***The following is an excerpt from Raina's Story ****
“Oh dear!” the voice exclaimed startling Raina out of her
slumber.
Realizing that this voice was not one she had ever heard
before, Raina froze. She clenched her eyes shut tight. I must
still be dreaming, she thought to herself.
The bus began to bounce around wildly. She became ungrounded
as her body was thrust side to side by the force of it.
“It will all be over soon,” the voice rationalized with
itself. “It will all be over soon.”
Her breath caught in her throat as she received the magnitude
of those words. Against her will, Raina’s
eyes flew open. She entered the state of
survival she had become all too accustom to. Disorientated, Raina found herself sitting atop the same seat she had
taken solace in earlier, but it seemed to have been transported into an
unfamiliar pod-like vehicle. Even more
surprising, it was hurtling through the air. Outside her window, pink clouds flew past them in the opposite
direction, and ahead were tree-tops. This bus-pod was going down.
“Oh! Good morning Love,” a stumpy man to her left greeted
her with an expression that was clearly an attempt to suppress panic.
With great power, she pushed her eyelids closed once more. This can’t be happening, she pleaded
with herself. I am still dreaming. Raina
pulled a long-calming breath in through her nostrils. She opened her left eye as the air released
between her heart-shaped lips.
“Don’t worry Love.” The man said with frenzied eyes. “It
will all be over soon.”
Certain this was IT, she slammed her left eye closed and
began to utter her prayers aloud. “This isn’t real.” She quickly
whispered. “I’m sleeping. I’m on the bus on my way to school. I fell asleep. This is one of those really
vivid dreams. Pretty soon Kevin will nudge me awake.”
But the only nudge that came was from the pudgy man behind
the wheel, as a particularly large patch of turbulence sent him flying into her
shoulder.
Forced, once again, to deal with a reality she didn’t
expect, Raina grunted uncomfortably as she pushed the man off of her. She looked
around, they had flattened out a little, but they were in the trees now. Knowing it was all going to end soon, Raina
couldn’t let herself die without some answers.
“Who are you?!” she bellowed”
If it was possible, the man looked even more startled. “It’s me,” He answered, patting sweat beads
off his glistening scalp. “Bartle.”
Oh, right! Bartle.
“WHO?!” Raina retorted.
However, time was up, and she didn’t get a response. The
bus-bench pod slammed into the dirt, and Raina’s head was thrust between her
legs. Bartle leaned across her back, but she was too frightened to push back. They propelled forward for what seemed like hours, but was likely only
seconds. Curious when it was going to
end, Raina looked up. She saw that they
were headed straight for the largest tree trunk she had ever seen. Her life shifted back into slow motion. Raina stepped outside herself, and listened
as her body screamed in preparation for what was to come.
“It will all be over soon Love,” Bartle repeated himself.
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