Fact Or Fiction?

• Emily Callister, Grade 6
• Short Story
• 2009

The wind gushed by my face as I ran through the woods, yelling and screaming. My face was wet with exhaustion and I was scared, scared to look back, scared to keep going and scared of what was lying ahead of me.

I woke up sweating in my pyjamas; I glanced at the clock on my bedside table. It told me that it was 3:00am. I rolled over and tried to go back to sleep but every time I blinked the image from my dream flashed in my mind.

I finally lived up till 7:00am and jumped out of bed to have breakfast. I got out the weet-bix then realized I wasn’t hungry.

I got dressed just in time to catch the bus. I sat in my usual place at the window side next to my friend Jessica.

The ride to school was the usual long boring trip with lots of stopping and starting but something about my dream changed how I looked at things.

“Are you OK?” Jessica asked beside me.
“You look a bit anxious about something.”
“No, I’m fine” I lied.

We finally arrived at school and I cautiously ran to my classroom.
“Boo!”
“AHHH!!”
“What’s up with you today Abby?” Natasha asked me.

“Oh nothing. Don’t scare me like that.”
“You had one of those dreams again didn’t you?” Tash asked me.
“How do you know about those?” I asked.
“You had one when you came to my house remember? You told me all about them.”
“Oh, yeah. I had one of those.”

School took it’s time but it finally finished and I ran out in time of the bell.

When I got home my dad called me and said we were going shopping for my mums’ birthday present. “Good.” I thought, “Something to take my mind off things.”

Before we left I jumped on my bed and fell asleep. I had the same dream I’d been having lately. The running, the screaming and the exhaustion. The wolf people, the woods and the zombies. I didn’t scream this time because I knew what was coming.

“Abby, Abby, wake up!”
“Huh?”
“I thought you wanted to go shopping?”
“Oh yeah, I did. I must’ve fallen asleep.”
“We’ll go now then.”

So we went out and brought a really nice necklace for my mum.

When we got home I made dinner for myself and silently sat at the table and ate it. My dad had gone out for tea with his friends.

I had a fair bit of homework but I couldn’t be bothered to do it. So I jumped on the couch and turned on the TV.

The news turned on, not what I really wanted to see at this time of night but I kept it on the same channel anyway, and what I saw on TV was the same thing from my dream. I realized then, that what I had always thought to be a dream had really been reality.