I wake up.

The air can’t invade my lungs fast enough, as if I’ve been drowning. My clothes cling to my every crack and crevice with warm sweat. The nightmares come and go. They’re strange, but I can never remember what they’re about. I scale the length of my shriveled bottom lip with my hopefully damp tongue, but come to find it just as parched, feeling like sandpaper scraping against The Tibetan Plateau. I slip out of bed to find my foot submerged in a warm puddle- the dog. It must’ve peed during my deeply needed nap.

I groan. 

You have got to be kidding me.

I clean up and look at the cracked clock on the floor across the room. 8:57.

Damnit!

I’m late for work, but Ash probably won’t care. I don’t know why I’m so worried.

I jam on my shoes and grab my backpack, managing to remember the idiotic dog and scoop it in too. I brush my hair hastily and run out the door with my skateboard in hand. I ride through the alley the boy was in, but don’t see any sign of him. 

Hm.

But then I hear the scream.