Gasoline. 

The distinctive odor hit my nose. I try to keep my eyes open but the raging ache in my head and drowsiness is making it hard to stay focused.

The buzzing sound of mosquitoes makes my skin crawl because there's nothing I hate more than that sound. I hug my legs to myself and dig my back into the wall. It's dark and I hate being alone in the dark. My head turns to the side to try and find any reflection of light but nothing comes to view not even the reflection from the moon.

Here I am, sitting in the corner of a room I have no memory of entering, which begs the question: how did I get in here?

I want nothing more than to close my eyes and just sleep, but I can't do that. I need to remember that I'm alone. I'm in the dark. 

My body alerts when someone begins to whistle outside. My head shoot up and the words tears out of me before I can stop myself. "Hello! Who is out there?"

I don't know who's at the other side of the door, a part of me is screaming I shouldn't have talked, while the other part applaud me for making my presence known. What if the person is here to hurt me? What if the person is here to save me? 

Knowing I shouldn't waste my time pondering on what ifs. The person already knows I'm here because the moment I opened my mouth to ask, the whistling stopped. I just have to see what goes on from here.

There's no movement for some moment and then the metal door begins to sound as the person unlocks it. I brace myself.

The door opens and I expect light from the hallway or outside to fill the room but nothing happens, just remains pitch black. I can't make out the figure walking towards me but I know someone's coming, they don't try to conceal themselves as the footsteps becomes more loud with each step. 

I try to keep a brave face even though the person can't see me but something changes inside me or maybe dies. The courage I had to stay alone in the dark is gone, leaving me with nothing but fear.

“Please... Please don’t hurt me,” I whimper and grip my shirt as if my life depends on it, and in a way, it does. I don't know who it is coming to me but my instinct tells me the person isn't here to help me.

I shiver, the vibration runs deep to my core as goosebumps erupt from my arms. This is becoming serious. "Help me. Help me please." The words comes out fast and that's how I know I'm losing touch with myself.

My palm rubs on my arm aggressively to keep the goosebumps buried but it's not work. I close my eyes, shutting it tight until I begin to see sheen of lights. Phosphenes. That doesn't working either.

My eyes jerks open and I stare ahead as if I can see anything. The footsteps is still coming and I wonder how far is it from the door to where I am. 

“I will do anything you want... Please just let me go,” I beg, not sure why I'm begging. I'm just following my mind's lead, it's like they are two different things: my mind and head. I don't care about that though, I just want to leave this place.

While having a mental battle with myself, I notice the person stops walking all of a sudden. "He–hel–hello, is any–is anyone here?" I ask the empty space.

I get no response.

It can't be. It's impossible. I heard someone whistle. I heard footsteps. No. No, no, no, I wasn't imagining it. I wasn't. 

My hands covers my ears and try to recollect what happened. I'm sure someone was here with me, I can't stand up to go check because I'm scare. Fear of the dark is real for me and I'd rather not go looking–

The sound of a flick of lighter pulls me out of my thought. I sigh, not sure if it's in relief or fatigue, but the sound just confirms that I'm not crazy, someone is here with me. I open my eyes and meet with the darkest pairs of eyes I've ever seen in my life. The person is holding lighter close to his face as he's squatting in front of me. I don't see his whole face because I'm too scare to even look away but it's enough for me to know the person isn't someone I know.

Before I can open my mouth to speak, he says, "boo!" Killing the fire from the lighter. I let out a scream and close my eyes.

The man chuckles, which makes me shivers. I don't open my eyes until his footsteps begins to retract, fading with each steps. I blink trying to make sense of what just happened but my thoughts don't go far as it comes, the flicking sound of the lighter. I watch as he tosses the lighter behind him and my eyes widen as it hit the floor and the whole place flame up.

“No!” I shake my head and press myself against the wall when fire spread across the room, appearing out of nowhere.

“Help!” I scream at the top of my lungs, wishing someone is listening to me. My heart is raising and pounding.

“This isn’t real.” I swallow and close my eyes, and continue repeating the words over again. It seems to be working because everything is silent. Seconds later, I open my eyes, screaming in agony as my feet burn. I jump up and turn my back against the fire, pressing my chest against the wall. “Help me! Somebody please help me! Can anyone hear me!” I slap my hands on the wall. “Please, is anyone there?!” My cry becomes hysterical.

The last thing my ear picks before—

“Camille?”

“Cami?” I feel hands on my shoulder, shaking me awake as I tune in to the distant echo of my name. “Camille!” The quavering voice calls me again.

I draw in breath and pop my eyes open. My vision appears blurry. I blink, trying to get a clear visual of the person in front of me, who turns out to be my dad.

“Wh... what happened?” I ask, moving from the uncomfortable slouching to pushing myself up and leaning away from the door. I look around in confusion. 

My dad is staring at me and I'm sure I have the same look on his face. “Are you okay?” he asks. I don't miss the concern in his voice.

Blinking my eyes and looking around one more time before answering him. “I’m not sure.” I whisper. 

I’m not sure I know how I am feeling right now. I’m so confused. 

I move my hand to the back of my neck, massaging the skin there. My neck hurts from the way I was leaning against the window with my seatbelt around me. My hands stays on my collar as I tilt my head to the side sharply, making a cracking sounds. I take a moment to collect myself back before acknowledging where we are. The car is in the middle of the road trail, but we aren’t moving. 

"Why are we–?" I cut myself off when my brain clicks on why we are on the street. “Fuck!” I mutter, and lean forward to check if my mom is in the car. My heart begins pound when she isn't there.

Of course, she isn't. She is probably still furious at me.

This is the fifth time this year she's had to leave her job for me. Needless to say that she wasn’t happy when she got the call earlier today. The last thing I remember before falling asleep was listening to mom yell at me for getting arrested again. I didn’t bother to correct her when she accused me of skipping classes to do stupid shit. My friends and I thought painting a mural on the sheriff's station’s fence was nice, and it was a brilliant idea at the time. It was fun until we got caught. My friends escaped, but I wasn’t lucky.

Though, I’m glad she didn’t call my Principal. I’ll be in bigger trouble if she did. My friends and I got suspended last week because we broke into her office to change our grades. We didn’t know about the CCTV in her office. I’m on my last strike, if I keep this up, I should prepare to spend the rest of my life in my parents’ basement because Principal Harris clarified that I’m getting expelled the next time I get caught doing something I’m not supposed to be doing in school.

“Why aren’t we moving?” I turn to my Dad.

Dad removes my seatbelt and asks, “were you having a nightmare?” Ignoring my question.

A nightmare? Can I call it that?

“No.” I reply, not wanting to worry him.

The dream was terrifying. I'm awake now but I can still feel the fear lingering in me. It felt so real and I can't make sense of it. I have so many questions, starting from who that man is. I used to have dreams like this all the time but today's own is different, I saw his eye. I saw his face, not sure if I'll be able to recognize him when I see him but his eyes, that I can never forget.

Dad nods his head in a slow motion like he does when he’s trying to figure something out. He doesn’t look like he’s satisfied with my answer. “You were whimpering in your sleep, Camille. It looked like you were having a bad dream and then you screamed.” He stops talking there but the look on his face tells me there's more and he doesn't want me to know. His poor attempt at making a poker face is a dead giveaway.

“And then what happened?” I press, knowing that's can't be it, something always happens whenever I wake up from my dreams.

Dad licks his bottom lip before answering me. “And then the tire blew out. It was rough, we almost got into an accident.” He sighs.

I lick my bottom lips and look down. This isn't the first time and I can't say I'm surprised. Just two days ago, my dad woke me up from one of those nightmares. My scream woke him. It wasn't the only thing that scared him. The windows in the house broke at the same time my screaming began. The house wouldn’t stop shaking until I opened my eyes.

It never bothered me before because I don't think about it. It easier to pretend that things are okay if you don't think about it and it worked for while, but I can't keep pretending everything is fine or that I'm okay. Something is really wrong with me. Something is going on and I can't explain it. My parents are worried about me especially my dad and I hate it. I hate that he spends all his time worrying about me. I know he won’t leave me alone until I give him some kind of explanation. I stare into his hazel eyes and tell him what I always tell him.

“Okay. In the dream, I was drowning in a molten magma.” I tell him. As ridiculous as it sounds, it’s the only thing I can think of. Burning alive is the most terrifying death I can imagine and I've been dying like that over and over again.

He narrows his eyes at me. “Dream?” Lines form on his forehead in confusion. “Camille, you were asleep for ten minutes. Ten minutes." He repeats like the time doesn't make sense and in a way it doesn't. Ten minutes is a new record, it normally takes hours before I thrash and scream in my sleep.

“Come on, dad. I was just messing with you.” I wink, giving him a reassuring smile. 

I open the door, giving myself space and hopefully my dad gets me not wanting to talk about it. “So... what are we doing about the tire?” I change the subject before dad ask more on the dream.

He slams the door after him. “I have a spare tire in the trunk,” He answers, dropping the subject. If there’s anything that can take my dad’s attention from a conversation, it’s cars.

I step out of the car as my dad goes for the spare tire in the trunk and round the car to the side to check what I've done. My mouth drops open when I see the tire or what’s left of it. “Did we hit something?” I ask him. I know he said the tire blew out, and normally when the tire blows out during motion, the whole tire blows out. This exploded, leaving scattered pieces of rubber on the rim and inside the wheel disc.

“I’m not-” I walk to stand beside him to see him struggling to get the tire out because mom’s emergency bag is sitting on it. “-entirely sure.”

I get my head inside the booth and push the heavy duffel bag to the side. So Dad can lift the tire.

“Thanks, Cams.” he smiles and reaches for his toolbox. Things like this don’t bother him, since it's his job. He loves having me around when things like this happen because he gets to lecture me about how cars and engines work. I don't particularly enjoy it but it's better than one of mom's lecture.

Speaking of mom, I haven’t seen her anywhere. Did she wander off?

“Hey, dad! Where is mom?” I ask, not eager to see her.

“There is a boarding school in The Vale,” I freeze when I hear her voice behind me all of a sudden. I slowly turn around to face her. The look on her face tells me everything her mouth isn’t. She's furious. “The headmaster is a friend of mine. He knows how to handle and discipline kids way more than I can.” I swallow hard as she takes threatening steps towards me. “Try that again and that’s where you’ll be spending the rest of your life.” This isn’t the first time I’m hearing her threaten to send me away. I remember a time I got suspended for punching a student. She threatened to ship me off to Cambodia.

I always call her bluff, but there is something about her tone. She isn’t joking this time. Mom has always been the strict parent while dad is the complete opposite, sure he corrects me when I make mistakes, but he is always so sweet about it.

“Corinne.” Dad cautions her. It’s a little too late for that, daddy. You should have butted the moment she said there’s a boarding school in The Vale. “Let’s do this at home.” His voice is firm and harsh. No doubt she’ll obey. 

Mom hates it when Dad uses the authoritative tone on her in my presence. It makes her feel powerless, she’s the type of woman that craves attention and stays in control. An alpha female. I’ve never been one to follow rules, especially a forced one. I’m a rebel and do everything my Mom hates because I don’t enjoy being controlled, especially not by her.

The reason I added orange highlights at the tip of my dirty blonde hair is because my Mom called my friend, Jessica a bad influence because she dyed her hair. I mean, what the fuck?

She loves giving me the condescending speech, and every time I do something I know she detests just to tell her I can do whatever the fuck I want. Dad is the only thing stopping her from sending me away. I just wish our relationship was better. I love her, but she’s too much.

Dad continues to fix the car while Mom scowls at her feet. Oh! Lord, save me from this woman. Just when I’m about to join Dad, my phone vibrates in my back pocket. I reach for it and swipe it open. I have a group message from my friends.

I quickly go through, hoping that they’d worry about me since I’m the one that let them escape, which led to my arrest, but no...

Jessie: Party 2nyt @ my house. My folks are outta town, we’ve got d whole place 2 ourselves.

Xander: If I hated you before, I love you now, Essie. Gosh! I’m getting busted tonight. I need those plates cleaned. *insert Pretzel*

April: That’s not a doughnut

Xander: it means I'm eating more than one opening.

April: Eww, gross. How do you keep up with him, Jess?

Eric: Jessica throws the hottest party. Not going to miss this for anything in the world, and I mean anything.

I sigh when I realize that the ‘Are you okay?’ message I’m looking for isn’t coming. My finger clicks on the screen, typing my reply.

Me: Bring it on Bitches, I’ll be there.

Me: And Jess, don’t forget the booze.

It never used to bother me how my so-called friends don't show they care, but I've some time to think about it and realize I don't like it and I can't say anything to them because I hang out with the popular kids in my school. We even have a nickname ‘The Five Headed Hydra’. We run the school. Xander is a quarterback. His girlfriend, Jessica, is the Captain of the cheerleading squad. April is the most popular girl in school. Eric is the most intelligent, and I’m the meanest. We all met in sixth grade, and we’ve been friends ever since, but I use the term 'friends' loosely.

I press the lock button and put my phone in my back pockets. I shake my head and bend to help my Dad. 

“Camille,” A unfamiliar voice calls in my head. Hair raises all over my body. I pause and look around to locate the owner.