Terra leaned back to stare at the grey ceiling in the cheapest room of what seemed a very dark and depressing hotel. But it seemed that way only to Terra. Katie was freshening up in the shower, with no knowledge at all as to why Terra decided to plan a last-minute road trip up- and back down, the West Coast.

“To get away,” Terra had replied when Katie had asked her. It was a dismissal more than an actual response, but Katie did not need any incentive for something as fun as a girl's-only beach side road trip. Katie had calculated every possible stop so that the two of them would enjoy all the LA clubs, and still enjoy the beautiful Oregon countryside. Katie wanted escape maybe almost as much as Terra did, but for significantly different reasons, at much less extremes. Katie wanted to leave only to get away from the sheltered family in the town that knew her too well. She wanted to have fun and feel the freedom that came with being old enough to drink, drive, shop, and even work- on her own. She wanted to find the freedom to live. Terra, was running away.

So that's why, as Terra sat up on the stiff hotel bed staring at the wall; the room seemed too dark, and the rain; which was Terra's favorite kind of weather, seemed so gloomy right now. Every moment, every though that she thought, revolved around what could happen in these coming moments. What probably would happen at some point in this “road trip” that she had helped Katie to plan so hastily.

Not once during this entire trip had Terra stopped thinking about it, about what was coming, she knew that running away was futile, now she just waited for the very moment when the facade would fall, and the charade would end.

Terra then noticed Katie taking an awful long time in the shower. This was not unusual for Katie, but it was anxiously noted now more than ever. She had never been afraid to be alone, not really, but she had never had to spend much time alone, there was always... someone there to watch out for her. Katie was not the type of person you would assign for that type of job, but at this point Terra would take any kind of company to keep her mind from wandering into places and memories she'd rather keep locked away until they were forced into release. Memories she wanted to forget because of the emotions they provoked, emotions that were even less helpful than the hope she had so very little of. She tried to think of other things, tried to distract herself through listening to loud music, but every song had a way of bringing her closer to exactly that which she was exhausting herself trying to run away from.

So she turned on the TV. Of course the first few things that popped up were The OC, Days of our Lives. and a bunch of teenage soap operas that she just really wasn't in the mood for. Finally she came upon an classic scary film, Nightmare on Elm Street. She hadn't seen it before, but she'd heard some good reviews, and she needed something to push her mind off of it's current track.

Through the first hour, she sat, not exactly entertained, but still sucked into the TV, so much so that she barely even noticed when Katie stepped out of the hotel to the hotel diner/bar which was only a minute's walk away. Before the movie even ended, she'd fallen asleep, and it wasn't until a half hour after the credits that she woke up, and then began to notice how hungry she was. She realized then that Katie had left, a while ago actually, but she was not worried, Katie was just as capable of taking care of herself as she was, and had probably just found some cute guy to flirt with. About to head out to the diner, Terra looks herself over in the mirror before she leaves, and realizes that if there was a cute guy at the bar, she'd need to freshen up a bit, or- at least brush her hair and wipe off the dripping eyeliner. Dripping Eyeliner? Terra asks herself. I don't remember the movie being sad, she thought to herself. Then she remembered, very breifly, the dream.

It wasn't hard to remember, in fact it had come very easy for her this past month, considering she'd had it twice to three times a week, each time ended in her waking up with puffy wet eyes from crying. She almost began sobbing right there in front of the mirror, if it hadn't been for Katie walking in right then.

“Terra? You will never believe who I was just talking to! I mean, never mind because it's not like you know him or anything, but BOY! was he HOT!” Katie took a minute to finally look at her friend, who's eyes were puffy, and then noticed the running makeup that she was trying to wipe off. “Terra? What's up? I thought you were watching a scary movie? Did you switch it to a tear jerker while I was gone?”

“Um... no, I fell asleep actually, and the only reason my makeup looks like crap is because I'm washing it off” She said in a tired but friendly voice. Actually Terra recognized this voice as what happened to her throat after crying for a while, but she knew Katie would take it however she was told. And so Terra told her that she just took a nap, and that was it, she also told her that she was hungry and that she wanted to go to dinner.

“Well, Ok. To tell you the truth I came back here just to check in on you, make sure you didn't think I ditched you,” Katie laughed at that “I'm told Tim that I'd be right back, and I really don't want him to get up and leave because he thought that I ditched hi.” Katie looked expectantly at Terra for a response.

“ Well, then go” Terra smiled through “I don't want to keep you away from bar-dream hottie over there” Katie smiled relieved, but not surprised at Terra's response. She walked lightly over to Terra, kissed her on the cheek, then walked lightly out again shouting “Don't wait up!” on her way out the door. Though she knew Terra wasn't planning on it.

Actually Terra wasn't even feeling like going out for dinner she was so tired, she didn't feel like heating something up either. So she raided their two-foot fridge for some cold leftovers from the past two nights of the road trip, and found a some salad leftovers, and quickly scarfed them down. After that, almost involuntarily, she dozed right back into sleep, and feel deep into the unwanted darkness of her dreams.

...


She was under the willow tree, and she was in that one open meadow that he had shown her, it was their place, it was supposed to be a happy place; it was her safe place. The place where no one else in the world could hurt her... except him. And all of the sudden he was there, he was right in front of her, smiling at her, the way Dad always used to do when she was little and it was just the two of them. It was a smile that said I love you, and yet so much more. A smile that came from a face of compassion, comfort, but not understanding, no. No one could ever understand me, she told herself.

She began to walk towards him, but when she did, he backed away, still smiling at her, but now he was Daddy. And that's when the tears came. They came because he was gone, and they came because daddy was gone, maybe not in her dreams, but to her, and to her world, he was dead. An old chapter of a forgotten book, a book long lost because the pure perfection of it was to much for any little girl to handle, a book that ended with he words “and then... he died”. Now she ran as she cried. ran towards her father, ran to embrace him, and as she ran towards him, he opened his arms to her, and leaned down to face her. But when she reached him, and wrapped her face into the creases his shirt, the scene changed. The lighting changed, the tree was gone, and there was no warmth in the body she now held.

She was in a white room, and there was no sun in this room, no- the light was unnatural, it came from everywhere at once, and there were no distinguishable shapes other than her, her father, and even those were beginning to blur through the veil of tears she was crying that covered her face.

She held her daddy's hand, though there was no life to it, his eyes were closed, his chest has ceased rising, and indeed, in this empty room, she was alone.

...


At this point, Terra was very much awake. She woke up now, not even having to try to remember what she had dreamed, she didn't need to, she was living it. She was living it every moment of her life. No amount of family pity, and no amount of false comfort could change the fact that everything which created the happiness in her life has ceased to exist. What else was there now? The only things that would help seemed lifetimes away. Her friends were all like Katie, small minded, always wanting more, but never realizing how well they have it, never thinking to appreciate the support and love of there families. They don't know what life would be like without them, don't know how big a part of them they are. Of course, none of them ever really made their family such a big part of them like daddy had for me.

No one can comfort me the way I need, she thought, no one knows what I need in the first place. It's not something that some boy in a bar is going to provide, or that someone off the Internet can connect with. I'm not even entirely sure what I need, Terra thought to herself.

Right then, someone knocked on the window. Terra thoughts stopped cold in their tracks. The blinds were closed, so they couldn't see her. She didn't want to know who it was, but at the same time, she was sure she already knew. She didn't expect it to end this soon, this suddenly. She looked around for Katie, but whether for better or worse, she wasn't there. All of her past thoughts began to assail her at a million miles an hour, louder and more prevalent than ever before. Every possible scenario jumped through her mind before any decisions became certain.

Another knock on the window, louder now, but this time Terra could've sworn that she'd heard growling along with the obnoxiously loud panging sound that seemed to move alongside her steady heart beat. Which for some reason forbade her to move.

A knock on the door, now Terra knew she had to open it. If it was who she knew it was, they would get in one way or another, might as well save the hotel some shattered glass. She knew she was in no mortal danger somehow, but then why was she so scared to open the door? Each slow step somehow made it harder to continue, and she knew she was just opening a door that she would wish she could close. But like she'd realized in the beginning- running was futile.

So she took hold of the handle, and slowly, ever so slightly, began to turn the knob. She couldn't feel any pressure on the door, so when it opened she hoped she wouldn't be knocked over with the force of whoever was on the other end. She decided to open it as fast as she could, to get it over with. So she opened the door.

But there was no body visibly there. She did notice however an animal like a shape moving in the corner of her eye. She closed the door behind her, rather quickly, and though her breathing became quick and shallow, she urged herself to hold her breath so that she could hear anything else in the room. Then, right from behind the wall that separated the two rooms came him.