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    I had a dream that night.
    It was quite, interesting.
    No, that wasn't the word. It was.. intriguing
    I was in some sort of forest, or wooded area. I was running, fast, like I was running from someone, or something. I was screaming, too, and looking behind my shoulder like mad. There was just a small path inbetween the millions of tall trees. Though, no matter how much I jumped around the obsticle-like roots, the limbs of these gnarly trees would claw at my shoulders and tear at my shirt.
    Then, there was a light. Dim at first, then brighter. It made me happy, warm, loved. I was laughing, quite hysterically. I ran faster, and I could see the light was getting closer.
    But then, a limb slashed a deep cut into my shoulder. Then, another limb did the same to my other shoulder. Before I knew it, there were cuts all over my body, gushing out blood. I tried to crawl, slowly, to the light, but it became dimmer. I screamed, No!
    Yet, no matter how hard I tried, the light began to die. Tears streamed from my face and down, mixing with the blood and dirt.
    Then, the light was gone. The trees and dirt began to swallow me, bringing me under, deeper and deeper. Then, nothing.


    I looked out the window. It was gloomy and cold. The sky was black, and the cracks in the road were filled with rain. Usually, children were out at this time, playing and giggling, even in the rain. Where was everyone?
    I looked down. Mother had not said a word to me since morning when I woke up, nor had she even made a sound, or even, rustled about during the night. I was worried.
    I decided I would go up to check on her.
    Silently walking up the stairs, I tried to step on every area where there wasn't a sqweek. That was the hard part about sneaking around in an old, broken house.
    Finally I got up to her room. I softly pushed against her door, which was for some reason still open. Her room was dark, and I had to blink a few times before my eyes could finally focus on finding her. I spotted her. She lay on her stomach on top of her bed. I could only hear some whimpers.
    I stepped on something that cracked. Mother looked up. Her eyes were red and buldged. I could barely even recognize that beautiful face that used to be there. I began to approach her.
    "Stop," she spat at me, "You broke his picture. You broke the only thing important to me." She looked away from me. "It's all your fault, if you weren't here, he'd still love me. I'd still be perfect in his eyes."
    I gapped. Was I imagining this? My lip began to trimble, but I bit on it to keep it from moving. I wouldn't cry, I couldn't.
    "Get out of my sight," Mother said softly.
    I turned, almost automatically, and walked out of her room. I ignored the blood filling the bottom of my sock, I ignored the confusion in my mind, I ignored the things she had said, I ignored the buzzing in my stomach.
    Words, I needed words.
    I needed to explain things to myself.
    I dropped to my knees in my bedroom, in front of my drawers, and pulled out all the papers.
    I threw papers back and forth, searching for the scrawled word I needed. The tears came, even through my holding them back. They fell on the papers I crumpled up and threw aside. I became more frantic, I wanted to scream, I wanted to let everything out.
    There it was. That one word, scrawled in pencil on a white piece of notebook paper. I took it in my hands and I held it close to my chest, letting the tears crawl down my soft cheeks. I lay on my bed and curled into a ball beneath the covers. The word I needed, and the word I would never forget.
    Through the intense silent sobbing and rolling back and forth, I finally dropped the piece of paper down beside my bed. I stared up at my plain ceiling, and didn't blink. I became dizzy, holding my breath. I looked over one last time to that piece of paper, and the word it contained. With that, I stood, and began getting as much clothes and other needed things as I could, stuffing them into a backpack.
    Neglected.