Annette Daniels's Story

It was raining outside. Chris was in the car, in the back seat, and it was dark outside. Chris could have walked, but they had come to pick him up. His parents had come for him. And as they were driving home, that is when it happened. Someone shot them both in the head as they were driving. The car swerved off the road, and into the woods before hitting the tree. Chris climbed out of the car, and ran. Ran into the woods, and all the way home.

He woke up, shivering. It had just been a nightmare. A nightmare he never told anyone about. The story was, they were driving home alone. No one ever knew he was there, and Chris never told anyone. He felt to ashamed, too guilty he could not do anything. That he did not see anything. So he kept it a secret.

He needed something to distract him. He let his roommate sleep, and went to the basement. He had his own setup down there. He liked to experiment, it helped keep his mind busy. That, and his photography. But otherwise, Chris still tried to act normal. Or at least, normalish. They may have lost their parents, but has seen his entire family drift away. The only one who still acted relatively normal in his opinion was Amber. He used to have to worry about waking up with whipped cream on his face or something. Not recently, though. And oddly enough, he sort of missed it.

As he was looking through his projects, and orb of light suddenly sprung out of a can. It began bouncing and flying all throughout the house, making noise and being relatively annoying. He ran back up stairs, only for it to hit him right in the head before going off and annoying other people.

Somehow, he needed to catch that thing before it was time for school. "Everyone, watch out!" he yelled. "We need to catch this thing!"

Close your eyes, my dear, drift off to sleep... Annette could hear the voice of her mother, whispering to her that she needed to sleep. She had just had another nightmare, that Esther had died, and she was alone. Whenever she dreamed that she had lost her best friend she always found it to be one of the most discomforting things she could dream of.

Esther had left her for the last time, and she was left with all of her other friends, the ones that never loved her as well as her family did. She could never let herself be stuck with them. She cried at the thought of losing Esther when she slept.

Sleep... Everything will be fine...

"Everyone, watch out! We need to catch this thing!"

Annette threw a pillow over her head, yawning. She didn't know what Chris was speaking about, and she didn't want to deal with trying to figure out whatever they needed to catch. But, just as she was about to drift off to sleep, the pillow was no longer on her head, and there was a bright orb flitting through her room.

"Can you not do something right for once?" she yawned, crawling out of her bed. Thinking about the way her limbs seemed to slink along, she transformed into a cheetah, flicking her tail. Annette yawned once more, and curled up on the floor, before remembering that they had to catch whatever it was that was floating around the house.

"You all better catch this... waking me up so early..."

"Annette, you honestly don't think they did it on purpose, do you?" Esther was walking alongside her, and suddenly leaned over to scratch her ears. Annette struck at her with her paw, and suddenly transformed into a two legged cheetah.

She growled, and shifted back into a human, stretching her back. "I swear, Esther, if you don't leave me alone..."