Keys To Survival

• Christina Ni, Grade 7
• Short Story
• 2014

Archie Smith, Boy Wonder Christina

I lay there, petrified. Nobody knew that what was going on. I felt alone, in fact I was alone. What had happened to my family and friends was a mystery. A mystery that I was to solve, alone. I closed my eyes and decided to give into darkness. As I slept, I dreamt about all sorts of miscellaneous things, things as in completely random unconnected scenes, objects, words and signs that couldn’t possibly be given a category apart from ‘things’. At the end of the dream, a hoarse voice whispered one word, “I.”

The next night, I was looking forward to falling unconscious again in hope that that dream would come again and make more sense. As soon as I slipped into bed I fell asleep. The same dream popped up again, one object was clearer than last night’s, the crown. This time I noticed, apart from the sparkling rubies, were blood stains, some still fresh, and others already dry. The word at the end was am. When I woke up, I was truly scared.

On the third night, I ran away from my house leaving it behind, hoping that the dream would stay behind with it. I found a small inn, I crawled onto the bed and drifted off into uncertain darkness. I found myself once again in that dream, or nightmare. I wasn’t sure. As well as the blood stained crown, I saw a female’s face covered in blood. She had no eyes, just black hollows with the horrible red liquid streaming out of them, her hair was matted with crimson streaks, her lips were almost white, her ears were just shredded flesh, covered in pools of scarlet, but the scariest part was that even though she was dead, her lips were still moving. This time she spoke the word, and that was the very word that I didn’t want to hear. Cursed. I put all the words into a sentence. I am cursed. I cried out and my eyes snapped open. She was standing beside my bed with a dagger in her hand she whispered in my ear, “And so are you.”