk. I sat down and checked my email and blog or website. There was a picture of a tiger’s eye in the corner of the website. I switched to my email before noticing any other details. I had a new anonymous message. It was a warning. I had to hide and burn the clothes and leave no trace of them.
That’s when I woke up from the dream. It’s the first time in sixteen years that it’s ever changed. Brittany believes it’s God. She says He needed to send me a sign so I wouldn’t give up anymore. I think I’m starting to believe her this time. I’m not sure I believe in God, but some higher power up there didn’t want me to give up. I had no idea that giving up would give me the motivation I needed to keep going. Life has surprises for all of us and I think mine’s just beginning.
Sincerely,
Lily Allen Carter
It was passed two in the morning when I finished writing in my diary. I finally started to get tired so I went back to my bed and fell asleep. I woke up to my mom screaming at me at seven the next morning.
“Lily Allen Carter you knew you were not supposed to see Brittany again, why did you disobey my rules!”
“What are you talking about?” I asked groggily sitting up in my bed, “How do you know I saw her?”
“Her dad was in his study last night and he saw you sneak in.”
“How can you expect me not to see her? She’s my best friend! I didn’t do anything wrong I don’t know why everyone thinks I’m crazy. We’ve known each other our whole lives, they would have known before now that I’m crazy.”
“No one said you’re crazy.”
“Close enough,” I stood up and walked to the bathroom, “I’m getting ready for school.”
“Learn to obey the rules,” Mom said before leaving my room.
As soon as she shut my door, I went back to my bed and fell asleep. Brittany started pushing me awake a few hours later.
“What time is it?” I sat up on my bed.
“It’s noon,” Brittany replied, “You missed the first half of school.”
“I didn’t fall asleep until almost two this morning. I was tired.”
“Your mom’s going to kill you if she finds out you skipped.”
“She went to the company today.”
“You know that doesn’t matter. Let’s go. Lunch break is almost over.”
“Fine,” I stood up and threw on a pair of my sweatpants. Brittany passed me a t-shirt and I put my hair in my bun. I look in the mirror, “Good enough.”
Brittany took my hand and dragged me out the window with my backpack in her hand. We were five minutes late for our next class, but the teacher didn’t seem to notice. He was too busy writing on the board to notice any of the students were there. We sat across the room from each other where our parents requested us to sit from now on and started writing down notes. I went through the rest of the day still tired from the night before and stopped at the library when the final bell rang. Mom wouldn’t be home until late tonight so she will never know what time I actually get home. I got into the library just after Brittany did and she saved me a computer next to hers in the corner where no one else could see us. She had papers spread out on the table.
“What’s with all the papers?” I asked her as I sat down.
“I thought of some things in class today and I started writing it down. I’ve only been here for ten minutes.”
“What about class? The bell just rang five minutes ago.”
“My last class got out early because the teacher got sick all over the floor. It was disgusting.”
I shrugged, “At least it got you out of class.”
“We’re out tomorrow too because they couldn’t find a replacement fast enough.”
“Nice.”
“Did you do any research?”
I shook my head, “I did write all the details I remember in my journal last night though. I’m going to start with that. I can’t get those song lyrics out of my head. Hopefully we’ll find something with that.”
I logged onto the computer and typed in the lyrics I remembered from the song into the search engine MureraSearch. No results showed and I turned to Brittany.
“Are there any other search engines we can use to do research?”
“I don’t think so, why?”
“Nothing showed up. I typed in the lyrics to MureraSearch and there aren’t any results.”
She leaned over and looked at my screen, “What did this song pop up out of nowhere?”
“What do I do?”
“Did Rolla know who sang it?”
“Yeah, it showed up on the screen.”
“Try that.”
I typed in the name I remembered and one result showed up from the website Murerapedia. I clicked on the link and it led me to their website. According to the site Francesca Battistelli was a singer. She had a few popular songs that were also featured in a few movies. The song I had stuck in my head was called It’s Your Life. Brittany leaned over and saw I had found something.
“Print it off now before anyone figures out you’ve found something and blocks it. The government keeps track of this stuff.”
“You’re right. I’ll print it.”
I hit print and the printer starting printing the article. A few seconds later a flashing message showed up on the computer saying the sight was now blocked and I had to go back. My face went pale and so did Brittany’s. I took the papers out of the printer and started reading them further.
“What is it?” Brittany asked.
I shook my head, “I don’t understand why this was blocked. It’s about a singer’s popular song called It’s Your Life. It was featured in movie’s I’ve never heard of. I mean the song is from the early 2000s. She lived over 200 years ago.”
“There is a rumor that the government forgets about some of the websites and searches. That they forgot to block some of them from us when they should have and maybe this is one of them. I’ve never heard about anything from our past before.”
“Either have I.”
“Oh.. My God…” Brittany took one of the papers from my hands. I saw all the color drain from her face and I knew she had found something useful. Something that would change all of this.
“What is it? What’s wrong?!”
“Did you read one of these movies the song was in?” she asked.
“No, why?”
“It says it was the opening song in the movie Through a Tiger’s Eye which is the inspiring true story of the rebel Rolla Carter and her impossible impact on the human world.”
“Rolla Carter. That has to be the name from my dream. Is there a picture?”
“Yeah but what good is it going to do? You didn’t look in the mirror in your dream did you?”
“No… I guess not,” I stopped for a second. There has to be a way to know if this was the real person. It has to be. With everyone being so secretive, it will only make sense if it’s connected considering the government blocked the page.
“The title,” I told her, “The title of the movie. When I went to my website or blog or whatever it was I saw a picture in the corner. It was a picture of a tiger’s eye. It was Rolla’s site. She must be the tiger’s eye.”
“Which is why the name of the movie is Through a Tiger’s Eye,” she said.
“Exactly.”
She smiled, “Now we’re onto something.”