• tab I awoke with a start. When I say that I actually mean that I sat up so fast that I gave myself whiplash. I heard a chorus of chuckles come from behind me.
    tab "Nice of you to join us again Mr.Song," I heard Mr.Jefferies, followed by yet another chorus of laughter.
    tab I groaned, I couldn't believe I had fallen asleep in class again. This had to be the third time this week, and it was Wednesday. I'd been having trouble sleeping lately. Having other nightmares, but none of them like this. Most nightmares I have make no sense and aren't so vivid. This one was almost as if I had lived it.
    tab "Way to go Xan," said my second best friend, Tyler.
    tab Tyler was a huge fan of the military. He'd wanted to join the Army ever since he was five, thus he kept his head shaved and tried to stay in top shape. He was tall, maybe 6 foot 6, and he was ripped. On most days he wore skin tight shirts so he could show off his six pack. Today, surprisingly, he wore a loose, baggy Army shirt (his favorite) and camoflage pants. This wasn't exactly a suprise, he had seven or eight pairs so he wore a pair almost everyday.
    tab "I told you not to call me that," I reminded him, "my name is already bad enough without you making it sound worse by shortening it."
    tab "If you hate your name so much, why don't you just go by a different name? I'm sure anything would be better than Xander," he said the last word with disgust, like he was talking about a rash he couldn't get rid of.
    tab Yes, that is my wonderful name, Xander Song. To say that my parents had an odd choice in names would be a giant understatement. I absolutely loathe my name, but what could I do? At least it's better than the way my friends shorten it, Xan doesn't even sound right.
    tab I turned to my right to hear John make some joke about me sleeping in class, but his desk was empty. I was sure it was just a coincidence but the dream was just so real. I turned to Tyler, " Where's John?"
    tab "He went to the bathroom right after you fell asleep. Yesterday was burrito day," he explained.
    tab Well that made sense. Every time we had burritos in the cafeteria, the next day John got the runs and had to miss a lot of class. We always tell him not to eat them but that boy loves him some burritos. That also explained my nightmare. Spicy foods usually give me very vivid nightmares. Just then, the bell rang.
    tab I hopped out of my seat and rushed out of the classroom, missing what was for homework tomorrow. I'd probably pay for that tomorrow but I had to know. I rushed to where the new wing was under construction and stopped outside the door, which was just a plywood wall with a rectangle cut in it with hinges on one side. My dad was one of the ones helping to build the new wing and I usually walk over there in between classes to see how he was doing, so I wasn't stopped by any teachers. I hesitated at the door, I know my nightmare was probably just the result of bad school burritos, but I was still afraid. Then, I opened the door.
    tab As soon as I opened it I was hit with a hot blast of air, heavy with the scent of death. To most people, this would be a sign to turn and run screaming in the opposite direction. Of course, I wasn't so smart. I walked in and was immediately hit by the sight of the blood stained walls, just as I had dreamed. I took a step in and saw something I hadn't seen before, there were large lumps on the floor that had a sneaking suspicion were bodies.then, there came a noise from down the hall. I looked up and saw the monster from my dream, lumbering toward me, looking down. It must have felt me watching it because it looked up at me with John's normal face and winked at me.
    tab This finally brought me to my senses. I turned around and ran out of the new wing, screaming the the entire time. As I got into the hall, I tried to warn people that there was a monster coming but they all just stared at me, some even laughed. I wished I could laugh, I wish I could say oh I'm just crazy, unfortunately, I wasn't so lucky. Realizing the students weren't listening to me I ran to the nearest teacher I could find, which just so happened to be Mr. Jeffries.
    tab I ran up to him and said as coherently as I could, "Mr....Jeffries...John...monster!"
    tab "Calm down Xander, now, tell calmly what you were going to tell me."
    tab "John is a monster!"
    tab "Oh Xander, John isn't a monster, he's just following orders. He's a good boy, you should know that."
    tab That comment made me realize, Mr.Jeffries was involved in this. He and John absolutely hated each other, John got sent out of Mr. Jefferies Math class almost every other day for misbehaving. Mr. Jeffries definetly didn't think he was a good boy, in fact he had told me before that John was a bad influence and that I shouldn't hang out with him anymore.
    tab Then John walked up, just as normal as can be. He looked just as he had at lunch that day. Standing tall at 6 foot 3, wearing the same baggy Green Day shirt and jeans he had earlier. His long black hair still had peanuts in it from where we had thrown them at him during lunch. This shocked me to the core, I had just seen him as a giant monster and here he was , absolutely normal.
    tab I ran then, afraid of what was about to happen. However, when I got about halfway down the hall, my inner idiot told me to look back, and I did. In the split-second I looked it seemed as if everything was the same, then John exploded out of his human guise and returned back to his monster form.
    tab There was a second of absolute silence, then everybody started screaming and started to run for the door. I looked forward again and put on an extra burst of speed. That was when I had my first good idea that day. I ran into the bathroom. Now I know what you are thinking, why run into the bathroom? Well, in an act of cheapness our school decided that it would cut the amount of bathrooms needed by making two giant bathrooms on both floors that open up on both sides of the hall. The bathrooms were, actually, hardly ever used for their intended purpose. Instead, they were used as shortcuts for people running late for a class on the other side of the hall. This time I was using it because it was right in front of the stairs.
    tab As i was running through the bathroom I spotted a lone boy in the bathroom, washing his hands. I yelled at him to run. I'm not sure if it was the fear on my face or the ever increasing yells coming from the hall, but he listened and ran. I followed right behind him as we rushed down the stairs and ran out the front door. The boy kept running but I had to stop.
    tab It was dark as midnight outside. Now I'm no geography/astronomy whiz but I've lived in North Carolina all my life and it has never been dark at one o'clock in the afternoon in late spring. I didn't have the time to gawk though because just then I heard the sounds of heavy footfall, indicating that John was coming down the stairs. I ran to the nearest car that I could find, a dark green convertible, that had room and hopped in. I sat down next to Tyler luckily. I neglected putting on a seat belt, probably saving my life.
    They must have been waiting for me because as soon as I sat down we peeled out of the parking lot, burning rubber as we went. I couldn't see who was driving but I thanked them for waiting for me. I probably would have said more but that was when we reached the actual city.
    tab It was in ruins. The buildings were on fire and undead ran rampant through the streets. There were fissures in the streets and things that looked supiciously like harpies were flying around grabbing the few humans still trying to escape. Apparently the driver was too busy surveying the scene to pay attention to the road because we hit the lip of a fissure, sending us in the air as if we had went off a ramp. While we were flying through the air one of the harpies grabbed Tyler's head and tried to pull him out of his seat. Luckily for him, he had put on his seat belt on, so it was unsuccessful. However, it got worse. The harpy must have been strong because it kept us in the air longer that we should have been. We barely missed an overpass, well most of us did.
    tab Tyler, who was being slowly pulled out of his seat, collided with the overpass. I sat there unable to help as Tyler's face was crushed by the force of hitting concrete at 80 MPH. The force of the impact sent him clean out of his seat and sent us careening of into one of the other fissures. went we hit the ground i was sent flying a good ten feet, where i skidded to a halt face first. I tried to crawl back to where the car was and help the driver and passenger out, but I couldn't move. Then the car exploded and i was surrounded by fire and everything went black.